H. Lee Sweeney

H. Lee Sweeney is the director of the Myology Institute at University of Florida (UF), where he is also a professor of pharmacology and therapeutics. Lee is one of the world’s premier neuromuscular disease researchers, with expertise across cardiovascular disease, skeletal muscle disorders and molecular biology – specifically the molecular motors of the myosin superfamily. He is known for creating the first visualization of structural rearrangement of the myosin lever arm, as well as for his use of gene therapy to block the loss of age-related muscle size and strength in mice. Prior to joining the faculty at UF, Lee was the William Maul Measey Professor and chairman of physiology at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is now an emeritus professor of physiology. He was elected as a fellow of the American Heart Association in 2001, a fellow of the Biophysical Society in 2017, and has been the director of a Paul Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Cooperative Center since 2005. Lee has a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a master’s in physiology from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in physiology and biophysics from Harvard University.