Francis Y. Lee

Francis Y. Lee, MD, PhD is a Professor of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation at Yale School of Medicine and holds the Wayne O. Southwick Professorship. He maintains secondary appointments in Pathology, Biomedical Engineering, and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Lee serves as Vice Chair of Academic, Scientific, and Research Affairs and is recognized as both an orthopaedic surgeon and musculoskeletal scientist with NIH-funded research programs.

Dr. Lee's clinical expertise encompasses sarcomas, complex musculoskeletal reconstruction in adults and children, bone and soft tissue tumors, pathological fractures, minimally invasive surgery for metastatic cancers to bone, failed knee and hip implants, osteomyelitis, and pediatric orthopedics. His research interests focus on metastatic cancer-induced bone loss, fracture healing, regenerative orthopedics, and bone infection, with his laboratory located in the Tompkin 5 Orthopedic Research Laboratories.

Dr. Lee is renowned for pioneering the Ablation-Osteoplasty-Reinforcement-Internal Fixation (AORIF) procedure, a minimally invasive ambulatory technique designed for patients with cancer that has spread to bone. This innovative approach provides local cancer control, decreases pain, and improves ambulatory function. His research spans bone and bone diseases, bone infections, fracture fixation, musculoskeletal diseases, oncology, osteoarthritis, osteoblasts, osteoclasts, stem cells, and tissue engineering.

Dr. Lee has received numerous awards including the Kappa Delta Ann Doner Vaughn Award from the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons (2016), Best Paper Award from the European Musculoskeletal Tumor Society (2014), and the J. Neff Awad award from the Musculoskeletal Transplantation Foundation (2014).

He is actively involved in mentoring undergraduate students, Yale medical students, M.D.-Ph.D. candidates, and graduate students for research opportunities and career advancement. Dr. Lee currently serves as a Presidential Line Officer (Treasurer in 2023, Secretary in 2024, President-Elect in 2025, President in 2026) for the Musculoskeletal Tumor Society. His NIH-funded research includes multiple R01 grants focusing on fracture healing, bone infection, and cancer-induced bone loss.