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Yu L. Lei, DDS, PhD

Associate Professor
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Houston, Texas

About Dr. Yu Leo Lei, DDS, PhD
Dr. Leo Lei is an Associate Professor of Head and Neck Surgery (tenured), of Cancer Biology, and of Translational Molecular Pathology at the MD Anderson Cancer Center. He is an oral oncologist, an immunologist, and an entrepreneur focused on the immune sensing of head and neck cancers (HNC), precision early detection of highrisk oral potentially malignant disorders (OPMDs), and engineering approaches to enhance immunotherapy and immunoprevention. He maintains an active dental oncology and oral medicine practice and leads a robust, multi-R01-funded translational research program spanning tumor immunology, HNC, and high-risk OPMD early detection, immunometabolism, immunoprevention, and immune engineering. His scholarship includes >90 peer-reviewed publications, >26,000 citations, an H-index of 47, and an i10-index of 69. He has published in Nature, Science, Cell, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Communications, Nature Immunology, the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Immunity, and Clinical Cancer Research, among other fieldleading journals. His work has also produced issued U.S. patents, licensed models, and industry partnerships that accelerate translation. His trainees have received highly competitive NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein individual pre-doctoral fellowships, K01 awards, AACR awards, and many travel awards. He has received national accolades for my research, including a 2019 NIH Rising Star Award and a 2022 selection to the United States National Academy of Medicine’s Emerging Leaders Program in Health and Medicine.
He serves on national leadership bodies that shape the field: Executive Committee, NCI Early Detection Research Network (EDRN) (2025–present); Standing Member and CoChair, NIH/CSR Translational ImmunoOncology (TIO) Study Section (2025–present; previously Ad Hoc); CoChair, NIDCR AHEAD (Advancing Head & Neck Cancer Early Detection) Program (2024–present); Steering Committee member, NCI Cancer Moonshot Immuno-Oncology Translational Network (2019–2024); and member, NCI PREVENT Cancer Preclinical Drug Development Program. These roles highlight his national reputation, peerrecognized expertise, and programmatic leadership in immunooncology and early detection. He has served as the Principal Investigator on seven NIH R01-equivalent programs, among other support, since 2015. Before joining MD Anderson in March 2024, he was a Tenured Associate Professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He co-founded Saros Therapeutics, an innovative biotech focused on innate immune activation. Saros Therapeutics received NCI phase II SBIR/STTR support. Saros’ technology has been selected by the NCI’s Nanotechnology Characterization Laboratory for independent, comprehensive characterization.

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