Sang Yup Lee, University Distinguished Professor at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and Dean of KAIST institutes, was named an advisory professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University on September 18, 2014. The ceremony was hosted by Professor Xuehong Zhang, the executive dean of the School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology. He first briefly introduced the appointment of university advisory professors at SJTU and Professor Lee's academic background. Professor Zixin Deng, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Dean of the life science school, presented the Certificate of University Advisory Professor to Dr. Lee. In his congratulatory speech, Professor Deng hoped that Professor Lee play an important role in  boosting the development of teaching, research, discipline construction, academic exchanges and international cooperation at SJTU.

Professor Lee then gave an "Inspiring Wisdom" Distinguished Lecture at the State Key Laboratory of Microbial Metabolism. In his lecture titled "microbial metabolic engineering for chemicals and materials", he encouraged the students to shift thinking and introduced academic innovation from live examples. He also presented the latest research progress of his group in microbial metabolic engineering for chemicals and materials using systems and synthetic biology approaches.  The faculty and students raised many questions on the research hot spots and had a heated and fruitful discussion with Professor Lee.

An internationally known metabolic engineer, he has collaborated with faculty in Jiao Tong's School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology for more than 20 years, primarily in microbiology and metabolic engineering. Professor Lee's research interests include microbial metabolic engineering, systems and synthetic biology. He has developed various platform metabolic engineering technologies and pioneered the so called "systems metabolic engineering".  He has published more than 470 journal papers, and 585 patents registered or applied. He also authored or edited 63 books or book chapters. Due to his pioneering work in metabolic engineering, he was elected Foreign Associate of National Academy of Engineering of the USA in 2010. Professor Lee has received numerous domestic and international awards, including the Young Presidential Scientist Award, National Order of Merit, Elmer Gaden Award, Merck Metabolic Engineering Award, and the Amgen Biochemical Engineering Award, and many others.  Professor Lee has been serving as Editor-in-Chief of BMC Systems Biology, mBio and Biotechnology Journal, Associate Editors of ACS Synthetic Biology, Biotechnology and Bioengineering, and Metabolic engineering, and editorial board members of about 20 international journals.