Richard Anthony Lee
Biography
Richard Anthony Lee, M.D., is HS Associate Clinical Professor at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine, where he serves as Director of the Medical Intensive Care Unit and Director of Inpatient Services for the Division of Pulmonary Critical Care. A physician specializing in pulmonary and critical care medicine, Lee has focused his clinical and research efforts on acute respiratory distress syndrome, septic shock, and respiratory infections, including extensive work on COVID-19 therapeutics. He served as Interim Chief of the Division of Pulmonary Diseases and Critical Care Medicine from 2017 to 2022.
Lee has served as site principal investigator for multiple clinical trials examining treatments for COVID-19 and other respiratory conditions, including studies of novel therapeutics for acute respiratory distress syndrome and pneumonia. His research has been published in journals including Critical Care Medicine, the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, and JAMA Network Open. He was principal investigator for a randomized clinical trial of a digital asthma self-management program for adults, which was published in JAMA Network Open in 2025. Lee has also contributed to multi-center collaborative research efforts, including the Severe Acute Respiratory Infection-Preparedness (SARI-PREP) study and the I-SPY COVID adaptive platform trial.
Lee received his Doctor of Medicine from Drexel University College of Medicine and completed his fellowship in pulmonary and critical care medicine at New York University School of Medicine. He holds board certifications in pulmonary disease and critical care medicine from the American Board of Internal Medicine.
Return to topEducation
- B.A. in Biology, Johns Hopkins University, 1999
- M.S. in Physiology, Georgetown University, 2000
- M.D., Drexel University College of Medicine, 2006
Distinctions
- Orange County Medical Association Physicians of Excellence Honoree, 2023-2025
Areas of Expertise
- Pulmonary Critical Care Medicine
- Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome
- Septic Shock Hemodynamic Monitoring
- Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
- COVID-19 Respiratory Failure Treatment
- Digital Asthma Self-Management Tools
- Inflammatory Biomarkers Bronchial Epithelium
Recent Publications
- Jordan Silberman, Siavash Sarlati, Bronwyn Harris, Hanson Lenyoun, Manpreet Kaur, Bradley G. Wagner, Warris Bokhari, Homer Boushey, Asha Chesnutt, Kelly Sitts, Peter Zhu, Vincent J. Willey, Emmanuel Fuentes, Matthew LeKrey, Beverly Lo Alger, Guido Muscioni, Matt T. Bianchi, Daniela A. Bota, Thomas H. Taylor, Michael Evans, et al., “A Digital Asthma Self-Management Program for Adults: A Randomized Clinical Trial” (opens in new tab), JAMA Network Open, vol. 8, no. 7, 2025.
- Auld S.C., Youssef F.A., Albertson T.E., Beitler J.R., Berger P.A., Burnham E.L., Cobb N., Friedman E., Gandotra S., Gibbs K.W., Hayanga J., Hyzy R., Khan M.M.H.S., Koff J.L., Lee R.A., Meyer N.J., Obermiller T., Quill C., Robinson P., Samavedam S., et al., “The Effects of Cyproheptadine on Severe COVID-19 From the I-SPY COVID Adaptive Platform Trial” (opens in new tab), Chest Critical Care, vol. 3, 2025.
- Abbasi A.B., Liu K.D., Russell D.W., Files D.C., Thomas K.W., Yousef F., Gandotra S., Discacciati A., Lim N., Asare A.L., Eklund M., Matthay M., Esserman L.J., Barragan A.B., Dunn I., Asare A., Henderson P., Lu R., Levitt J., Monteiro A.C., et al., “Systematic data capture reduces the need for source data verification: exploratory analysis from a phase 2 multicenter randomized controlled platform trial” (opens in new tab), Communications Medicine, vol. 5, 2025.
- Vikramjit Mukherjee, Radu Postelnicu, Chelsie Parker, Patrick S Rivers, George L Anesi, Adair Andrews, Erin Ables, Eric D. Morrell, David M Brett-Major, M Jana Broadhurst, J Perren Cobb, Amy Irwin, Christopher J Kratochvil, Kelsey Krolikowski, Vishakha K Kumar, Douglas P Landsittel, Richard A Lee, Janice M Liebler, Leopoldo N Segal, Jonathan E Sevransky, et al., “COVID-19 Across Pandemic Variant Periods: The Severe Acute Respiratory Infection – Preparedness (SARI-PREP) Study” (opens in new tab), Critical Care Explorations, vol. 6, no. 7, pp. e1122, 2024.
- Matthieu Jabaudon, Melissa A. Warren, Tatsuki Koyama, Philip Lavin, Jonathan C. Javitt, Melvin L. Morganroth, Marc Korczykowski, John W. Hollingsworth, Richard A. Lee, Jihad G. Youssef, Lorraine B. Ware, “Potential Value of the Radiographic Assessment of Lung Edema Score to Assess Resolution of Pulmonary Edema in a Clinical Trial in ARDS” (opens in new tab), CHEST Critical Care, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 100081, 2024.
- B. Harris, J. Silberman, S. Sarlati, B. Wagner, W. Bokhari, M Bianchi, H. Boushey, R. Lee, “Digital Asthma Self-Management Tool Reduced Emergency Visit Rates in a Medicaid Population”, Annals of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology, vol. 131, no. 5, Supplement 2, pp. S230-S231, 2023.
Contact Information
Email: richaral@hs.uci.edu
Phone: (714) 456-6776
Address: City Tower, Suite 400
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Last updated on 5/22/2026.