Rate My Professor Lee Franco

R. Lee Franco, Ph.D., serves as Associate Professor and Department Chair in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Sciences at Virginia Commonwealth University. He earned his Ph.D. in Rehabilitation and Movement Science from Virginia Commonwealth University and his M.S. in Exercise Science from The University of Southern Mississippi. As director of the Healthy Heart Lab, Franco investigates the role of lifestyle behaviors—including physical activity, fitness, sleep, and nutrition—in modulating vascular and inflammatory responses linked to cardiovascular health inequities. His research emphasizes exercise physiology, particularly the impacts of acute and chronic exercise on cardiovascular function, inflammation, and monocyte subsets in clinical populations such as post-STEMI patients, breast cancer survivors, and individuals with obesity-related heart failure.

Franco's scholarly contributions include numerous peer-reviewed publications in high-impact journals. Key works encompass Blanks et al. (2022) on LPS effects on CD14 and CCR2 expression in monocyte subsets of post-STEMI patients with impaired glucose in Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice; Mauro et al. (2022) examining NLRP3-mediated inflammation in cardio-oncology in Translational Research; Kim et al. (2022) analyzing cardiovascular disease prevalence among breast cancer survivors using NHANES data in American Journal of Health Promotion; and Blanks et al. (2022) exploring sex differences in monocyte CCR2 expression post-exercise in Life Sciences. Additional publications address body composition in obesity-related heart failure, physical activity associations with exercise capacity in chemotherapy patients, and racial disparities in treatment-related cardiotoxicities. He teaches graduate courses such as Advanced Exercise Physiology I and II, Metabolic Aspects of Physical Activity, and Sport Nutrition. Franco holds memberships in the American Physiological Society, American Heart Association, and American College of Sports Medicine, contributing to the advancement of exercise-based interventions for cardiovascular health.