Lieping Chen
Yale University
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Primary Section: 41, Medical Genetics, Hematology, and Oncology Secondary Section: 43, Immunology and Inflammation Membership Type:
Member
(elected 2021)
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Biosketch
Lieping Chen is an immunologist known for his works in T-lymphocyte biology and immunotherapy, especially in the development of anti-PD-1/PD-L1 cancer immunotherapy. Lieping Chen was born in Fuzhou, a southern China city near the East China Sea and had his medical training in Fujian Medical University in the same city. After the completion of a fellowship in immunology/oncology in Peking Union Medical College in Beijing, he moved to USA in 1986 to earn a PhD degree from Hahnemann Medical College (now Drexel University College of Medicine). After a short postdoctoral fellowship in University of Washington at Seattle, he spent 8 years in the Bristol-Myers Squibb Company’s Seattle branch, initially as a Research Scientist and promoted through the rank of Senior Scientist and Principal Scientist. He then joined Mayo Clinic as Associate Professor and promoted to Professor in 1999. In 2004, he moved to Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine as Professor of Oncology and Dermatology and Joined the faculty at Yale since 2011. He is a member of National Academy of Sciences, an Academician of Academia Sinica-Taiwan and Fellow, the AACR Academy, American Association for Cancer Research.
Research Interests
Lieping Chen’s laboratory is interested in the cell surface proteins which control lymphocyte functions and translates the laboratory findings for treating human diseases including cancer. Dr. Chen did the first proof-of-concept study in 1992 showing that the B7-CD28 family molecules could be the targets for cancer immunotherapy by introducing B7-1 into tumor cells to enhance therapeutic immunity. In 1999, he discovered B7-H1 (also called PD-L1) molecule and subsequently demonstrated the role of PD-L1 in the evasion of tumor immunity, and established the PD-1/PD-L1 pathway as the target for cancer immunotherapy. He also initiated and help organized the first-in-man clinical trial of anti-PD-1 antibody for treating human cancer and developed PD-L1 staining as a biomarker to predict treatment outcome. These discoveries directly led to the development of anti-PD-1/PD-L1 antibody therapy against broad spectrum of human cancers. His laboratory also discovered many molecular pathways with immune modulatory functions and their applications in human disease treatment. These pathways the 4-1BB (CD137), ICOS/B7-H2, B7-H3, B7-H4, B7-H5/CD28H, PD-1H (VISTA), LIGHT/HVEM, RELT, TROY, B7-H2/CD28/CTLA-4 (human), SALM5/HVEM, FGL1/LAG-3, Siglec-15. These discoveries led to the development of therapeutic agents in various stages of clinical trials for the treatment of human cancer.
