Zhijian "James" Chen (; born 1966) is a

Chinese-American Chinese Americans are Americans of Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans have ancestors from mainland China, Hong Kong ...

biochemist and professor in the department of molecular biology at

University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UT Southwestern or UTSW) is a public academic health science center in Dallas, Texas. With approximately 23,000 employees, more than 3,000 full-time faculty, and nearly 4 million outpatient ...

. He is best known for his discovery of mechanisms by which nucleic acids trigger innate and autoimmune responses from the interior of a cell, work for which he received the 2019

Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences The Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences is a scientific award, funded by internet entrepreneurs Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan of Facebook; Sergey Brin of Google; entrepreneur and venture capitalist Yuri Milner; and Anne Wojcicki, one of t ...

Early life and education

Chen was born in Nandou Village () in An-khoe County,

Fujian Fujian is a provinces of China, province in East China, southeastern China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its capital is Fuzhou and its largest prefe ...

, China. When he was young, his father was sent to Lâm-pêng for work, leaving his mother to raise him and his two brothers alone while she also worked as a primary school teacher. He graduated from Anxi No. 1 High School in 1981. He attended

Fujian Normal University Fujian Normal University () is a public university in Fuzhou, China. FNU has been hailed as the Fujian province's "Cradle of teachers." History Tracing its origin back to Fujian Superior Normal School, founded in 1907, Fujian Normal University ( ...

and received an undergraduate degree in biology in 1985, before he won an overseas scholarship by getting first place in a biochemistry exam. Chen used the scholarship to attend the

State University of New York at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo (commonly referred to as UB, University at Buffalo, and sometimes SUNY Buffalo) is a public research university in Buffalo and Amherst, New York, United States. The university was founded in 1846 a ...

, where he got his Ph.D. in

biochemistry Biochemistry, or biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology, a ...

in 1991. During his graduate education, Chen became interested in the biochemical pathway of the protein

ubiquitin Ubiquitin is a small (8.6 kDa) regulatory protein found in most tissues of eukaryotic organisms, i.e., it is found ''ubiquitously''. It was discovered in 1975 by Gideon Goldstein and further characterized throughout the late 1970s and 19 ...

at a time when less than a dozen laboratories were researching the protein's function in the human body. After graduating, Chen did a year of post-doctoral work with the

Salk Institute for Biological Studies The Salk Institute for Biological Studies is a scientific research institute in the La Jolla community of San Diego, California. The independent, non-profit institute was founded in 1960 by Jonas Salk, the developer of the polio vaccine; among th ...

Career

Following his post-doctoral work, Chen began working as a research scientist at

Baxter Healthcare Baxter International Inc. is an American multinational healthcare company with headquarters in Deerfield, Illinois. The company primarily focuses on products to treat chronic and acute medical conditions. The company had 2023 global net sa ...

Irvine, California Irvine () is a Planned community, planned city in central Orange County, California, United States, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. It was named in 1888 for the landowner James Irvine. The Irvine Company started developing the area in the ...

. He then spent three years working as a senior scientist at biotech firm ProScript in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

, Massachusetts, where he developed

assays An assay is an investigative (analytic) procedure in laboratory medicine, mining, pharmacology, environmental biology and molecular biology for qualitatively assessing or quantitatively measuring the presence, amount, or functional activity of ...

that helped to identify and improve the cancer treatment Velcade. His time at ProScript allowed Chen to work in molecular biology and drug development and it was while working there that Chen started researching ubiquitin. Working with

Tom Maniatis Tom Maniatis (born May 8, 1943), is an American professor of molecular and cellular biology. He is a professor at Columbia University, and serves as the Scientific Director and CEO of the New York Genome Center. Education Maniatis received B.A ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

in 1996, Chen found that the enzyme

kinase In biochemistry, a kinase () is an enzyme that catalyzes the transfer of phosphate groups from high-energy, phosphate-donating molecules to specific substrates. This process is known as phosphorylation, where the high-energy ATP molecule don ...

had to be "activated" by ubiquitin in order for the NF-κB signalling process to function properly. He decided pursuing his research into ubiquitin would be more suited for work in academia and left ProScript in 1997 to start a lab at the

Dallas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...

. He currently holds the George L. MacGregor Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Science and is an Investigator of the

Howard Hughes Medical Institute The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is an American non-profit medical research organization headquartered in Chevy Chase, Maryland with additional facilities in Ashburn, Virginia. It was founded in 1953 by Howard Hughes, an American busin ...

Research

Chen's research initially focused on the role of ubiquitin in signaling pathways for the

NF-κB Nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-κB) is a family of transcription factor protein complexes that controls transcription (genetics), transcription of DNA, cytokine production and cell survival. NF-κB is found i ...

protein complex, specifically as it pertains to

immune response An immune response is a physiological reaction which occurs within an organism in the context of inflammation for the purpose of defending against exogenous factors. These include a wide variety of different toxins, viruses, intra- and extracellula ...

. At his lab in UT-Southwestern, Chen's group was able to show that ubiquitin marked proteins, marks that could be recognized by other proteins to create a "cascade" of signals. His research received grant funding from the

Burroughs Wellcome Fund The Burroughs Wellcome Fund (BWF) is an American non-profit medical research organization that provides funding for biomedical research, STEM education, and areas of career development for scientists. Since 1970, it has been headquartered in Nor ...

in 2002 enabling research into how NF-κB initiated immune responses to

RNA viruses ''Orthornavirae'' is a kingdom of viruses that have genomes made of ribonucleic acid (RNA), including genes which encode an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp). The RdRp is used to transcribe the viral RNA genome into messenger RNA (mRNA) and t ...

such as

influenza Influenza, commonly known as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by influenza viruses. Symptoms range from mild to severe and often include fever, runny nose, sore throat, muscle pain, headache, coughing, and fatigue. These sympto ...

and

hepatitis C Hepatitis C is an infectious disease caused by the hepatitis C virus (HCV) that primarily affects the liver; it is a type of viral hepatitis. During the initial infection period, people often have mild or no symptoms. Early symptoms can include ...

. This new line of research led to the discovery of MAVS (Mitochondrial Anti-Viral Signaling protein) and the role of mitochondria in antiviral innate immune responses, and the more recent discoveries of the cytosolic DNA sensor, Cyclic GMP-AMP synthase ( cGAS; cGAMP synthase), and a new second messenger, Cyclic guanosine monophosphate–adenosine monophosphate (cyclic GMP-AMP, cGAMP), which play key roles in immune defense as well as autoimmune diseases.

Honors and awards

In 2012 Chen was awarded the National Academy of Sciences Award in Molecular Biology, in 2018 the

Lurie Prize in Biomedical Sciences The Lurie Prize in Biomedical Sciences recognizes outstanding achievement by a promising young scientist in biomedical research. It is awarded annually by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health. Established in 2013 the award is worth ...

from the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in 1887 and is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Service ...

for his discovery of cGAS and also in 2018 the Ray Wu award from the

Chinese Biological Investigators Society ] The Chinese Biological Investigators Society (Chinese: 华人生物学家协会), the former Ray Wu, Ray Wu Society (Chinese: 吴瑞协会), is a non-profit professional organization of life sciences and education, established in 1987. CBIS is a ...

. In 2019 Chen received the

for the discovery of the DNA-sensing enzyme cGAS and the pathways by which it activates innate immune responses. He shared this prize with C. Frank Bennett,

Adrian R. Krainer Adrian Robert Krainer is a Uruguayan-American biochemist and molecular geneticist known for his research into RNA gene-splicing. He helped create a drug for patients with spinal muscular atrophy. Krainer holds the St. Giles Foundation Profess ...

Angelika Amon Angelika Amon (January 10, 1967 – October 29, 2020) was an Austrian American molecular and cell biologist, and the Kathleen and Curtis Marble Professor in Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massa ...

, and

Xiaowei Zhuang Xiaowei Zhuang (; born January 1972) is a Chinese-American biophysicist who is the David B. Arnold Jr. Professor of Science, Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, and Professor of Physics at Harvard University, and an Investigator at the H ...

. He has also received the Norman Hackerman Award in Chemical Research and the Edith and Peter O’Donnell Award in Science. In 2023 he was awarded the

Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize The Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize for Biology or Biochemistry is an annual prize awarded by Columbia University to a researcher or group of researchers who have made an outstanding contribution in basic research in the fields of biology or biochemist ...

, in 2024 the

Lasker Award In 1945 Albert Lasker and Mary Woodard Lasker created the Lasker Awards. Every year since then the award has been given to the living person considered to have made the greatest contribution to medical science or who has demonstrated public ser ...

and for 2025 the

Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize The Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize is an annual award bestowed by the since 1952 for research in medicine. It carries a monetary prize of 120,000 Euro. The prize ceremony is traditionally held on the 14th of March, the birthday of Nob ...

. Chen was elected to the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

in 2014. He was appointed a Foreign Member of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

in 2025.

References

External links

Howard Hughes Medical Institute Bio

Science Daily ''ScienceDaily'' is an American website launched in 1995 that aggregates press releases and publishes lightly edited press releases (a practice called churnalism) about science, similar to Phys.org and EurekAlert!. History The site was f ...

. Retrieved 13 April 2012.
Chen Lab Research
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chen, Zhijian 1966 births Living people American biochemists American scientists of Asian descent Chinese emigrants to the United States Howard Hughes Medical Investigators Hokkien scientists People from Quanzhou Chemists from Fujian University at Buffalo alumni University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center faculty Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Chinese biochemists Educators from Fujian Biologists from Fujian Members of the National Academy of Medicine Recipients of the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research Foreign members of the Royal Society