Dr. Lieping Chen is named to the inaugural United Technologies Corporation endowed post

Dr. Lieping Chen, newly appointed as the United Technologies Corporation Professor in Cancer Research, focuses his research on developing new treatment options for cancer. His laboratory discovered the B7-H1/PD-1 immune inhibitory pathway and established the principle of cancer therapy by blocking this pathway.

Chen is professor of immunobiology, of dermatology, and of medicine (medical oncology) at Yale School of Medicine and director of the cancer immunology program at the Yale Cancer Center. He is also an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland; Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, China; and Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, China.

He earned his medical degree from Fujian Medical University, China; his M.S. from Beijing Union Medical College; and a Ph.D. from Drexel University. Chen served as a professor in the Department of Immunology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota (2000-2004), and was a member of the faculty of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (2004-2010) before coming to Yale in 2010.

Chen has published more than 300 scientific papers, review articles, and book chapters, and has edited two books. He has delivered more than 200 speeches, seminars and lectures, and served on many committees and advisory boards for U.S. federal government and private organizations. 

Among his numerous honors and awards are a Presidential Award from Bristol-Myers Squibb (1996), Milton Fromer Memorial Lectureship (1996), American Cancer Society Research Scholar (2000), and keynote speaker in the Congress of the Spanish Society of Immunology (2011).