PhD
Professor, Biochemistry and Biophysics
UNC-Chapel Hill
Immunology
Area of Interest
Xian Chen, PhD, is the director of Technology Development in the UNC Proteomics Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics. Chen’s research focuses on both the development and application of unconventional and transformative technology of systems biology, particularly mass spectrometry-based proteomics and multi-omics approaches, to elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying pathogenesis of various human diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and diabetes.
Chen’s lab invented amino acid-coded mass tagging (AACT) (a.k.a SILAC) that has unique strengths for comparative analysis of protein-protein interactions and post-translational protein modification. His lab is interested in a broad range of signaling and epigenetic regulatory pathways/mechanisms underlying exactly how tumor cells escape from immune surveillance, but not limited to the Toll-like receptor (TLR)-mediated pathways and DNA damage response pathways. Their ultimate goal is to mechanistically derive novel, precise disease markers for early diagnosis and therapeutic intervention.