Dr. Lieping Chen is the United Technologies Corporation Professor in Cancer Research, Professor of Immunobiology, Medicine (Medical Oncology) and Dermatology at Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA. Dr. Chen is an immunologist and a physician-scientist interested in basic T cell biology, cancer immunology and development of innovative medicine for treating human diseases including cancer.

Lieping Chen was born in Fuzhou, China and earned his medical degree from Fujian Medical College, Fuzhou, China in 1982. After clinical and research training in Fujian Union Hospital and Beijing Union Medical College, he received a PhD degree in Pathology from Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1989; and did a postdoctoral fellowship in the University of Washington in Seattle. He joined the Bristol-Myers Squibb/Oncogen in Seattle as a research scientist in Immunology and Oncology group from 1989-1997 where he originated a new paradigm to target T cell costimulatory and coinhibitory pathways for cancer immunotherapy. He moved to Mayo Clinic to become Professor of Immunology where he discovered the B7-H1 (aka PD-L1) molecule, identified T cell inhibitory function of B7-H1 and its receptor PD-1, demonstrated the role of this pathway in the evasion of tumor immunity, and showed antibody blockade of this pathway could restore dysfunctional immunity in tumor site as therapeutic approach. Collectively, these findings are cornerstones of FDA-approved anti-PD-1/PD-L1 antibody drugs for cancer treatment. In 2004, he joined the faculty of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine where he helped initiate the first clinical trial of anti-PD-1 antibody MDX-1106 (now known as Nivolumab or Opdivo@) for treating advanced human cancer and developed PD-L1 staining as a predictive biomarker. He moved to Yale and assumed his current positions since 2011. In addition to the PD-1/PD-L1 pathway, his laboratory also discovered over 20 cell surface receptors and ligands and/or their immunological functions as well as their applications in human disease treatment (e.g. 4-1BB, B7-H3, B7-H4, Siglec-15, FGL1/Lag3, CD93/IGFBP7).

Dr. Chen has published over 380 articles in peer-reviewed journals and is the principal inventor on 40+ US patents. His work in the discovery of the PD-1/PD-L1 pathway in cancer immunotherapy was cited as the #1 breakthrough of the year by Science magazine 2013. His honors and awards include the William B. Coley Award, AAI-Steinman Award and Warren Alpert Foundation Prize. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of American Association for Cancer Research.