MIT World Speakers

Jianzhu Chen

Jianzhu Chen is also an adjunct professor and co-director of the Center for Infection and Immunity, the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He received a Ph.D. in Genetics from Stanford University and was an instructor at Harvard Medical School before joining the faculty at MIT.

The Chen lab is interested in understanding immune response and memory to respiratory virus infection at molecular, cellular, and organismal levels. The lab uses influenza virus infection in mice as a model system. Researchers follow immune cell responses to the virus during the entire course of infection, their subsequent development into memory lymphocytes, and the effect of specific gene mutation on the processes. Chen's lab is also using new molecular technologies to develop therapies that could be relevant for other infectious respiratory diseases such as SARS.