We are delighted to announce that Dr. Irene A. Chen has joined the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UCLA! Irene Chen’s laboratory researches biomolecular design and evolution in nanoscale systems. Her group studies life-like biochemical systems to understand their fundamental properties and address emerging challenges in biotechnology and infectious disease. Simple synthetic cells and bacteriophages (phages) are the experimental foci of their research. More information can be found at https://research.seas.ucla.edu/irene-chen/.
Irene Chen received a B.A. in chemistry and an M.D.-Ph.D. in biophysics from Harvard, advised by Jack Szostak, and was a Bauer Fellow in systems biology at Harvard. She has received the Searle Scholar award, NIH New Innovator award, the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar award, and the David White award for outstanding contribution in astrobiology. She has been a Simons Investigator for the Collaboration on the Origin of Life since 2013. Prior to joining our department, Dr. Irene Chen was an associate professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at our sister campus at UCSB.
Please join us in welcoming Dr. Irene Chen to our faculty in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UCLA!