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Irvin S. Y. Chen, PhD
Director, UCLA AIDS Institute
 Dr. Irvin S.Y. Chen received his BA in biology/genetics from Cornell University in 1977, and his PhD in molecular biology from the University of Wisconsin in 1981. At Wisconsin, he trained under Dr. Howard Temin, a 1975 Nobel Laureate for Medicine. Dr. Chen completed his postdoctoral studies at the University of Wisconsin (1981-1982), and at UCLA (1982-1984) with Dr. David Golde.
In 1984, Dr. Chen was made assistant professor in the Division of Hematology-Oncology of the Department of Medicine at UCLA. Since 1990, he has been a professor in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology and in the Department of Medicine in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He has served as director of numerous laboratories in the UCLA medical center, and as director of the UCLA AIDS Institute since its inception in 1992. He is an internationally renowned investigator in cancer and AIDS research who has made significant scientific contributions to the study of the human retroviruses, human T-cell leukemia virus (HTLV), and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the causative agent of AIDS. He was the first to clone the leukemia virus known as HTLV-II, and this work is the basis for a blood-screening test that is currently under review by the FDA. Dr. Chen has made a number of fundamental discoveries regarding how HTLV and HIV infect cells and cause disease.
In his capacity as director of the UCLA AIDS Institute, Dr. Chen coordinates all AIDS-related patient care, education and research activities at UCLA and its affiliated hospitals. He also has extensive industrial collaborations with pharmaceutical companies, including Amgen, Merck, and Abbott Laboratories. Dr. Chen is the recipient of many awards, including a National Cancer Institute Merit Award and a Leukemia Society of America Scholar Award. He was a board member of the Arthur Ashe Foundation for the Defeat of AIDS, and has served on the U.S.-Japan AIDS Advisory Panel as well as on the editorial boards of many scientific publications.
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