Researchers at Emory Winship Cancer Institute know the next great discovery could come at any time. Their life’s work revolves around a single ideal: to accelerate the discovery of a cure for cancer and give patients and their families hope.
Born in China, Jing Chen was fascinated with his parents’ work as jet fighter engineers, but they encouraged him to do something different. He shifted his attention from machines to people, eventually making his way to the United States to complete a doctorate at Emory in molecular pharmacology, then postgraduate work in cancer biology at Harvard.
Today Chen knows that research can make a profound difference in people’s lives. The Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Scholar is intent on unlocking the reasons why some cells grow abnormally, why they turn into cancer, and what he can do to change outcomes through new treatments.
Chen and his colleagues were the first to discover a mechanism that is critical in multiple myeloma cell survival, and now the team is developing and testing a new treatment for multiple myeloma. A cancer of plasma cells, multiple myeloma is an incurable but treatable disease, affecting approximately 20,000 new patients every year in the United States.
Chen likes being part of Emory Winship’s collaborative and creative culture that supports novel research. While he is gratified to contribute to the national conversation on multiple myeloma treatment, he also is humbled every day by the long road ahead in the search for a cure for this complex cancer.
Your investment through Campaign Emory will ensure that researchers like Jing Chen will have the resources necessary to pursue cutting-edge studies at Emory Winship.
