Chen informal headshot16From a young age, Assistant Professor Yun Chen has excelled in science. While her parents had hoped that she would pursue a career in art, instead she was selected to enter a science-based track during her high school years. Her interest in the field was further nurtured during the part of her curriculum where she visited National Laboratories and observed graduate students, postdocs, and PIs at work in their home environment. Her original goal was to study biology exclusively, but after reading The Transformed Cell by Dr. Stephen Rosenberg during her formative years, she knew that she had to be interdisciplinary to understand the complexity of life phenomena. After a convoluted trip in research topics, she is focused on understanding the mechanics of cancer cells.

“I think using a disease model as a side-by-side comparison to analyze the role mechanics play in our lives was, and is, very intriguing to me,” Chen states.

She received her PhD in Biomedical Engineering at the University of North Carolina, and went on to become a Research Fellow with the National Cancer Institute – eventually working with Dr. Rosenberg on a manuscript about immunotherapy.

“I don’t think Dr. Rosenberg knew how star-struck I felt when I first started to work in proximity with him. This scholar changed my whole outlook on research – spurring me to understand how life science, mathematic and engineering principals should be integrated so I could be a better scientist,” Chen says as she reflects on her inspired career path.

Part of Chen’s research here at JHU entails utilizing the resources in her Lab of Mechanochemistry And Functional Imaging Applications (MAFIA) to develop imaging methods to look at not just the anatomy of cancer cells, but to also measure the mechanical properties of those cells.

“We know that a high-stress field promotes tumor growth, but what most people don’t know is that a cancerous tumor is made of multiple types of cancerous cells. We are currently designing probes that will measure the stress of cells in a tumor by using fluorescent signals This will be able to show us the environment and mechanical properties for each of these cells so that scientists can formulate a comprehensive treatment rather than treating the disease by attacking the cancer found in the tumor in a tailored fashion,” Chen states.

With this model, Chen is to one day aide in the creation of a treatment option that takes all three of the following elements into consideration: chemistry, genetic makeup, and the mechanics of cells. We wish her the best of luck and welcome her into the Mechanical Engineering Department!

Tumor heterogeneity presents major problems limiting the efficacy of targeted therapies. Unfortunately breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease. It is believed that tumor microenvironment plays an important role in driving tumor heterogeneity. For example, the local electric charges in the “neighborhood” of a tumor may vary, and the cells experiencing varied environmental electric charges, through a complicated and yet unknown mechanism, will develop different mutations that cannot be treated by a single therapy. Scientists at Lab of MAFIA are trying to unveil the mechanism in question and learn how to treat diseases of heterogeneous nature in general.

Tumor heterogeneity presents major problems limiting the efficacy of targeted therapies. Unfortunately breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease. It is believed that tumor microenvironment plays an important role in driving tumor heterogeneity. For example, the local electric charges in the “neighborhood” of a tumor may vary, and the cells experiencing varied environmental electric charges, through a complicated and yet unknown mechanism, will develop different mutations that cannot be treated by a single therapy. Scientists at Lab of MAFIA are trying to unveil the mechanism in question and learn how to treat diseases of heterogeneous nature in general.