Changbin Chen

Changbin Chen is an Associate Professor in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University (ASU). Previously, he held the same rank at the University of Minnesota. His research focuses on plant biology, particularly DNA break repair, homologous recombination, genome organization, evolution, and crop improvement. He develops novel vegetable varieties for short-season locations and space farming. Chen also teaches courses in plant biology, genetics, and biochemistry at both undergraduate and graduate levels.

Education

• Postdoctoral Fellowship: Pennsylvania State University (Life Sciences) and University of Pennsylvania (Biology)
• Ph.D.: East China Normal University (Plant Molecular Genetics) with joint training at SIPPE, CAS
• M.S.: East China Normal University (Plant Systematics)
• B.S.: Hubei University (Biology)

Research Interests

Chen’s work integrates molecular genetics, genomics, and biotechnology to study plant meiosis, genome organization, and crop adaptation. Key areas include understanding mechanisms of DNA repair, recombination landscapes in maize, and developing stress-resistant and short-season crop varieties. His lab employs advanced techniques like machine learning for chromatin analysis and phage display for protein-DNA interaction studies.

Publications

Recent work spans topics such as tomato variety development, corn kernel quantification, and meiotic transcriptomics. Notable contributions include identifying chromatin patterns influencing recombination and isolating meiocytes for genomic studies.

Labs & Teams

His research group is affiliated with the Chen Lab, previously based at the University of Minnesota, now continuing at ASU. The lab collaborates on projects involving plant genetics, agricultural innovation, and space farming applications.