Irvin S.Y. Chen

Irvin S.Y. Chen is a Professor of Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and Director of the UCLA AIDS Institute. He holds additional roles as Co-Leader of the Pilot and Collaborative Translational Clinical Studies Program and a Member of the CTSI Immunity, Microbes & Molecular Pathogenesis GPB. His research focuses on understanding how human retroviruses like HIV and HTLV cause AIDS and cancer, respectively. He pioneered the SCID-hu mouse model for studying immune reconstitution and HIV therapy. Key achievements include identifying HTLV-II and co-developing a widely used diagnostic test for this virus in blood banks.

Research Interests: His work explores HIV-induced CD4+ T-cell death mechanisms, including viral protein Vpr's role in cell cycle arrest. He develops gene therapy approaches using SCID-hu mice to model stem cell protection against HIV. Projects also include studying viral entry mechanisms, targeted lentiviral vectors, and HIV-resistant T-cell engineering through shRNA.

Publications: Over 150 peer-reviewed articles highlight his contributions to HIV pathogenesis, lentiviral vector engineering, and gene therapy. Recent work includes siRNA delivery systems, CCR5 silencing strategies, and targeted cancer therapies.

Affiliations: UCLA AIDS Institute Director, Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center Tumor Immunology Program member, and CTSI Immunity Program participant. He leads interdisciplinary teams advancing translational research in virology and immunology.