Dr. Zhijian “James” Chen has received the 2019 Switzer Prize from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA in recognition of his groundbreaking work on the mechanisms underlying the cellular response to infection.

Dr. Chen, Director of the Center for Inflammation Research and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, leads a laboratory that has been instrumental in the identification of immune response pathways that have significantly added to scientists’ understanding of how these pathways work in microbial infections, autoimmune diseases, and cancer. Most significantly, his team discovered the DNA-sensing enzyme cGAS, which helps launch the immune defense system to battle infections.

Last fall, Dr. Chen won the 2019 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for his 2012 discovery of cGAS. In another important discovery in 2005, Dr. Chen’s team identified a protein that plays an important role in mounting an immune defense against RNA viruses. The team named the protein MAVS (Mitochondrial Anti-Viral Signaling), a nod to the Dallas Mavericks basketball team.

The recognition includes a $25,000 honorarium and delivery of the 2019 Switzer Prize lecture Nov. 19 at UCLA.

Dr. Chen, also Professor of Molecular Biology, holds the George L. MacGregor Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Science.