Lieping Chen, a Chinese scientist and professor of immunology at Yale University's School of Medicine, won the Warren Alpert Foundation Prize for 2017 along with four other scientists for his breakthrough in tumor immunology, according the official website of the prize, Thepaper.cn reported on June 8.
Lieping Chen (File photo)
Chen is the third Chinese winner of the prize, following the geneticist Jian Yuewei and the pharmacologist Tu Youyou. Together with the other four scientists, Chen will be presented with prize money totaling $500,000. Several special seminars and the prize ceremony will be held at Harvard Medical School on Oct. 5.
The Warren Alpert Foundation Prize was established by the U.S. philanthropist Warren Alpert in 1987 to recognize scientists who make prominent contributions in the field of biomedicine.
According to the press release that announced the winners, their work elucidated the mechanism that enables tumor cells to avoid immunological recognition, which has changed the scientific community's understanding of cancer development and therapies. Their discovery also promoted the development of several effective immunotherapies.
Chen was the first scientist to reveal the function of the PD-L1/PD-1 immune escape pathway in a tumor's microenvironment. He also invented a number of therapies used in cancer treatment.
At present, drugs related to PD-1/PD-L1 have shown promising results in treating solid tumors, and have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for treating cancers including melanoma, renal carcinoma, lung cancer, carcinoma of the urinary bladder and Hodgkin’s lymphoma.