David Geffen School of Medicine names 2019 winner of Switzer Prize

Dr. Zhijian (James) Chen of the UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas will be the 2019 recipient of the Switzer Prize, awarded by the  David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Chen has performed groundbreaking work on the mechanisms underlying the cellular response to infection.Chen ’s group 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 and autoimmune diseases.Most significantly, his team at UT Southwestern discovered the DNA-sensing enzyme cGAS, which helps launch the immune defense system to battle infections.“cGAS is like a burglar alarm that is turned on when a danger is detected, and it sets off the body’s defense against viruses, bacteria and parasites,” Chen told an interviewer for a UT Southwestern online publication.Last October, Chen was named the winner of the 2019 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for his discovery in 2012 of cGAS. And in 2005, Chen and a colleague discovered a protein that plays an important role in mounting an immune defense against RNA viruses. They named that protein MAVS (Mitochondrial Anti-Viral Signaling), a nod to Chen ’s favorite basketball team, the Dallas Mavericks.“Dr. Chen’s research into complex cellular biochemistry has led to the discovery of pathways and proteins that trigger immune and stress responses,” said Dr. Kelsey Martin, dean of the Geffen School of Medicine. “Th...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news