Dr. Chen received his PhD in 2011 from Purdue University under Joseph Irudayaraj. His doctoral work utilized single molecule spectroscopy and time resolved techniques to study epigenetic modifications in single cells. He then joined the Transcription Imaging Consortium at the HHMI Janelia Research Campus to do his post-doctoral fellowship with Maxime Dahan and Robert Tjian. At Janelia, Dr. Chen co-developed the multifocus microscope – a widefield fluorescence microscope capable of imaging multiple focal planes simultaneously. He then combined multifocus microscopy with single molecule imaging to quantitatively track the interactions of transcription factors at endogenous binding elements in 3D in live cells.
Dr. Chen joined the NIH in 2016 as the Co-Operating Director of the Advanced Imaging and Microscopy Resource.