Zhong Chen, M.D., Ph.D.

Zhong Chen, M.D., Ph.D., is the Director of the Oral and Salivary Cancer Biology Program at the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR). Dr. Chen graduated from Beijing Medical University in China and received her Ph.D., in tumor immunology from the University of Rochester, School of Medicine & Dentistry in New York where she also completed her post-doctoral training in immunotolerance in the Department of Dermatology. Prior to joining NIDCR, she was an intramural scientist at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), where she served as the chief of Clinical Genomics Unit and a staff scientist in the Tumor Biology Section within the Head and Neck Surgery Branch. Her research at NIDCD crossed various disciplines relating to translational oncology and genomics of head and neck cancers, including cell and molecular biology, gene expression and transcriptional regulation, high-throughput sequencing, functional genomics, animal tumor models, preclinical and clinical investigation, and new drug testing. She participated in The Cancer Genomics Atlas (TCGA) head and neck cancer project and co-chaired the squamous cancers working group of the Pan-Cancer Atlas consortium.