{"entity":{"id":"lieping-chen","kind":"person","name":"Lieping Chen","aka":[],"tldr":"Discovered PD-L1 (B7-H1) and showed tumours use it to escape immunity, the biology behind every anti-PD-1 drug.","summary":"Lieping Chen (Yale) identified B7-H1, later named PD-L1, in 1999, showed in 2002 that tumours express it to kill or disable T cells and that blocking it restores anti-tumour immunity, and initiated the first anti-PD-1/PD-L1 clinical trials with Johns Hopkins colleagues. He received the Warren Alpert Prize with Honjo, Freeman and Sharpe and continues to discover normalisation-cancer-immunotherapy targets such as Siglec-15.","asOf":"2026-09-10","links":[{"label":"PubMed","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Chen%20L%5BAuthor%5D%20B7-H1%20PD-L1"}],"tags":["immunotherapy","discovery","pd-l1"],"related":[],"cancers":[],"sections":[],"technologies":["checkpoint-inhibitor"],"targets":["pdl1","pd1"],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":["yale-school-of-medicine"],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":["paper-iwai-pdl1-tumour-escape-pnas-2002","paper-topalian-anti-pd1-nejm-2012"],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"role":"United Technologies Corporation Professor in Cancer Research, Yale School of Medicine","institutionId":"yale-school-of-medicine","specialisms":["PD-L1 biology","Tumour immune evasion","Checkpoint discovery","Immunotherapy targets"],"profiles":[{"label":"PubMed","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Chen%20L%5BAuthor%5D%20B7-H1%20PD-L1"}],"papers":[{"title":"B7-H1, a third member of the B7 family, co-stimulates T-cell proliferation and interleukin-10 secretion","journal":"Nature Medicine","year":1999,"doi":"10.1038/70932"},{"title":"Tumor-associated B7-H1 promotes T-cell apoptosis: a potential mechanism of immune evasion","journal":"Nature Medicine","year":2002,"doi":"10.1038/nm730"},{"title":"Iwai and Honjo: tumours use PD-L1 to escape T cells, and blocking it restores attack","journal":"PNAS","year":2002,"url":"https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.192461099","doi":"10.1073/pnas.192461099"},{"title":"Topalian 2012: the first large trial of a PD-1 antibody shows durable responses across melanoma, lung and kidney cancer","journal":"New England Journal of Medicine","year":2012,"url":"https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa1200690","doi":"10.1056/NEJMoa1200690"}],"orcid":"0000-0002-6825-3069"},"route":"/people/lieping-chen/","neighbours":{"technology":[{"id":"checkpoint-inhibitor","kind":"technology","name":"Immune checkpoint inhibitors","route":"/technologies/checkpoint-inhibitor/"}],"target":[{"id":"pd1","kind":"target","name":"PD-1","route":"/targets/pd1/"},{"id":"pdl1","kind":"target","name":"PD-L1","route":"/targets/pdl1/"}],"institution":[{"id":"yale-school-of-medicine","kind":"institution","name":"Yale School of Medicine / Yale Cancer Center","route":"/institutions/yale-school-of-medicine/"}],"paper":[{"id":"paper-iwai-pdl1-tumour-escape-pnas-2002","kind":"paper","name":"Iwai and Honjo: tumours use PD-L1 to escape T cells, and blocking it restores attack","route":"/key-papers/paper-iwai-pdl1-tumour-escape-pnas-2002/"},{"id":"paper-topalian-anti-pd1-nejm-2012","kind":"paper","name":"Topalian 2012: the first large trial of a PD-1 antibody shows durable responses across melanoma, lung and kidney cancer","route":"/key-papers/paper-topalian-anti-pd1-nejm-2012/"}]}}