Kellen Chen, PhD

Kellen Chen, PhD, is an assistant research professor in the Department of Surgery and Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Arizona, College of Medicine – Tucson. Dr. Chen completed his postdoctoral research fellowship at Stanford University. He also previously received his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Virginia and earned his B.S. in Bioengineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Chen co-directs the lab of Department of Surgery Chair Geoffrey Gurtner, MD, FACS. Together, they are currently studying therapies to improve outcomes after injury, skin grafting, chronic wound development, biomedical device implantation, and more. Among these many research avenues, Dr. Chen is particularly interested in the molecular and cellular drivers of fibrosis and regeneration across all organ systems, and he has a history of studying fibrosis in the context of skin, heart, tendon, and the foreign body response. He is also currently working on obtaining FDA approval for a clinical trial to study pharmacological inhibition of mechanical signaling to accelerate healing of deep dermal injury.

Dr. Chen has co-authored over 50 peer-reviewed publications and five book chapters, including first author publications in journals such as Science Translational Medicine, Nature Biomedical Engineering, Nature Communications, and PNAS. He has received a variety of awards, including the First Place Young Investigator’s Award from the Wound Healing Society and the Bernard G. Sarnat, MD, Excellence in Grant Writing Award from the Plastic Surgery Foundation.