Newly Appointed Chair of the Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology

Shuibing Chen, PhD

Headshot of Dr. Shuibing Chen in a gray suit with glasses.
By Internal Communications
2 min read

Dear Colleagues,

We are writing to announce the appointment of Shuibing Chen, PhD, as Chair of the Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology (MMP) at the David Geffen School of Medicine (DGSOM), effective March 1, 2027.

Dr. Shuibing Chen is currently the Kilts Family Professor of Surgery and Professor of Biochemistry at Weill Cornell Medicine, where she serves as Founding Director of the Center for Genomic Health and Vice Chair of Innovation.

Dr. Chen works at the interface of molecular pharmacology, stem cell biology, chemical biology and artificial intelligence (AI). Her laboratory integrates human pluripotent stem cell–derived organoids, high-throughput chemical screening, and AI-driven analytics to build next-generation platforms for disease modeling, target discovery and drug development.

As a multi-PI of the NIH-funded dkNET, PanKbase, and MAI-T1D consortia, Dr. Chen leads the development of AI-enabled platforms that integrate genomics, single-cell omics, imaging and clinical data into unified frameworks for mechanistic discovery and therapeutic prioritization, helping define how machine learning and foundation-model approaches are deployed across metabolic disease research and drug discovery.

Dr. Chen serves on the Boards of Directors of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) and the International Chemical Biology Society, and leads the ISSCR Consortium on Advancing Stem Cell–Based Models for Drug Discovery and Development, which focused on establishing the standards, data infrastructure and AI-ready frameworks needed for broad adoption of human-relevant model systems in pharmacology. She received many awards including the NIH Director's New Innovator Award and the ISSCR Outstanding Young Investigator Award, etc.

We thank Dr. Stephen Cannon for his outstanding leadership and service as Interim Department Chair. We also thank the search committee members, whose names are listed below, for their dedication and commitment to the search process.

Please join us in welcoming Dr. Chen to UCLA and to her new role.

Sincerely,

John C. Mazziotta, MD, PhD
Senior Vice Chancellor, UCLA Health Sciences
CEO, UCLA Health

Steven Dubinett, MD
Dean, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Associate Vice Chancellor for Research, UCLA

Chair, Department of MMP Search Committee

  • Anne Coleman (co-chair): Professor and Chair, Department of Ophthalmology
  • Michael Teitell (co-chair): Director of the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center and Professor, Departments of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Pediatrics, and Bioengineering
  • Corey Arnold: Professor, Departments of Radiological Sciences, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Electrical & Computer Engineering, and Bioengineering
  • Heather Christofk: Professor, Department of Biological Chemistry
  • Mansoureh Eghbali: Professor, Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine
  • Thomas Graeber: Professor, Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology
  • Nigel Maidment: Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences
  • Susanne Nicholas: Professor, Department of Medicine
  • Carlos Portera-Calliau: Professor, Department of Neurobiology and Neurology
  • Robert Prins: Professor, Departments of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology and Neurosurgery
  • Shili Xu: Assistant Professor, Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology