Clark Chen's Biography

Clark Chen, Co-Director, University of California-San Diego

Dr. Clark Chen is a neurosurgeon with dedicated interest in oncology and a leader in the study of DNA repair and genetic alterations in brain tumors and in biomarker development. He received his B.S. in biology from Stanford University, his M.S. in epidemiology from Columbia University, and his M.D., Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School. He subsequently completed his neurosurgery training at the Massachusetts General Hospital, including a clinical fellowship in radiosurgery and a second fellowship on stereotactic neurosurgery. In his thesis work, Dr. Chen studied under Dr. Richard Kolodner to understand how cells maintain chromosomal stability. He then carried out his post-doctoral work with Dr. Alan D’Andrea at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute to understand the pertinence of chromosomal stability in glioblastoma. During this time, he collaborated closely with Xandra Breakfield to study Extracellular Vesicles (EVs) as a biomarker platform. He currently serves as the chief of stereotactic and radiosurgery and the Vice-Chairman of Neurosurgery at the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Chen is an NIH funded investigator and the recipient of several highly competitive research awards including: the Damon Runyon Fellowship Award, the Burroughs Wellcome Foundation Career Award in Medical Sciences, the Sontag Foundation Distinguished Scientist Award, the Doris Duke Foundation Clinical Scientist Award, and the Forbeck Scholar award. His current work focuses on the mechanisms of governing glioblastoma tumorigenicity, glioblastoma resistance to DNA damaging agents, and the development of predictive and prognostic glioblastoma biomarkers.