Faculty Research Award

Liu-Chen credits mentors, co-workers for success with opioids

Liu-Chen

To Lee-Yuan Liu-Chen, science is great fun, a continually changing, surprising horizon to which she brings intense curiosity, diligence and critical-thinking skills, qualities she is quick to credit her many mentors with instilling and fostering.

There’s Michael Moskowitz, her graduate advisor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who taught her to have fun with experiments in the lab; William Tam, her mentor and collaborator at DuPont, where she began her investigation of opioids; Horace Loh, chair of pharmacology at the University of Minnesota, who shares her expertise in opioids and supported her during the early days of her career; Martin Adler, director of the Center for Substance Abuse Research (CSAR) at the School of Medicine, a longtime colleague and collaborator; and Nae J. Dun, chair of pharmacology at Temple.

She also credits the many people in her lab — research technicians, postdoctoral fellows, associate scientists and graduate students — whose efforts and ingenuity make her success possible.

Because she is such a highly regarded leader in the field of opioid receptor research, Liu-Chen has received a 2005 Temple University Faculty Research Award.

A professor of pharmacology and investigator at the CSAR, Liu-Chen joined the faculty in 1986 and has enjoyed continuous funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse for 17 years. She is currently the principal investigator of two major NIDA research grants and a contributor on several others.

Liu-Chen is one of several Temple scientists studying opioids, including heroin and morphine, the former a drug that is abused, and the latter a drug that is used pharmacologically to relieve pain. Both substances operate by binding to receptors in the nervous system that alter mood and perception of pain. In addition to producing euphoria and pain relief, opioids can regulate gastrointestinal, respiratory and cardiovascular functions and also modify the activity of the immune system.

The study of opioid receptors is of great importance to the pharmacology of drug abuse, and Liu-Chen has brought great prestige through her research to Temple, said Dun, the pharmacology chair.

The fruit of Liu-Chen’s research is evident in the almost 100 scientific articles, 100 abstracts and six book chapters she has published. Additionally, she serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics and numerous research review committees at the National Institutes of Health.

In 1993, Liu-Chen successfully cloned one of the three opioid receptors, a major scientific accomplishment. Since then she has not only helped to delineate the structures of the opioid receptors, but has also contributed enormously to understanding the regulation of these receptors.

According to CSAR director Adler, “Dr. Liu-Chen’s lab is a vital element in the success of CSAR and in the success of the research of numerous scientists and students at Temple. She gives freely of her time and expertise and sets the bar high for quality science.”

Harel Weinstein, professor and chair of physiology and biophysics at Cornell University with whom Liu-Chen has collaborated, said, “Dr. Liu-Chen is representative of a new generation of molecular pharmacologists who combine the power of molecular biology and genetic manipulation to answer heretofore unapproachable questions in their field.”

Liu-Chen received a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from National Taiwan University in Taipei, a master’s in pharmacology from the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine and a doctorate in neural and endocrine regulation from MIT. After completing postdoctoral training at Massachusetts General Hospital, Liu-Chen was a visiting scientist at DuPont.

- By Eryn Jelesiewicz