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Hematology and Oncology

Hui-Zi Chen Laboratory

Dr. Hui-Zi Chen's research aims to identify pathogenic mechanisms driving SCLC development and therapeutically actionable pathways.

Dr. Chen was the recipient of an NCI K08 Clinical Scientist Career Development Award (2019-2024), co-mentored by lung cancer expert David Carbone, MD PhD, and genomics/epigenomics expert Raul Urrutia, MD. She focused on exome/transcriptome characterization of relapsed SCLC cancer through multi-regional tumor sequencing enabled by rapid research autopsy. This work culminated in the identification of epigenetic deregulation as an important contributor to SCLC pathogenesis.

There are currently three main areas of focus in her lab: (1) identification of therapeutically actionable targets in SCLC upon epigenetic reprogramming (e.g. EZH2 inhibition) through multiomics; (2) analysis of large, real-world SCLC multi-modal (clinical, genomic, transcriptomic) datasets to discover novel therapeutic biomarkers; and (3) elucidating the role of atypical E2F transcription factor, E2F7, in SCLC pathogenesis.

Boosting efforts into the investigation of epigenome dysregulation in SCLC, she was recently awarded a Lung Cancer Discovery Award (2025-2027) by the American Lung Association to elucidate the role of KMT2D in SCLC development.

Hui-Zi Chen Laboratory Team

About the PI

Hui-Zi Chen, PhD, MDHui-Zi Chen, MD, PhD, is a medical oncologist and physician scientist at the Medical College of Wisconsin Cancer Center and the Linda T. And John A. Mellowes Center for Genomic Sciences and Precision Medicine.

As a clinician, Dr. Chen strives to provide evidence-based, personalized care to her patients and has participated in the development of multiple genomics-driven precision oncology trials.

As a scientist, her mission is to enable discovery of new therapeutic vulnerabilities in advanced small cell lung cancer (SCLC) as well as rare cancers by leveraging her expertise in genomics research. She is currently PI of the MCW I-PREDICT clinical trial (NCT05674825), a prospective open-label navigational investigation designed to evaluate the feasibility of using molecular profile-based evidence to determine individualized cancer therapy for patients with aggressive malignancies.

Her multi-disciplinary laboratory includes expertise in molecular biology, cancer biology, next-generation sequencing technologies, and bioinformatics. Dr. Chen currently serves as mentor to two post-doctoral research fellows, a second-year graduate student, a senior undergraduate student (as a collaboration with University of Wisconsin Milwaukee), and a senior research scientist.

Current Members

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Ramesh Adinahevni, PhD

Postdoctoral Researcher

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Meijun Du

Research Scientist II

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Mohamed Gadelkarim

Research Assistant

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Sana Parveen, PhD

Postdoctoral Researcher

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Emlyn Swardenski

UWM-MCW Undergraduate Research Fellow

Recent Publications

Publications of Hui-Zi Chen PhD, MD from the Faculty Collaboration Database

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