When describing her path to becoming a molecular and cellular biologist, Chafen Lu speaks about the pivotal moment when she first encountered Biology Professor Peter Lipke in summer 1987. Lipke was a visiting professor at the university in China where Lu worked as a biochemistry instructor. Lipke’s lectures focused on molecular biology—Lu was his interpreter. “I was fascinated,” she says. “He talked about recombinant DNA and the application of the technology surrounding it. It was pretty new in China.” Two years later, Lu was in the United States, working in Lipke’s lab. He became her mentor and adviser as she earned her Ph.D. in molecular and cellular biology at CUNY’s Graduate School. Lu credits her experiences working with Lipke—who recently retired—as laying the foundation for her career, which includes the development of groundbreaking treatments for inflammatory bowel disease and malaria, among other notable accomplishments. To honor him on his retirement, Lu has established the Peter and Anne Lipke Professorship in Biology at Brooklyn College. The goal of the gift is to support research and help the Biology Department continue recruiting top faculty. “Peter is an inspiration for me, both in my personal and scientific journey,” says Lu. “But more importantly, he is dedicated to mentoring, educating, and increasing campus diversity,” which includes his career-long efforts to increase the number of minority students in his laboratory and biology and the sciences in general. “What could be better than establishing a professorship in his honor, to keep his legacy and values of teaching students and promoting equity and diversity for generations to come,” she adds. From Rural China to the Big City Chafen Lu Chafen Lu’s story begins in a rural village in China during the Cultural Revolution, when the country’s goal was to remove any vestiges of capitalist and traditional cultural elements from Chinese society. Like other children at that time, at a young age Lu helped her family, working in the fields and taking care of her younger siblings. Despite the limited educational resources in the local schools (“we had a sort-of locked cabinet that served as the school library”), Lu excelled academically. When China restored college entrance exams in 1979, she was one of the few from her village to pass and attend university. “First in my family and first in my village for many years,” says Lu. She wanted to study biology, so she majored in forest protection and then earned her master’s degree in plant pathology at an agricultural school in northern China. Lu had been thinking about studying in the United States—some fellow graduate students had already done so. After the Lipke lectures, she was ready to pursue her Ph.D. in molecular and cellular biology. “Peter’s an amazing mentor,” says Lu. He helped her with the application process to CUNY Graduate School and even met her at the airport. “He encouraged independence and critical thinking. We’d have lab meetings that were always stimulating. He always made himself available whenever I had questions or wanted to share exciting research results,” she adds. An Outstanding Career Lu’s work with Lipke—on a cell adhesion protein called alpha-agglutinin—was fundamental to her postdoctoral training and during her career at Millennium Pharmaceuticals leading drug discovery and development teams. A family of cell adhesion molecules called integrins were a key part of the therapeutic antibodies that Lu helped develop for a drug—Entyvio—that has become a preferred treatment for irritable bowel syndrome. “It’s gratifying to see something you worked on turn out to be a treatment that can heal and save lives,” says Lu. She joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School, where she trained students in molecular biology and supervised research assistants and postdoctoral fellows. She continued her research, working on multiple projects and publishing prolifically. One project stands out for Lu—the malaria vaccine design project. “The disease is still a global health issue,” she says, “particularly in Africa and subtropical regions.” Her work is contributing to a more efficacious malaria vaccine. Just as she was inspired and mentored by Peter Lipke, Lu would like to see her gift of the professorship do the same for Brooklyn College. “I hope it helps the Biology Department to recruit diverse, talented faculty who will, in turn, prepare students for successful careers in science- and health-related fields.”
