Researcher Spotlight: Building an Entrepreneurial Mindset in Drug Discovery

Yuanhuang “Harry” Chen is learning to think like an entrepreneur. A PhD candidate in chemical biology at Rockefeller University, Chen recently began participating in educational programs focused on business development and venture capital investing.

He is fascinated by the process through which the research he conducts in the lab could one day turn into a drug that benefits patients. As a Life Sciences Technology Innovation Fellow at Cornell’s SC Johnson College of Business, he attends workshops to learn about business models and fundraising approaches, and his main project is translating his research into a company pitch.

“At a workshop, a company founder shared a story about how they moved from an idea to a real company, and it reminded me of how I take an idea for a research project and turn it into a question and an experiment to test,” Chen said.

Before he can fully dive into the pharmaceutical industry, Chen is working to finish his PhD research, for which he received a 2026 PhRMA Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship in Drug Discovery. His research focuses on how aging and cellular stress in the skin affect cancer-related signals in melanocytes, the pigment-producing cells found in the skin and the eye.

Certain melanomas, cancers that begin in melanocytes, including a rare eye cancer called uveal melanoma, are driven by abnormal activation of the CysLTR2/Gq signaling pathway. Using human cell models, Chen is investigating how the surrounding tissue environment influences the way melanocytes respond to this cancer-associated signal. His research tests the hypothesis that healthy skin cells can help restrain abnormal melanocyte growth, while aging or cellular stress may weaken that control and create conditions that allow cancer-related signaling to persist.

“The goal is to understand how healthy, aged, and stressed tissue environments respond differently to the same cancer-associated pathway and whether those differences reveal new opportunities to prevent or treat melanoma,” he said.

Chen appreciates that research requires him to learn new skills and test new questions every day. He also particularly enjoys the people he works with. “Research allows you to interact with people who are really, really clever, and they have fascinating ideas,” he said.

One piece of advice Chen would give to other early-career researchers: “Don’t define yourself too early.”

He encouraged students to talk to as many people as possible about the different career paths available to them and why they chose their path, whether in academia, industry, business, consulting, or nonprofit work.

“Some people start graduate school very passionate about doing research but then feel frustrated after several years and start to question, ‘Do I want to do science? Do I have to do science because I’ve spent like five years preparing myself to do science?’ Chen said. “You can do a lot of different things with a science background. You have tons of possibilities.”

For his future career, Chen hopes to work at the intersection of science, biotechnology, and business. He is particularly interested in roles where he can apply his scientific training to understand how promising discoveries are evaluated, financed, and developed into therapies.

“Working in biotechnology or pharmaceuticals is my primary goal, but I’m also very interested in the business and investment decisions that help move new therapies forward,” he said.

Chen’s openness to new experiences extends beyond his career. Outside the lab, he enjoys skiing and visiting national parks across the country. “There are a lot of national parks I still need to explore,” he said. “I have a map of the United States, and when I go to a national park, I mark it on there.”

Whether he’s exploring a new landscape, investigating a scientific question, or learning about entrepreneurship and investing, Chen is motivated by the opportunity to discover something new.