Professor Chen’s research focuses on the vast potential of natural peptide libraries contained in venomous secretions from arthropods, amphibians and reptiles as a source of novel drug candidates for conditions such as hypertension, cancer, diabetes and drug-resistant bacterial infections. 

The key area has included the isolation, structural identification and activity evaluation of novel antimicrobial peptides against ESKAPE pathogens, smooth muscle contractile agonists/antagonists, serine protease inhibitors and anticancer peptides, as well as the investigation of their mechanisms.