Peter Chen, MD has had a long-standing interest in the lung epithelial response to injury and how aberrant responses acutely lead to lung injury and chronically promote pathological outcomes such as lung fibrosis. The initial work from his laboratory focused on epithelial interactions with the matrix identifying specific mechanisms regulating re-epithelialization. More recently, his research group has investigated mechanisms by which the lung mucosal immunity regulates acute lung injury after infectious insults. They have had a particular interest in influenza-mediated lung injury as a model to understand host innate immunity that regulates lung injury. After the COVID-19 pandemic, they also started studying the immunology of the disease and determining the traits that define more severe illness after infection by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Furthermore, he has been conducting clinical trials into novel therapies for COVID-19.