Marathon Man: John Chen Balances the Half Marathon and High-Impact Research
Third-year doctoral student John Chen knows a thing or two about endurance. This fall, he not only pushed through long hours in the lab but also crossed the finish line of the Philadelphia Half Marathon with a time of 1:44:56, a strong performance by any standard, especially for someone balancing serious graduate research.
Chen, who works in Dr. Kyle Vining’s biomaterials lab, ran the race alongside a group of classmates. “There are about five or six of us running,” he said beforehand, listing friends and fellow students, Lindsey Jones, Sydni Wilson, Will Preston, Tiffany Chui, and others, who joined him on the course.
Although most of them tackled the half marathon rather than the full, Chen already has his eye on the next step. “Next year I want to train myself to do the full marathon,” he said.
Training on a Graduate Student’s Schedule
Like many graduate students, Chen fits his running around a demanding research schedule. His training plan is simple, steady, and realistic.
“I kind of just run like once a week,” he explained. “We do eight to ten miles at least a month before the race. And then the month before the race, we taper—so we just do somewhere around five to eight miles.”
The group focuses on pacing rather than racing each other. “We pace,” he said plainly.
Chen doesn’t follow an elaborate nutrition strategy either. “I don’t really do anything special with my diet,” he admitted. “But I know the day before the marathon, I would load up with carbs. For dinner I’d eat a lot of carbs.”
One thing he has been thinking more about is the weather. After running the Broad Street Run in May, he’s noticed the difference that colder temperatures can make.
“I’m a little scared,” he said before the race. “With Broad Street, it was warm, and when it’s warm, my body’s not that stiff, so running is okay. But in recent weeks, my whole body is so sore every time I finish running.”
His plan was practical and traditional: dress warmly, keep moving, and make use of the race-day support. “They usually set up heat tents around the start line,” he said. “I plan on just staying there before we start running. It’ll be fun. I think it’ll be fine.”
Judging by his finish time, the approach served him well.
From the Road to the Research Bench
Outside of training, Chen’s main race is in the lab. He works in a young, fast-growing biomaterials group that studies how cells respond to their physical surroundings.
“Our lab does biomaterials research,” he explained. “We use soft materials to examine cell behavior. Most of the cells in our bodies are responsive to different environments.”
Chen’s own work builds on this idea, focusing on immune cells and the promise of immunotherapy.
“We’re working on different cell types,” he said. “My primary focus is on immune cells. Penn is big on immunotherapy, and one of my projects is to use this concept—how cells change their behavior depending on where they are, depending on their mechanical environment—to tune cellular behavior and use this as a way to boost current immunotherapies.”
In essence, he’s exploring how to “nudge” immune cells into more helpful states by adjusting the physical environment around them, with the long-term goal of improving treatment outcomes.
A Young Lab Finding Its Stride
The lab itself is still in its initial phase of development. “Dr. Vining started in late 2022,” Chen said. “So in 2023, a lot of it was setting up the lab and getting things working.”
That first chapter was spent securing equipment, refining protocols, and learning new techniques. Now, Chen feels they’ve entered a more productive phase.
“I think now we’re at a good pace,” he said. “We all have our projects working. Most of the things that we need are there, and we’re proficient at doing them. So I think now we’re at a pretty good incline.” Like Chen’s steady miles and tapering prepare his body to run stronger on race day, tuning the stiffness of a hydrogel “trains” immune cells through repeated physical cues so they show up in the body better primed to do their therapeutic work.
If research progress were a half marathon, where would they be? “Out of 13 miles?” he repeated, thinking it through. “For some of our projects, we’re probably around mile nine.”
Close enough to sense real progress; far enough to keep them pushing.
Chen is juggling more than one direction, too. “We all have follow-up projects after our main one,” he said. “Some of us are working on pretty independent projects. For me, I have two independent projects that aren’t really related to each other. We’re just slowly progressing. We’re all in year three, so I think we’re at a pretty good pace.”
Milestones on the Horizon
As with any PhD journey, there are formal milestones to clear. For Chen, that means his proposal.
“The written proposal is due in December,” he said. “And then the oral presentation is in January.”
He speaks with a calm confidence born of preparation. “It’s going well. Dr. Vining had us practice during the summer, and I just did my practice again. So I think we’re pretty well prepared.”
Looking beyond the PhD, Chen hopes to stay close to the core of scientific work.
“I definitely want to do a postdoc,” he said. “I want to gain more research experience, independent of what I want to do in the future. Regardless of whether I stay in academia or go into industry, I want a more research-focused career.”
Where exactly that will be, he’s content to discern in time. “I don’t know yet,” he admitted. “It’s still up in the air.”