Dr. Tsai is a rigorously trained physician-scientist focused on basic and translational research, with a career goal of addressing significant unmet needs in treating patients with advanced-stage cancer. Dr. Tsai graduated with an M.D. from Taipei Medical College (Taiwan) in 1993 and completed his clinical training in internal medicine and gastroenterology (GI). Dr. Tsai earned his Ph.D. in Biological Sciences - Genetics and Complex Diseases from the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University (Cambridge, MA, USA) in 2005. During his thesis work, Dr. Tsai established novel organoid co-culture models to interrogate stress-induced stromal-epithelial interactions. He then conducted his postdoctoral research at the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA, USA) and the University of California, San Francisco (USCF; San Francisco, CA, USA) from 2005 to 2007, studying tissue-architecture-related mechanisms of de novo death resistance in cancer. Following his postdoctoral research, Dr. Tsai joined the National Institute of Cancer Research at the National Health Research Institutes (NHRIs) in Taiwan as an Investigator and GI oncologist. He then became a professor at the Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences and the Director of the Graduate Institute of Clinical Medicine at Taipei Medical University (TMU) in Taiwan. Dr. Tsai is the recipient of several international awards, including the Harvard Presidential Scholar (USA), Outstanding Research Award, Ministry of Science and Technology (Taiwan), Kobayashi’s Foundation Award, Kobayashi Foundation for Cancer Research (Japan), and the Young Scientists Research Achievement Award, National Health Research Institutes (Taiwan). He is the first or corresponding author of more than 50 research papers published in leading biomedical journals, including Nature Cancer (IF 28.5), Gastroenterology (IF 25.1), Gut (IF 25.8), and Cancer Research (IF 16.6). He also served as the PI or a co-PI in several GI cancer-related clinical trials. Dr. Tsai founded and led the Laboratory of Advanced Molecular Therapeutics (AMT Lab), which focuses on identifying fundamental mechanisms and targets that drive cancer aggressiveness and treatment resistance. Dr. Tsai’s significant scientific achievements include identifying several “Oncogenic Hubs” that regulate multiple developmental and stemness pathways that drive cancer progression and metastasis, which led to the development of first-in-class oncogenic-hub-targeted RNA interference therapies for solid tumors. Dr. Tsai also co-identified a chromatin-mediated cellular "Death Checkpoint" whereby most malignant tumors resist cytotoxic stress; targeting this pathway offers an exciting opportunity to sensitize malignant tumors to chemotherapy and immunotherapy. Dr. Tsai’s group recently identified novel invadosome signaling mechanisms and targets that drive cancer aggressiveness and metastasis. Based on these breakthrough findings, Dr. Tsai’s team developed first-in-class, multi-targeted therapeutic antibodies that simultaneously target metastasis-initiating cells and endothelial cells, providing an exciting new avenue for treating advanced-stage and metastatic cancers. Dr. Tsai is a member of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and the European Association for Cancer Research (EACR) and is an elected member of Sigma Xi.

Cancer invasiveness, metastasis, and treatment resistance are the leading causes of patient mortality. Notwithstanding many decades of basic and clinical research, the therapeutic outcome of patients with advanced-stage and metastatic cancers remains far from satisfactory. The Laboratory of Advanced Molecular Therapeutics (AMT Lab) research aims to identify novel and critical regulators of cancer invasion and treatment resistance, with potential diagnostic and therapeutic implications. Our group uses unique, integrative approaches that combine genetics, proteomics, bioinformatics, and tissue engineering principles to study cancer metastasis and its heterogeneity. The work at the AMT Lab on these themes has identified key mediators and novel mechanisms of cancer stemness, invasiveness, and treatment resistance, providing new avenues for developing breakthrough anti-cancer therapies, especially for advanced-stage and resistant cancers.