Dr. Shaw-Jenq (Sean) Tsai is the Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Physiology at the National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan. Dr. Tsai graduated from National Cheng Kung University in 1986 and received his PhD degree from University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA in 1997. He then returned to his home university as an assistant professor in 1998 and was promoted to full professor in 2005. Dr. Tsai has served as editorial board member for many journals including Journal of Endocrinology, and Journal of Molecular Endocrinology, Journal of Reproductive Medicine & Biology, Journal of Adaptive Medicine, and is the Asian editor of Experimental Biology and Medicine.

Dr. Tsai’s research focuses on investigating molecular mechanisms underlying important human diseases including cancer and endometriosis. In endometriosis research, Dr. Tsai is well-known for his pioneer work that demonstrates ectopic endometriotic stromal cells can utilize cholesterol as the precursor to synthesize progesterone, which is then converted to 17β-estradiol to support the survival and proliferation of ectopic endometriotic cells. Professor Tsai’s group also demonstrates that hypoxia inducible factor-1 is a master regulator that controls steroidogenesis, promotes angiogenesis, and suppresses phagocytic ability of macrophage via complicated gene regulatory network. In cancer research, Professor Tsai focuses on investigating molecular mechanism responsible for increasing drug resistance and cancer malignancy. His work has been highly cited in the field of cancer biology and reproductive medicine. Dr. Tsai was awarded the “Distinguished Scientist of 2014” by Society of Experimental Biology & Medicine and is the Ambassador of World Endometriosis Society.