Interview: Changing advanced lung cancer into chronic disease

James Chih-Hsin Yang^* speaks to Marco De Ambrogi, Commissioning Editor: Dr James Chih-Hsin Yang is a Professor of Graduate Institute of Oncology, joint appointed in the Graduate Institute of Clinical Medicine and the Graduate Institute of Clinical Pharmacy at the College of Medicine, National Taiwan University (Taipei, Taiwan). He is currently the Cancer Research Center Director, and serves as the Director for the Department of Medical Research and Deputy Director of the Department of Oncology in National Taiwan University Hospital. He has been a staff member in the Department of Oncology at the University Hospital since 1995. Dr Yang received his MD in 1986 and completed his internal medicine residency at the National Taiwan University Hospital. Between 1992 and 1995, he undertook oncology fellowship training at the National Cancer Institute at Bethesda (MD, USA). He completed his PhD degree between 1996 and 2000 at the Graduate Institute of Clinical Medicine, National Taiwan University. Dr Yang’s research focuses on lung cancer treatment and the mechanism of multidrug resistance of chemotherapy or targeted therapy. His basic research works included molecular mechanisms of resistance and reversal of resistance to chemotherapeutic agents and tyrosine kinase inhibitors. Dr Yang currently serves as the Executive Secretary of the Taiwan Lung Cancer Clinical Trial Consortium. In addition, he serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Annals of Oncology and Lung Cancer, he is the associate editor of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Oncology and the Journal of the Formosan Medical Association. Dr Yang is a leader in lung cancer clinical studies, especially in the development of EGF receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors. He has attended many advisory boards for clinical trial preparation and drug development. He recently received the second Kobayashi Foundation Cancer Research Award in 2012 and distinguished research award of National Science Council, Taiwan in 2013.

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