Dr. Hung-Chi Cheng

• Associate professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, National Cheng Kung University College of Medicine, Tainan, Taiwan

Hung-Chi Cheng, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, National Cheng Kung University College of Medicine, Tainan, Taiwan. Dr. Cheng, in his early ages, was educated in Taiwan and obtained his B. V. M. in 1987 and M. V. M. in 1989. He then received his Ph.D. degree in 2000 from Department of Molecular Medicine, Cornell University at Ithaca, NY, USA. He was trained as a Postdoc and Research Associate also at Cornell University before becoming an Assistant Professor in 2005 and being promoted as an Associate Professor from 2012 till now here at NCKU. Dr. Cheng’s research has since focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying the fibronectin/CD26-mediated colonization, extravasation, and metastasis of blood-borne tumor cells in distant organs. He is particularly interested in how blood-borne tumor cells with the metastatic potential are able to assemble polymeric fibronectin on plasma membranes and the role of CD26 in serving as a fibronectin receptor on endothelia of distant tissues and in the circulatory immunesurveillance against blood-borne tumor cells. His ultimate goal is to come up with novel fibronectin/CD26-based therapeutic strategies against tumor metastasis.