AACR on Campus Taiwan: Providing a New Perspective on Cancer Research 

March 25, 2026 by

As a PhD student at the National Taiwan University College of Medicine, Chi-Ya Shen says most of her exposure to the international cancer community comes through papers, classroom discussions, and catching the occasional talk from prominent researchers online.

“While these are essential, they often feel removed from the people and thought processes driving the science,” she explained.

Helping early-career investigators like Shen engage with some of the top cancer researchers in their fields is one of the reasons the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) developed the AACR on Campus program. These events are held at research institutions in low- or middle-resource settings around the world—including India, Brazil, and Malaysia—with scientific sessions tailored to fit each country’s research priorities through a collaboration between local researchers and international colleagues. 

In November 2025, Shen got to experience the benefit of this program firsthand when two AACR on Campus events were held in Taiwan, providing her with the rare opportunity to interact with the global research community in person.

Chi-Ya Shen accepting the top prize for the poster competition from AACR President Lillian L. Siu, MD, FAACR, at the AACR on Campus event in Tainan, Taiwan.

“It was profoundly meaningful for me as an early-career researcher,” Shen explained. “It highlighted how local research can be further enriched through global perspectives, reinforcing the idea that impactful cancer research emerges from both solid local foundations and international collaboration. It also bridged the gap between simply reading science and truly understanding how impactful research is conceived and executed.”

Hearing Science Directly From the Source

AACR partnered with the National Health Research Institutes in Taiwan and the College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University to host the AACR on Campus events in Taipei and Tainan. Among the international researchers who spoke at both events was AACR President Lillian L. Siu, MD, FAACR, of Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Canada, who participated in a discussion about phase I clinical trials.

“When I was a trainee, the majority of drug development was being done in North America and Western Europe,” Siu said. “However, over the past 30 years, we have seen clinical research expand across the globe, including Asia-Pacific countries where researchers are now leading the field in certain areas.”

In fact, one of the pieces of advice that Siu offered during the AACR on Campus sessions was for researchers to open trials in the Asia-Pacific region when looking to enroll patients with certain cancer types. For example, she explained how Asia has a higher incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma—the most common form of liver cancer—which could make it easier to find patients for trials compared to North America. While she acknowledged there are still a lot of questions around how the data obtained from trials in the Asia-Pacific region would need to be bridged before they can be accepted for regulatory approval in North America, she also sees a time when that will no longer be necessary.

“We are seeing improvement in data quality across the globe, even from centers that have not conducted phase I trials in a long time,” she explained. “I think bridging studies will be a thing of the past in the near future as drug development increasingly becomes globalized and our colleagues in countries like Taiwan are eager to engage in the world scene.”

John Wen-Cheng Chang MD, of Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and honorary president of the Taiwan Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer; Tai-Lung Cha, MD, PhD, director of Taiwan’s National Institute of Cancer Research; Linda Liau, MD, PhD, MBA, of the University of California Los Angeles; James Chih-Hsin Yang, MD, PhD, director of the National Taiwan University Cancer Center; Huey-Kang Sytwu, MD, PhD, President of Taiwan’s National Health Research Institutes; Pan-Chyr Yang, MD, PhD, of the National Taiwan University College of Medicine; AACR President  Lillian Siu, MD, FAACR; Yun Yen, MD, PhD, chairperson of the Taiwan Biomedical Innovation Association; and Bradley Miller, PhD, AACR director of professional development.

Other international speakers at both events were Linda M. Liau, MD, PhD, MBA, of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), who talked about immunotherapies; E.G. Elisabeth de Vries, MD, PhD, of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, who discussed bringing molecular imaging into translational medicine; and Michael Angelo, MD, PhD, of Stanford University, who explained new ways to perform genomic analyses of cancer.   

“What I gained most from these sessions was insight into the thought process behind impactful research,” Shen said. “Scientific publications often present a polished and linear story, but direct interaction with researchers revealed how ideas evolve, experimental strategies take shape, and challenges are navigated in real time. So hearing how they balance mechanistic depth with real-world impact helped me better understand what it means to pursue research that can ultimately benefit patients.”

Connecting With the Global Cancer Community 

The other highlight for Shen was the chance to present her own work during the poster session. Her research is focused on understanding how tumor-derived signals can actively suppress metastatic progression in lung adenocarcinoma. More specifically, she is investigating a secreted tumor-suppressive factor that limits invasion and metastasis by regulating extracellular matrix remodeling with the goal of identifying pathways that may inform therapeutic strategies or serve as biomarkers.

“Receiving feedback from scientists across diverse fields was both encouraging and eye-opening,” Shen said. “The conversations pushed me to think more broadly about my research and helped me see how my work fits into the larger landscape of cancer research.”

Shu-Han Yu, PhD, who won the poster competition at the AACRoC event in Taipei, Taiwan, with Judy N. Quong, PhD, former senior director in AACR’s Research and Grants Administration department; Marlowe Tessmer, PhD, executive editor of of AACR’s journal Clinical Cancer Research; Linda M. Liau, MD, PhD, MBA, professor and director of the UCLA Brain Tumor Program; AACR President Lillian L. Siu, MD, FAACR, senior medical oncologist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre; E.G. Elisabeth de Vries, MD, PhD, professor of medical oncology at the University Medical Centre Groningen; and Michael Angelo, MD, PhD, assistant professor in the department of Pathology at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Shen will now be able to continue those conversations with an even larger group of cancer researchers around the world because her work won the Best Poster Prize at the AACR on Campus Tainan event—earning her a trip to the AACR Annual Meeting 2026 in San Diego from April 17 to 22. Shen will be joined by Shu-Han Yu, PhD, an assistant professor at the National Taiwan University College of Medicine, whose poster on developing a prognostic model for oral squamous cell carcinoma won the Best Poster Prize at the Taipei event. For Shen, this will be her first time attending the AACR Annual Meeting.

“I value these opportunities for in-person interaction because they not only broaden our understanding of each other’s work but also foster collaborations that can accelerate progress in cancer research,” Shen said.

Highlights from both AACRoC Taiwan events can be viewed in the below video.