About the Authors

Hui Chen Su

Affiliation Department of Pharmacy, Chi-Mei Medical Center, Tainan, Taiwan

Yan A. Liang

Affiliation Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Department of Oncology Georgetown University, Washington DC, United States of America

Ying-Jung J. Lai

Affiliation Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Department of Oncology Georgetown University, Washington DC, United States of America

Yi-Lin Chiu

Affiliation Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Department of Oncology Georgetown University, Washington DC, United States of America

Robert B. Barndt

Affiliation Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Department of Oncology Georgetown University, Washington DC, United States of America

Frank Shiao

Affiliation Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Department of Oncology Georgetown University, Washington DC, United States of America

Hsiang-Hua D. Chang

Affiliations Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Department of Oncology Georgetown University, Washington DC, United States of America, Department of Biochemistry, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan

Dajun D. Lu

Affiliation Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Department of Oncology Georgetown University, Washington DC, United States of America

Nanxi Huang

Affiliation Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Department of Oncology Georgetown University, Washington DC, United States of America

Chun-Che Tseng

Affiliation Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Department of Oncology Georgetown University, Washington DC, United States of America

Jehng-Kang Wang

Affiliation Department of Biochemistry, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan

Ming-Shyue Lee

Affiliation Graduate Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, College of Medicine National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

Michael D. Johnson

Affiliation Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Department of Oncology Georgetown University, Washington DC, United States of America

Shih-Ming Huang

lincy@georgetown.edu (CYL); shihming@mail.ndmctsgh.edu.tw (SMH)

Affiliation Department of Biochemistry, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan

Chen-Yong Lin

lincy@georgetown.edu (CYL); shihming@mail.ndmctsgh.edu.tw (SMH)

Affiliation Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Department of Oncology Georgetown University, Washington DC, United States of America

Competing Interests

C.-Y.L is an inventor on US patents #6,077,938 (Title: Monoclonal antibody to an 80-kDa protease) and #6,677,377 (Title: Structure based discovery of inhibitors of matriptase for the cancer diagnosis and therapy by detection and inhibition of matriptase activity), and M.D.J and C.-Y.L are inventors on US patent #7,355,015 (Title: Matriptase, a serine protease and its applications). This does not alter the authors’ adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: JKW MDJ CYL. Data curation: MDJ CYL. Formal analysis: MDJ CYL. Funding acquisition: HCS SMH. Investigation: YAL YJJL YLC RBB FS HHDC DDL NH CCT. Methodology: JKW MSL CYL. Project administration: MDJ. Resources: MDJ. Supervision: MDJ CYL. Visualization: YAL YJJL YLC RBB FS HHDC DDL NH CCT. Writing – original draft: CYL. Writing – review & editing: MDJ.