About the Authors

Frank Shiao

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

Li-Ching O. Liu

Affiliation College of Medicine, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan

Nanxi Huang

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

Robert J. Barndt

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

jkwang@ndmctsgh.edu.tw (JKW); lincy@georgetown.edu (CYL)

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

Bailing Jia

Affiliations Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Department of Oncology Georgetown University Washington DC, United States of America, Department of Gastroenterology, Henan Provincial People’s Hospital, Zhengzhou, China

Michael D. Johnson

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

Chen-Yong Lin

jkwang@ndmctsgh.edu.tw (JKW); lincy@georgetown.edu (CYL)

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: JKW MDJ CYL. Funding acquisition: JKW MDJ. Investigation: FS LCOL NH YJJL RJB CCT BJ. Methodology: CYL. Project administration: MDJ CYL. Resources: JKW BJ MDJ CYL. Supervision: JKW MDJ CYL. Validation: FS LCOL NH YJJL RJB CCT BJ. Visualization: CYL. Writing – original draft: CYL. Writing – review & editing: MDJ.