Anne S. Tsao, MD, MBA is a tenured professor in the Department of Thoracic & Head and Neck Medical Oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC). She is the Section Chief for Thoracic Medical Oncology and also serves as the Thoracic & Orthopaedic Center Clinical Medical Director ad interim. She is the Director of the Mesothelioma Program and the Director of the Thoracic Chemo-Radiation Program at MDACC. She has served on several committees at MDACC as co-Chair of SRC, Chair of the Conflict of Interest Committee, Chair for the Thoracic Multi-disciplinary Tumor Board, and works with the Thoracic Service Line. Dr. Tsao is a clinician scientist and an expert in the treatment of patients with thoracic malignancies.

Dr. Tsao has authored over 150 peer-reviewed publications in several high-impact journals with several first and last-author publications in Journal of Clinical Oncology, CA Cancer, Lancet, Lancet Oncology, Journal of Thoracic Oncology, Cancer Cell, Nature Medicine Clinical Oncology, Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention (CEBP), and Molecular Cancer Therapeutics. Dr. Tsao conducts both clinical and translational laboratory research and is focused on identifying new therapeutic targets and developing novel strategies for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancers and mesothelioma. She co-led the NCI TCGA project for thymoma and thymic malignancies. She is the Principal Investigator of several active clinical trials at MDACC, and leads the clinical research efforts to change the paradigm for stage III NSCLC by replacing chemotherapy with immunotherapy. Dr. Tsao lectures nationally and internationally on these research subjects.

Dr Tsao has received numerous awards, including ASCO Merit Award, MD Anderson Achievement in Research Award, ASCO Young Investigator Award, ASCO Career Development Award, NIH Clinician Scientist K12 Award, and Head and Neck SPORE Career Development Award. She has served as Program Project Leader on several large grants, including the Department of Defense PROSPECT grant. Dr. Tsao is the PI for the NCI LAPS UG1 grant for MDACC, which supports many of the NCTN cooperative group trials at the institution. Dr. Tsao also holds the Fleming Endowed Professorship for Mesothelioma Cancer Research.
Dr. Tsao is highly active in oncology societies both nationally and internationally. This includes serving on the Scientific Advisory Committee and chairing sessions for the American Radium Society, Chair of the Communications Committee for International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC), and Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation (MARF). She developed and co-Chaired the 1st IASLC Mesothelioma Targeted Therapies meeting. She also serves on the SWOG Executive Lung Committee, SWOG Mesothelioma Steering Committee, DSMB for NRG Thoracic Oncology, and NRG Lung Executive Committee. For ASCO, she was selected to be in the ASCO Leadership Development Program, and she has subsequently been the track leader for the Cancer Education – Professional Development, track leader for the Cancer Education – Lung, served on the Professional Development Committee, ASCO Lifelong Learning Committee – MOC Lung Committee, and Government Relations Committee. She also assists ASCO in lobbying congressional leaders for improved research funding for cancer research.
In addition, Dr. Tsao has recently completed her executive MBA at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where she was nominated as one of the top 2 students to the Poets & Quants executive MBA Best and Brightest 2021 list. She has also completed a business data analytics certificate at MIT. Dr. Tsao will be returning to MIT as a guest lecturer in the Business Analytics Proseminar course on the effective use of big data in healthcare.