Hiroshi Nakagawa, MD, PhD is an associate professor of medicine and director of the Cell Culture & Organoid Core at the Columbia University Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center. He possesses extensive knowledge in the field of gastrointestinal epithelial biology, tumor biology, and molecular and cellular biology. His specific training and expertise in key research areas have enabled him to carry out in-depth investigations in these fields. During his postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital (1993-1996), he investigated the regulation of cell cycle through cyclin D1 and the transcriptional regulation of genes in the esophageal squamous epithelium. He also created the first transgenic mouse model of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) during this time. From 1998 to 2019, at the University of Pennsylvania, he expanded his research to study molecules essential to the intratumoral cancer cell heterogeneity of ESCC, such as EGFR, Notch, and CD44. He also researched environmental risk factors like alcohol for esophageal carcinogenesis. He has developed physiologically relevant esophageal three-dimensional (3D) culture systems including 3D organoids that recapitulate the morphology and functions of original tissues and are translatable in personalized medicine through drug testing and prediction of therapy response.