Makoto Tahara, MD, PhD is Chief of the Division of Head and Neck Medical Oncology at the National Cancer Center Hospital East in Kashiwa, Japan. He graduated in 1996 from Hiroshima University School of Medicine, Japan, did his internal medicine training at Hiroshima University Hospital of Medicine and became a board-certified specialist in Internal Medicine in 2003. He has worked in the filed of Medical Oncology since 1998, initially as a resident at the Division of GI Oncology and Endoscopy in National Cancer Center Hospital East, Kashiwa, Japan, later as a Staff physician at the Division of Oncology/Hematology of the same institute, and became a board-certified specialist in Medical Oncology in 2006. He received his PhD in Medical Sciences in 2004 from Hiroshima University School of Medicine. His main fields of interest are GI Oncology and Head and Neck Oncology. His main research areas include clinical trials of chemotherapy or chemoradiotherapy for both esophageal and head and neck cancer. In addition, he has coordinated large trials as a group manager of Head and Neck cancer group in the Japanese Clinical Oncology Group (JCOG). He devotes a significant amount of time to teaching, professional training, and continuing education of medical oncology. He serves as a reviewer or member of the editorial board of four international journals including Annals of Oncology and has authored or co-authored more than 50 international publications. He is a member of steering committee of three global trials of new drugs for head and neck cancer including thyroid cancer. He received an Award of an alumni association of the National Cancer Center in 2005 and “Paper of the Year 2005” in Japanese Journal of Clinical Oncology.