The research experience of Man-Wah Tan, Ph.D., spans industry and academia. Currently he is Vice President and senior fellow at Genentech Research and Early Development, based in South San Francisco, Calif. In his role, he heads the infectious diseases therapeutic area and host-microbe Interactions research. He heads the teams responsible for the discovery and development of transformative therapeutics against hard-to-treat diseases and infectious agents of medical importance, with special emphasis on viral and bacterial pathogens. He also leads discovery efforts in unraveling the molecular basis of host-microbe interactions and investigations into the roles of the microbiota in health and diseases, with a focus on gastrointestinal and lung diseases and immuno-oncology.

Before joining Genentech in 2010, Tan served on the faculty at the Genetics Department at Stanford University School of Medicine for more than 10 years. He received his M.Phil. from the University of Cambridge and Ph.D. from Harvard University. His first principal investigator position, prior to moving to Stanford, was as a Harvard junior fellow at Harvard University and assistant in molecular biology at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Tan has published more than 80 research articles and contributed to the discovery of 1 FDA-approved medicine and 6 other clinical assets that span diverse therapeutic modalities: monoclonal antibody, antibody-antibiotic conjugate and small molecule antibiotics.