Within Dell Medical School and The University of Texas Medical Center, Dr. William Matsui has many roles. He is the vice dean of research, helping to accelerate health discovery and innovation by leveraging the expertise of collaborators across the University. And as a professor of oncology and internal medicine, subspecializing in cancers of the blood and bone marrow, Dr. Matsui has been part of UT’s efforts to find new treatments to eradicate cancer since 2018.
The need is urgent — in 2022 there were an estimated 1.9 million new cancer diagnoses in the US and more than 600,000 cancer-related deaths. Across the Forty Acres, experts in data science, artificial intelligence, robotics, material science and more are collaborating with medical researchers to explore new pathways and develop innovative solutions.
Read on to learn more about Dr. Matsui’s approach and his dedication to achieving results.
1. Why did you become an oncologist?
Ever since I was a college undergraduate, I have been interested in a career in research. As I contemplated what to do after college, I considered graduate school and getting a Ph.D. so I could better understand human diseases. My laboratory mentor suggested I go to medical school, and I followed that advice. In medical school I realized it wasn’t clear how what we studied in the lab connected to patient care. I wanted to link these things, and the clinical specialties that made the most sense for me were oncology or endocrinology.
During medical school and my training in internal medicine, I was drawn to oncology because treatments based on scientific findings were evolving at a rapid pace. I also enjoy taking care of cancer patients because they often have complex medical problems, and there is the opportunity to work closely with patients over long periods of time.
2. What is your personal philosophy of patient care?
The problems oncologists see are tough, and unfortunately there are limitations to what we can do with chemotherapy, surgery and radiation. But even if treatments are limited, there are always two things we can do. The first is to continue to care for the patient and improve their pain and anxiety. A major part of an oncologist’s job is to support the patient and their family throughout the entire course of the disease. The second is that we can always communicate with patients by giving them an understanding of their cancer, how it is affecting them and what to expect with different treatments. A lot of this is really explaining how I think about their case, and I think giving my patients information gives them more control and makes their situation feel a little less scary.
Having been fortunate to care for cancer patients for 25 years, the most important thing I’ve learned is there is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Everybody’s needs are different, and that includes how to communicate with them and their families. This can take a lot of time, but I have the benefit of being in an academic practice where I don’t need to see as many patients as possible. Having time to spend with patients allows me to do the best job possible.
It's really rewarding to take care of patients and their families.
3. Why is it important to involve other family members in your primary patient’s care?
A cancer diagnosis is stressful, and when we talk to patients, especially seeing them for the first time, we often cover many topics and give them a lot of information, which is hard to absorb. Having another set of ears is always helpful, as is having someone else understand what lies ahead for the patient. It’s really rewarding to take care of patients and their families because both parties can have separate needs, and balancing them can give the patient the best care.
4. What does donor support mean for UT researchers who want to move the needle on improving health?
All research needs funding to purchase equipment and pay individuals to do experiments. The traditional way to fund research is to write a grant to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), but most of what gets funded is incremental — we’ve already discovered something and now want to see what happens when we tweak it a little. But if there are truly new ideas about how a disease comes about or can be treated, they would have a hard time getting funded by the NIH. The idea is still too immature.
Donations and research gifts give us a chance to begin work on new ideas. I was on the faculty at Johns Hopkins University before I came to UT. The reason I came here is that Dell Med has a chance to be the catalyst for something new and needed in Austin, and it’s part of this vast campus that has both broad and deep research expertise in disciplines that can impact health in both traditional and novel ways. Being here gives me the ability to see something interesting and think about how it may lead to a new way of diagnosing or treating cancer. Having access to donor funds allows me to approach a researcher on campus and say “let’s see if this works” and carry out the first set of experiments to see if we are on the right track.
Donor funds allow us to explore new opportunities for patient care and build the University’s reputation as a powerhouse.
At Hopkins, I attended a talk by a developmental biologist who studied how embryos form. It made me start thinking that cancer formation is like an organ developing in an embryo, and perhaps the things the development biologist was studying could apply to cancer. Our labs worked together on these ideas, and we carried out clinical trials in multiple myeloma and leukemia. Eventually our work got funded, but in the beginning, we needed funds to start exploring these ideas. Right at the beginning of investigation is when donor funds really come in handy — to fund new ideas and get equipment that takes you to the next level research-wise.
5. What does increased capacity for innovative research mean to Dell Medical School and Central Texas?
Dell Medical School is important because we are built on the foundation of the UT Austin campus, with its rich research expertise and capabilities. Donor funds allow us to explore new opportunities for patient care and build the University’s reputation as a powerhouse in this area, as it is in many other fields of study. That’s important for the people of Austin and Central Texas because it will bring experts who both research specific diseases and see the patients to expand and improve highly specialized care. And the UT Austin Medical Center will help us continue to build a community of inquiry and investigation and establish Austin as a hub where innovative therapies are discovered and developed. My job is to lay the foundation for all this to happen.
Want to learn more about Dr. Matsui’s impact on his patients? 
