Dr. Tsai has made significant strides in the area of clinical research during her early career at Children’s Mercy/UMKC. She has served as the Assistant Director of Clinical Research in the Division of Endocrinology for the past 6 years. She obtained an internal grant in 2012 from the Cross Foundation which led to a randomized control trial of motivational interviewing in adolescents with type 1 diabetes. This complex study was successfully completed with a high retention rate. The results of this study have been presented at the American Diabetes Association. She published a paper regarding out study methodology. She led the development of a new pediatric diabetes knowledge test (M-WIKAD), which is a validated measure of diabetes knowledge in Adolescents with Type 1 Diabetes. The research team presented M-WIKAD at the prestigious International Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Diabetes (ISPAD) conference in Australia in 2015, which is an international pediatric diabetes conference. The measure was recently published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Dr. Tsai has been productive in the area of adrenal insufficiency. She was invited to Canada to present her team’s discovery of a founder effect in the province of Newfoundland. Specifically, they identified a novel variant of the StAR protein resulting in a less severe phenotype of congenital lipoid adrenal hyperplasia. The adrenal research working group at CMH has also recently published a paper in which they describe their recent finding that morning cortisol levels vary with sex and pubertal status.

Dr. Tsai has served as a primary investigator on a pharmaceutical study. She has been a subinvestigator on numerous multicenter clinical trials. She earned designation as a Certified Principal Investigator (CPI) via the Association of Clinical Research Professionals.

She has authored 11 peer reviewed manuscripts (8 as first author) since she began working at CMH and published 9 abstracts. She has reviewed numerous manuscripts for high quality journals. She has supervised several medical student, pediatric resident and fellow research projects.