He has long been engaged in clinical diagnosis and treatment, basic and translational research, and teaching in hepatic tumor surgery. He has performed more than 11,000 liver cancer resections and over 3,190 liver transplants, including the world's first adult-to-child "discarded" liver transplant, Asia's first combined adult liver-heart transplant, China's first classic split liver transplant, and Shanghai's first adult-to-adult right-lobe living donor liver transplant. These efforts have markedly improved the survival rate of patients with liver cancer. He has conducted systematic research on liver transplantation for liver cancer and proposed the indications for liver transplantation in liver cancer in China, namely the "Shanghai Fudan Criteria". He systematically deciphered the molecular mechanisms regulating the microenvironment of liver cancer metastasis and recurrence, established molecular subtypes for hepatocellular carcinoma and intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma as well as predictive models for early diagnosis and metastasis/recurrence of liver cancer, and achieved translational application of multiple clinical technologies.

He pioneered a multimodal comprehensive therapy for portal vein tumor thrombus in liver cancer, turning previously untreatable advanced liver cancer with portal vein tumor thrombus into a partially treatable condition.

He leads multiple international multicenter clinical studies. He headed over 40 global experts of the Lancet Commission on Liver Cancer to write the Lancet Commission report on liver cancer. As of 2024, this is the only Lancet Commission report among more than 50 diseases led by an Eastern scholar. These achievements have contributed greatly to establishing China’s leading position in the international academic community for liver cancer clinical practice and research. As of September 2024, as the first completer, he was awarded the First Prize of the Natural Science Award of the Ministry of Education (2016) and the Second Prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award (2008, 2012). As a major participant, he received two Second Prizes of the National Science and Technology Progress Award (2015, 2020) and one First Prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award (2006). He has published more than 690 SCI papers. As a corresponding author (including co-corresponding authors), he has published over 310 SCI papers, including 3 in Cell, 1 in Nature, 1 in Science, 2 in Lancet Oncology, 2 in Cancer Discovery, 3 in Cancer Cell, 2 in Journal of Clinical Oncology, 4 in Gastroenterology, 16 in Hepatology, and 2 in Gut. His H-index is 93.