In 1958, SCI was founded, and it was affiliated to Shanghai Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning. In 1980, the institute was designated as WHO Collaborating Center for Research on Cancer . In 1985, the establishment of State Key Laboratory of Oncogenes & Related Genes was approved, and the laboratory passed the acceptance test and was open in1987. In 1996, SCI and Shanghai Municipal Commission of Science and Technology set up gene therapy research pilot test base in Shanghai. In 2003, SCI and SJTU set up SJTU Cancer Institute. In 2010, SCI and Renji Hospital were merged into “a unity” . The institute covers an area of 6356m2, with an existing laboratory space of 10500m2, and owns a State Key Laboratory of Oncogenes & Related Genes, including 16 research groups(labs) such as tumor microenvironment and tumor molecular pathology, as well as research support departments such as animal experiment center, core facilities and editorial department of Tumor Journal. SCI has 117 full-time employees, 75% of whom are professional researchers and 65% hold a graduate degree, including 3 CAE academicians and 1 national tenured professor. There are 28 senior professional reseasrcher , 24 graduate student supervisors (14 doctoral supervisors and 10 master supervisors) and 65 graduate students (41 doctoral students and 24 master students).

Since the 12th Five-year Plan, SCI has implemented the strategy of “reinvigorating the institute through human resource development” , introduced foreign experts under the National "Thousand Talents " Program, and 23 professors have been included into national and municipal talent programs, such as the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, Shanghai Outstanding Academic Leaders Program, Shanghai Leading Talents Program, MOE Program for New Century Excellent Talents, Shanghai Pujiang Talents Program, Shanghai Science & Technology Morning Star Program, Shanghai Youth Science & Technology Talent Program, etc. They have undertaken 190 scientific research projects (95 national projects) with total scientific research funds of 139.1253 million yuan, including 1 MOST-led major project, 2 “973 Program” projects, 1 project of National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars and 76 NSFC projects.

SCI has successfully developed the world’ s first CAR-T cell for liver cancer with significant clinical trial outcome, making it stay ahead of international CAR-T immunotherapy research. SCI has been awarded 11 science & technology awards and published 274 SCI papers on Lancet Oncology, Nature Cell Biology, Gastroenterology and other journals. SCI has obtained 40 invention patents, and 8 of them have been transferred with an amount of over 12 million yuan, which has achieved leaping development of translational medicine research.

SCI has maintained frequent exchanges with foreign countries, and has established cooperation with prestigious universities and institutes in more than 20 countries, e.g. National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Cancer Institute (NCI), Yale University, University of Pittsburgh, Vanderbilt University, the Netherlands Cancer Institute and Seoul National University. Meanwhile, it has hired several foreign famous experts and professors as advisors to promote mutual academic exchange.

The magazine Tumor run by SCI is a national professional journal created in 1981. It has become a national core journal since 1985.

The bi-monthly magazine has begun to be published on a monthly basis since 2006.