Consistent with our clinical observations, in in vitro assays, we demonstrated that treatment with platinum chemotherapeutic agents enhances the cell surface expression of EpCAM in ovarian cancer cells, and the subpopulation of EpCAM-positive cells showed significantly higher viability compared with EpCAM-negative cells in response to cisplatin treatment by preventing chemotherapy-induced apoptosis. The gene discussed is EPCAM; the disease is ovarian carcinoma.