Phan Toan Thang

MD PhD

Founding Director and Group Chief Scientific Officer

Associate Professor and Principal Investigator of the Wound Healing and Stem Cell Research Group, Department of Surgery, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore. 

Professor Phan is a founding director and CSO of CellResearch Corporation Group of Companies. A graduate of the Military Medical University, Hanoi, Vietnam in 1991, Prof. Phan Toan Thang has had a strong interest in wound healing since the earliest days of his medical and scientific career. His interest led him to hands-on experience during his four-year surgical residency in Hanoi at the National Institute of Burns and at the Army Hospital 103. Prof. Phan's commitment and excellence in laboratory research was proven when he spent two years at the prestigious Wound Healing Institute and Department of Dermatology in Oxford, England. 

He arrived in Singapore in 1997 to join the Department of Plastic Surgery at the Singapore General Hospital. In 1998, he met Mr Ivor Lim, and together they established the Skin Cell Research Group (currently Wound Healing and Stem Cell Research Group) focusing on skin and keloid scar biology. The Wound Healing and Stem Cell Research Group was the first group in the world to explore the role of epithelial-mesenchymal interactions in keloid pathogenesis, and is recognised today as one of the world leading groups in keloid and scar biology research. 

Prior to taking up his faculty position at the Department of Surgery, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine and Faculty of Dentistry at the National University of Singapore, Prof. Phan completed two years of post-doctoral research at the Stanford University Children Surgical Research Laboratory. 

Prof. Phan is author of more than 80 publications in international peer-reviewed journals, two book chapters, has more than 35 granted patents and serves as a reviewer for prestigious international scientific journals as well as local and international research funding bodies. His recent innovative research work is the discovery of a novel source of stem cells from the umbilical cord lining membrane with translational potential for regenerative medicine, tissue engineering and cell-based therapy.