Research Activities:

A graduate of the Military Academy of Medicine, Hanoi, Vietnam in 1991, Dr Phan Toan Thang had a strong interest in wound healing from the earliest days of his medical and scientific career which increased during his four-year surgical residency in Hanoi at the National Institute of Burns and at the Army Hospital 103. These centres treated major burns victims and Vietnam War veterans, both military and civilian, with chronic wounds and cancers developing in longstanding scars from burns inflicted by horrific napalm and white phosphorus injuries during the war.

Dr Phan's interest in laboratory research was refined when he spent two years at the prestigious Wound Healing Institute and Department of Dermatology in Oxford, England. During this period, he worked closely with well-known experts in the field of skin and wound research, namely Professors George Cherry, Terrence Ryan and Fenella Wojnarowska. He developed his expertise in different translational research aspects of skin cell culture, as well as in-vitro and pig wound healing models, larval debridement therapy and clinical chronic venous leg ulcers.

He arrived in Singapore to join the Department of Plastic Surgery at the Singapore General Hospital in December 1997 to continue his research on wound healing and skin tissue engineering with local prestigious plastic surgeons, namely Professor Lee Seng Teik, Dr Colin Song. In mid 1998, he met Dr Ivor Lim, a plastic surgery registrar at that time, and together they established the Skin Cell Research Group (currently Wound Healing and Stem Cell Research Group) focusing on skin and keloid scar biology. Dr Lim is currently a consultant plastic and hand surgeon and was the first plastic surgeon in Singapore to obtain the prestigious FRCS (Plastic Surgery) diploma as well as the Macgregor gold medal. 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 recognized today as one of the world leading groups in keloid and scar biology research. Under the direction of Dr Phan, the output from the Wound Healing and Stem Cell Research Group has been prodigious with numerous publications in key biomedical journals, and presentations in international scientific conferences, notably the Gordon Scientific Research Conference on Tissue Repair and Regeneration. Together, they hold numerous research grants, both local and international, and have received multiple research awards including the National Medical Research Council Young Scientist Award and the Saleh M. Shenaq International Research Award from the Plastic Surgery Research Council, USA

Prior to taking up his faculty position at the Department of Surgery and Division of Bioengineering at the National University of Singapore , Dr Phan completed one and a half years of post-doctoral research at the Stanford University Children Surgical Research Laboratory, working with a world leading plastic surgery clinician-scientist, Professor Michael Longaker.

Dr Phan is author of more than 50 publications in international peer-reviewed journals, one book chapter, has 9 filed and pending 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. Dr Phan is also a co-founder and share holder of Singapore-based biotech start-up companies, CellResearch Corporation Pte Ltd and CordLabs Pte Ltd which were formed to commercialize cell research, scar, skin wound healing, as well as stem cell research and development.