Prof.David Hui-Kang Ma Taiwan

Professor David Hui-Kang Ma is currently a senior professor and the director of the Limbal Stem Cell (LSC) Laboratory in the Department of Ophthalmology at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital (CGMH) in Taipei. He also serves as the director of the program committee for the Taiwan Society of Cataract & Refractive Surgery (TSCRS). Professor Ma completed his ophthalmology training at CGMH in 1993 and later earned a Ph.D. from the Graduate Institute of Clinical Medicine at Chang Gung University. He studied at UCSF from 1998 to 1999 as a post-doctoral fellow. Since 2003, he has been the director of the LSC Laboratory, which is dedicated to cell therapy clinical trials. The LSC Laboratory is one of the few institutes that has obtained permission from the Taiwan FDA to conduct clinical trials on cultivated oral mucosal epithelial transplantation. From 2008 to 2011, he served as the director of the Section of Cornea, and from 2011 to 2015, he was the chairman of the department. He was the editor-in-chief of the Taiwan Journal of Ophthalmology from 2015 to 2023. In recent years, he has not only promoted new cataract, corneal, and refractive surgeries but has also served as an advisor for international fellows who studied in Taiwan with him. His fellows have come from various regions, including Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Europe. Professor Ma’s research focuses on the regulation of LSC proliferation and cultivated epithelial stem cell transplantation. He has published over 120 SCI papers on LSC biology, tissue engineering, and corneal surgeries in prestigious journals such as PRER and Ophthalmology. His most recent research projects involve the treatment of Stevens-Johnson Syndrome/Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis (SJS/TEN), cultivating nasal mucosal epithelial cells for ocular surface reconstruction, and FLACS.