“I think many people will try to achieve the same thing.”
Upon seeing a wound, many people will turn away, partly out of fear, partly out of concern. This is not true for Associate Professor, Doctor, Phan Toan Thang. He sees the miracle within them.
“I like wounds. I think healing them is a wonderful thing,” Dr. Thang said. This is truly the passion of a genuine scientist. This passion later led him to valuable scientific discoveries and to co-found a biotechnology company valued at $700 million in Singapore.
Dr. Phan Toan Thang, co-founder of Cellresearch Corp, Singapore.
There are many research works credited to Dr. Phan Toan Thang, but let’s talk about the recent story when he discovered a way to create skin cells using the membrane from the umbilical cord. This technology helps overcome many drawbacks in traditional burn treatments, where doctors have to use a limited source of the patient’s own skin.
Cells from the umbilical cord membrane can provide an unlimited supply of stem cells. From there, they can form skin, bones, and even other organs in the body, such as the cornea. This method, therefore, has high application potential in healing wounds caused by burns or diabetes.
Not content with his laboratory research, Dr. Thang also wanted to put his work into practical application. In 2002, the biotechnology company Cellresearch Corp, which he co-founded, was born.
During more than 10 years of operation in its field, Cellresearch Corp has owned 39 global patents. These are patents for extracting stem cells from the umbilical cord membrane, nurturing and preserving them in stem cell banks, along with many other therapeutic applications. All of these have contributed to a company worth $700 million.
Stem cell therapy for wound healing is being conducted under the approval of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Dr. Thang said in The Straits Times of Singapore. The cells are being produced in Denver, USA, and human clinical trials are expected to take place early next year.
“Unhealed wounds are a major burden on healthcare everywhere. They are associated with diabetes, stroke, heart disease, and aging,” Dr. Thang said. His new technology is important as it can help patients undergo skin grafts at a more affordable cost.
Commenting on this research, Dr. Por Yong Chen from the College of Surgeons, Singapore, said that FDA approval would confirm Singapore’s position in the field. “Wound healing is a large market, especially for diabetic patients,” Dr. Chen said. “This is a significant breakthrough. I think many people will try to achieve the same thing.”
Dr. Thang holding a sample of the umbilical membrane used to extract stem cells (Photo by The Straits Times).
The Straits Times of Singapore also recounted Dr. Thang’s journey to success. He left Vietnam and started working at the Burns Department of Singapore General Hospital in 1997. Dr. Thang is now a Singaporean citizen.
Then, in 2002, around the time his company Cellresearch Corp was founded, Dr. Thang moved to work at the Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Stanford University, USA. During his two years of research there, he found a way to extract stem cells from the placenta to treat liver damage.
In 2004, Dr. Thang returned to Singapore and decided to continue researching the placenta and umbilical cord. At that time, global medicine had advanced to using stem cells in umbilical cord blood to help patients treat diseases such as leukemia and many other cancers and blood disorders.
The research program started with the support of Mr. Gavin Tan, CEO of Cellresearch Corp. Mr. Tan brought Dr. Thang two laboratory jars at that time. One contained the placenta and the other contained the umbilical cord of his wife after giving birth. Dr. Thang worked with the placenta first. He quickly realized it was damaged.
But the doctor’s life changed the moment he looked at the other jar. He said, “I turned my eyes to the next jar. It contained an umbilical cord floating. It was very clean, not contaminated by blood, white, and floating charmingly in the preservation medium.”
Afterward, he had to work tirelessly and face many failures to perfect the umbilical cord preservation medium. The final result did not disappoint him, as a perfect environment was created by combining sugars and proteins. This exclusive formula keeps the umbilical cord tissues alive and disinfected at a standard level.
“Looking back to that time, I lived in the laboratory. I turned off my phone, and my wife once went crazy because of it,” Dr. Thang laughed. He could even run straight to the lab if a sudden idea popped into his head.
Dr. Phan Toan Thang and the exclusive scientific product for preserving umbilical cords (Photo by The Straits Times).
It must also be said that a new approach brought Dr. Thang’s name to new heights. Sharing about the research trends of scientists at that time, Dr. Thang said, “At that time, no one cared about the skin. They only focused on cancer and heart issues. We quietly did that work.”
Dr. Thang graduated from the Military Medical Academy in 1991. He then started his career at the National Burns Institute of Vietnam. “I didn’t have time and money to do meaningless things. So I just focused on studying. Working really hard, learning Russian and English,” Dr. Thang said.
Efforts led to the first successes. In 1995, he received a scholarship from Oxford University, UK. The opportunity was granted by a dermatology professor visiting the hospital where he worked. That was the final turning point in Vietnam that led him to his current life in Singapore.
During his time at Oxford University, he met a Singaporean who became a bridge for him to contact Professor Lee Seng Teik, who was then the head of cosmetic surgery at the Burns Department of Singapore General Hospital. Professor Lee offered Dr. Thang a job in his team in 1997. He was tasked with healing wounds and creating new skin cells.
“We had to take skin cells from the patient’s unburned area and then multiply them in the lab. Then return them to the patient,” Dr. Thang said. Sometimes the cells didn’t work and needed time to multiply. “The whole process was very expensive. We could only do this with a few patients,” he said.
About a year later, Dr. Thang met Dr. Ivor Lim, who co-founded Cellresearch Corp with him and Gavin Tan. They researched the scarring process together. This work brought him an award in 2001 and 2002 for identifying a function of the skin’s surface that helps form scars.
Talking about the trends of those days, many scientists focused on using stem cells from embryos. Therefore, a lot of opposition arose. By focusing on the umbilical cord, Dr. Thang avoided the sensitive research direction.
“That wasn’t easy at all. But luckily, we succeeded,” Dr. Thang said.
Today, Dr. Thang is an associate professor in the surgery department of Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore. He has turned the umbilical cord, once considered medical waste, into a potential source of 6 billion stem cells. These cells can become skin, bones, corneas, and many other parts of the body.
Despite having an impressive record in scientific research and a $700 million company, Dr. Thang is quite humble. He believes part of his success came from opportunities and luck.
“There were many challenges as we moved forward to perfect a product, making it cheap enough for everyone to use. That wasn’t easy. But luckily, in the end, we succeeded,” Dr. Thang said.
Reference: Straitstimes
