Professor
MA, Stephanie Kwai Yee

Dr. Stephanie Ma is currently a Professor in the School of Biomedical Sciences at the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine of The University of Hong Kong. She obtained her Bachelor's and Master's degree at The University of British Columbia, Canada in 2000 and 2003, respectively, and her doctorate degree at The University of Hong Kong in 2007. Dr. Ma's research interest focuses on identifying novel stemness vulnerabilites in cancer, using Asian prevlaent tumor types like hepatocellular carcinoma and esophagel squamous cell carcinoma as model systems. She is the recipient of numerous awards including the 2006/07 Li Ka Shing Prize for the Best Ph.D. Thesis (The University of Hong Kong), 2008 Hong Kong Young Scientist Award in Life Sciences (Hong Kong Institution of Science), 2012/13 Outstanding Young Researcher Award (The University of Hong Kong), 2014 Croucher Innovation Award (Croucher Foundation), 2014 Higher Education Institution of China - Scientific Research Outstanding Achievement Award (Second-Class Award in Science and Technology Section) (China), 2017/18 University of British Columbia Alumni Builder Award (Canada) and 2018 Ton Duc Thang University Scientific Prize - Rising Star Award (Vietnam). From 2010 to 2018, she is listed as a top 1% most cited scholars in 'Clinical Medicine' and 'All Fields' ranked by the prestigious ISI's Essential Science Indicators. To date, her publications have accumulated over 6000 citations. She has published extensively in the field of cancer stemness and hepatocellular carcinoma with a number of review articles and invited book chapters. Her original research findings have been published in leading international journals including those of Cell Stem Cell, Gastroenterology, Journal of Hepatology, Hepatology, Advanced Science, Cell Reports, Stem Cell Reports, Cancer Research and Oncogene. Findings from her research work have led to two successful patent applications and a commercial license to Merck Millipore. Dr. Ma is also a Principal Investigator of the State Key Laboratory of Liver Research at HKU and is also an elected Founding Member of the Hong Kong Young Academy of Sciences. Dr. Ma also serves as a Board Member of the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks as well as the International Society of Differentiation.