Bio
Associate Professor Quan (Donny) Hoang, MD, PhD is a clinician-scientist with 19 years experience as an ophthalmologist specialising in surgical retina, medical retina and cataract surgery in myopic patients. In particular, his clinical and research focus is on myopia, and specifically high and pathologic myopia for which he presently holds over $9.6 million USD in independent grant support as a Principal investigator. Dr. Hoang is presently spending a year at Stanford Medicine as his research home and Byers Eye Institute for his clinical and surgical home. He welcomes any medical student, graduate student and potential postdoctoral research fellow with an interest in high and pathologic myopia to join in on his research projects.
Born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and raised in Emporia, Kansas, Assoc Prof. Hoang graduated from Northwestern University in Chicago with triple-major with honours in Chemistry, Biology and Integrated Science in 1997. He subsequently earned both his Medical Degree (MD) and PhD in Anatomy and Cell Biology from the University of Illinois, where his doctoral thesis won the 2006 Top Life Sciences PhD Thesis Award. He completed his Ophthalmology training at the esteemed Illinois Eye and Ear Infirmary, where he received Top Research Awards in 2009 and 2010.
In 2012, he completed a two-year surgical and medical retina fellowship at Columbia University and VRMNY under world-renowned specialists Stanley Chang, Lawrence Yannuzzi, Richard Spaide and Bailey Freund. He then divided his time between working as a vitreo-retinal surgeon and serving as Director of the High Myopia Laboratory at Columbia University, where he received an NIH K08 Clinician-Scientist Career Development Award and then at Duke-NUS, the Singapore National Eye Centre and the National University of Singapore (NUS).
A/Prof Hoang is a fellow of the prestigious Macula Society, Retina Society, American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO), American Society of Retina Specialists (ASRS) and Academy of Medicine Singapore (FAMS). He has received numerous accolades, including recognition as one of America's Top Ophthalmologists before relocating to Singapore in 2016. He is well-published with over 125 peer-reviewed high-impact articles and serves as Editorial Board member and/or reviewer for more than ten journals, including editorial board member for Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences (IOVS) and direct submission Editor for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
At Stanford, he will continue to divide his time between clinical practice and research, both focused on extreme near-sightedness, a significant cause of blindness, especially in Southeast Asian countries such as Singapore. While mild myopia is merely inconvenient, pathologic myopia involves extreme levels of lifelong, progressive eye elongation and eyewall thinning that can lead to blindness. He employs cutting-edge non-invasive imaging to identify patients at greatest risk of vision loss. Concurrently, he leads laboratory-based studies to discover novel treatments to stunt near-sightedness and prevent blindness.
As a clinician-scientist, his patients inspire his passionate commitment to advancing treatments and cures for retinal disease and blinding disorders. He values his time with patients and strives to provide optimal care, both through existing treatments and by developing new therapies in the laboratory. Assoc. Prof Hoang holds concurrent appointments as Assoc. Professor (Tenure) at the National University of Singapore, Senior Consultant in Ophthalmology at the National University Hospital of Singapore, Deputy Head of the Myopia Unit at the Singapore Eye Research Institute (SERI) and Adjunct Faculty at the Dept. of Ophthalmology, Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York.
