Executive Committee Members

Dr. S. Rajasekaran (INDIA)
- President

Dr. S. Rajasekaran

Dr. S. Rajasekaran
(INDIA)
President

Dr S Rajasekaran is the Chairman of the Department of Orthopaedics, Trauma & Spine Surgery, Ganga Hospital, Coimbatore, India. He is currently the President, Asia Pacific Spine Society. He was previously the Chair of AOSpine International Board; Chair of AOSpine International Research Commission; President of SICOT; President- CSRS-AP; President of the Indian Orthopaedic Association; President of the Association of Spine Surgeons of India; President of International Society for the Study of Lumbar Spine, Canada and President of the World Orthopaedic Concern.

His academic distinctions include being the Hunterian Professor for the year 2011-12 by the Royal College of Surgeons of England; ‘Distinguished Visitor’ to Harvard Medical International, Boston, USA; Grand Rounds Lecturer of Dartmouth University, USA and Mayo Hospital, USA; Adjunct Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, Tamilnadu Dr MGR Medical University; Deputy Editor of the Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery; Journal of SPINE, USA; Global Spine Journal, USA and Editorial board of European Spine Journal.

Dr. Keith DK Luk (HONG KONG)
- Immediate Past President I

Dr. Keith DK Luk

Dr. Keith DK Luk
(HONG KONG)
Immediate Past President I

Dr Keith Dip Kei Luk graduated from the University of Hong Kong in 1977. He is at present a Chair Professor and Tam Sai-Kit Professor in Spine Surgery at his alma mater. He has served as Presidents of the Hong Kong College of Orthopedic Surgeons, The Société Internationale de Chirurgie Orthopédique et de Traumatologie (SICOT) and the International Society for the Study of the Lumbar Spine (ISSLS). He has published near 400 peer reviewed articles. In 1990, he and his team in China pioneered the idea of transplanting the intervertebral disc for the treatment of discogenic pathologies. This has been turned into the first successful allograft transplantation in a human in 2000 and the preliminary result was published in the Lancet in 2007. He has sat on editorial or advisory boards of the top spine journals including the Spine, the European Spine Journal, Journal of Orthopedic Science, Bone and Joint Journal, and the Journal of Spinal Disorders. His current main research interests include intervertebral disc allograft transplantation, genetics of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis and congenital scoliosis, scoliosis population screening for children, and functional magnetic resonance imaging of the spinal cord.

Dato' Dr. K. S. Sivananthan (MALAYSIA)
- Immediate Past President II

Dato' Dr. K. S. Sivananthan (MALAYSIA)

Dato' Dr. K. S. Sivananthan
(MALAYSIA)
Immediate Past President II

Dato’ Dr K S Sivananthan is a Senior Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon at Hospital Fatimah, Ipoh. He has been an active member of various orthopaedics and spine associations since 1980. He had served as the President of The Malaysian Orthopaedic Association, The Asean Orthopaedic Association, the Asia Pacific Orthopaedic Association and The World Society for Endoscopic Navigated and Minimal Invasive Spine Surgery (WENMISS). He was elected in 2015 to be the President of the Malaysian Spine Society and President-Elect of the Asia Pacific Spine Society. Furthermore, he also contributes greatly to the academic development of orthopaedics and spine. He is part of the Editorial Board of the Asian Spine Journal, Malaysian Orthopaedic Journal and Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery. He is an examiner of the Conjoint Board for MS Orthopaedics in Malaysia and also a member of the Orthopaedic Credentialing Committee under the Academy of Medicine Malaysia. He had been an invited guest speaker at the various orthopaedic association meetings in the Asia Pacific region. For his humanitarian work, he was awarded the title of 'Dato' by the Sultan of Perak, Malaysia in 1994.

Dato’ Dr. Mun-Keong Kwan
- President Elect

Dr. Kwan Mun Keong (MALAYSIA)

Dato’ Dr. Mun-Keong Kwan
(MALAYSIA)
President Elect

Dato’ Dr. Mun Keong Kwan serves as a Professor and Senior Orthopaedic Consultant in the Spine Research Unit, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Currently, he is the Immediate Past President of Malaysia Spine Society (MSS) and, serves as the President-Elect of the Asia Pacific Spine Society (APSS) at the international level. His clinical practice, as well as research interests, are mainly devoted to spinal deformity surgery, i.e., Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis (AIS), Minimally Invasive Stabilization (MISt) using Percutaneous Pedicle Screws (PPS), as well as the Safety of the Use of the Pedicle Screw in Spinal Surgery. Dato’ Dr. Kwan has organised and chaired many international spine conferences and he has been invited as a speaker in numerous international meetings. He is a member of the editorial board and/or reviewer for several international spine and orthopaedic journals.

Dr. Jose Manuel F. Ignacio (PHILIPPINES)
- Honorary Secretary

Dr. Jose Manuel F. Ignacio

Dr. Jose Manuel F. Ignacio
(PHILIPPINES)
Honorary Secretary

Dr Jose Manuel F Ignacio is an Associate Professor at the University of the Philippines Manila and is the Head of the Spine Division at the Department of Orthopedics of the Philippine General Hospital which is the national university hospital. He has been very active with the APSS and has helped organize several courses in the Philippines having been the Education Officer of the Philippine Spine Society since its inception until recently. Dr Ignacio is also active in the AOSpine where he was the first Country Leader of the Philippines and has served as a Community Development Officer of the East Asia Council. Dr Ignacio is also affiliated with the St Luke’s Medical Center BGC in Metro Manila and has served as the past Head of Orthopedic Spine. He is Co-chair of the Advanced Spine Care Center of the same hospital. Being in the biggest tertiary government hospital in the country, he and his team in the Spine Division are forced to deal with all sorts of spinal pathologies which come their way, many times being the ‘hospital of last resort’ for the population residing in over 7,100 islands comprising the Philippine archipelago.

Dr. Yat Wa Wong (HONG KONG)
- Honorary Treasurer

Dr. Wong Yat Wa (HONG KONG)

Dr. Yat Wa Wong
(HONG KONG)
Honorary Treasurer

Dr Yat-Wa Wong is currently the Deputy Hospital Chief Executive (Planning) and Chief of Service (Department of Orthopaedics and Traumatology) of Queen Mary Hospital of Hong Kong. He has been appointed as Honorary Clinical Professor, the University of Hong Kong since 2017. He has been full time doing spine surgery and spine rehabilitation since 1994. After subspecializing in doing the spine surgery, he has actively participated in many academic organizations such as serving as active fellow of the Scoliosis Research Society and AOSpine. Being the head of the Division of the Spine Surgery since 2015, he leads and develops spine surgery in his hospital. He was the chapter president of the Spine Chapter of Hong Kong Orthopaedic Association 2008-2009 and Fellowship and Reference Centre officer of AOSpine Asia Pacific 2007-2010. Since 2015, he serves as the Honorary Treasurer of APSS. His field of practice includes spinal degeneration, deformity, infection, trauma, and spine neoplasms.