RepliCel's Team

Dr. Ross G. Davidson, MBChB

Orthopedics & Sports Medicine Clinical Advisor (Focus: North America)

Dr. Davidson has facilitated the recovery of numerous high profile professional athletes during his 30+ year career in sports medicine. He is the former Director, Post Grad Programmes Sports Medicine at the University of Auckland and is currently a member of the New Zealand Orthopaedic Association and the Canadian Orthopaedic Association. He is the past president of the National Hockey League Physicians Society, past head physician and orthopaedic consultant for the Vancouver Canucks Hockey Club (NHL), past orthopaedic consultant to the Vancouver Grizzlies Basketball Team (NBA), past orthopaedic consultant to Allan McGavin Sports Medicine Centre, and past orthopaedic consultant to the Canadian Football League Players Association. Dr. Davidson held the position of clinical professor, department of orthopaedics at the University of British Columbia until 2000. Dr. Davidson currently has appointments to the Auckland Surgical Centre and Southern Cross Hospital in New Zealand and is the Director of the Post-Graduate Programme in Sports Medicine at the University of Auckland. Dr. Davidson is a highly regarded and sought-after lecturer having presented more than 60 lectures and presentations and is published in 17 scientific publications on sports-related injuries and treatments.

Prof. Akimichi Morita, MD, PhD

Dermatology Clinical Advisor (Focus: Japan)

Prof. Akimichi Morita is the Vice Director of Nagoya City University Hospital and, since 2003 he has been Professor and Chairman of the Department of Geriatric and Environmental Dermatology at Nagoya City University Graduate School of Medical Sciences in Nagoya Japan.

He held the position of Program Officer for the Research Center of Science Systems at the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (2016-2020). His areas of interest are phototherapy, cutaneous immunology, and skin aging. Dr. Morita was the President of the Japanese Society of Investigative Dermatology (2017-2020) and has been involved in many other societies. In 2004, Prof. Morita was an international honorary member of Deutsche Dermatologische Gesellschaft. He has been a key member in many medicals publications especially the Journal of Dermatological Sciences (JDS) of which he was the Editor in Chief from 2008 to 2013.

Professor Akimichi Morita graduated from Nagoya City University and received his MD degree in 1989. He received his PhD in basic immunology at Aichi Cancer Center. He studied photobiology and photoimmunology under the supervision of Professor Jean Krutmann at Duesseldorf University as a Humboldt Foundation fellow where he discovered UVA1-mediated human T helper cell apoptosis as a fundamental mechanism of UVA1 phototherapy. He also trained under the supervision of Professor Akira Takashima at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and developed a Langerhans cell-targeted vaccination. He has introduced numerous standard phototherapies to Japan. 

In 2015, Professor Morita was the President of the 30th Annual Meeting of the JSPR 2015, Nagoya, JAPAN. In 2018 he was the President of the 5th Eastern Asia Dermatology Congress (EADC) held in Kumming, CHINA. He is the Director of the Japanese Society for Psoriasis Research and a member of the Japanese Society of Dermatology, Japanese Society for Photomedicine and Photobiology, and American Society for Photobiology.

Prof. Tsukasa Kumai, MD, PhD

Orthopedics & Sports Medicine Clinical Advisor (Focus: Japan)

Professor Tsukasa Kumai is a Professor of Orthopedics in the Faculty of Sport Sciences at Waseda University in the heart of Tokyo Japan.

Since 2017 and after serving as a professor at the Department of Sports Medicine at Nara Medical University, Dr. Kumai has been involved in education and research in sports medicine and in the functional anatomy of motor organs at the School of Sport Sciences at Waseda University. Based on his basic research at the Musculoskeletal Biology and Sports Medicine Research Lab at the University of Wales, UK, and the Department of Anatomy at the University of Munich, Germany, he has been elucidating and applying functional anatomy to the treatment of tendon and ligament overuse disorders in athletes. In clinical practice, he specializes in minimally invasive treatment of foot disorders in athletes, including arthroscopic surgery and extracorporeal shock wave therapy, for which he is a pioneer in Japan. He still performs more than 200 arthroscopic surgeries per year.

Other roles:

• Sports Doctor, JSPO
• Chairman of the Medical Faculty, Japan Cycling Federation
• Team Doctor, National Cycling Track Team
• Medical and Scientific Staff, Japan Olympic Committee (JOC) (cycling, volleyball)
• Team Doctor, Shimano Racing Team (UCI Pro Cycling Team)
• Team Doctor, Nagoya Wolfdogs (V league)
• Medical Advisor, Kashiwa Reysol (J league)
• Specialist, Japanese Orthopaedic Association
• Executive Board, Japanese Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine, Japanese Society for Surgery of the Foot, and Japanese Society for Arthroscopy, Knee and Sports Orthopedics
• Board, Japanese Society of Clinical Sports Medicine,  Japanese Society of Clinical Biomechanics, Japanese Society for Minimally Invasive Orthopaedic Surgery, and Japanese Society of Orthopaedic Ultrasonics
• President, Japanese Orthopaedic Society of Shockwave Therapy

Kunihiko Suzuki, MBA

Senior Strategic Advisor to Directors (Focus: Japan)

Kunihiko Suzuki is one of the business leaders in Regenerative Medicine/Cell & Gene Therapy space in Japan.  

While Kuni started his business career at US oil company in Tokyo/Kyoto and spent circa. 20 years at one of Japanese financial institutions in the areas of investment banking in Tokyo, commercial banking in London and trust banking in Luxembourg, Kuni moved into the space of RM/CGT sector in 2006 as one of management team (Member of the Board, CBO, CEO and other positions) of MEDINET Co., Ltd., one of the earliest companies focused on immune-cell therapies and contract development and manufacturing (CDMO) services. 

Additionally, Kuni was one of the establishing committee members of Japan’s industry associate, FIRM (Forum for Innovative Regenerative Medicine) which acts as the nation’s industrial advocacy group, similar to the US-based ARM, Alliance for Regenerative Medicine.  He was a Member of the Board and Vice Chair of FIRM since 2014 and, in April 2021, was invited be a leader of FIRM’s Specific Cell-based Products Working Group.  

In April 2020, Kuni became a Member of the Bio-Industry Subcommittee of the Commerce, Distribution and Information Committee for the Industrial Structure Council of Japan’s METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) to issue the report, “Fifth Industrial Revolution” cultivated with Biotechnology.  Recently Kuni was also a Co-Chair of Organising Committee for the ISCT Melbourne 2019 Annual Meeting as well as the ISCT Regional Treasurer, Asia for the 2020-2023 term. 

In December 2020, Kuni became an Advisor to Cyfuse Biomedical K.K., a company producing regenerative medical products with its own unique 3D bio-printing technology (the KENZAN method), and was appointed to Cyfuse’s Board of Directors in March 2021.   In May 2021, Kuni became an associate member of the advisory firm Cell One Partners, based in New York, charged with advising clients related to their RM/CGT activities in Japan/Asia markets.

Kuni holds an M.A. in Economics from Waseda University and an MBA from Keio University. 

Prof. Dr. med Jean Krutmann, MD

Dermatology Clinical Advisor (Focus: Global, Europe, China)

Prof Dr. med Jean Krutmann is Professor of Dermatology and Environmental Medicine and Director of the IUF Leibniz Research Institute for Environmental Medicine at the Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf. He is also a Visiting/Adjunct Professor at Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, Ohio, USA), Nagoya City University (Nagoya, Japan), and at Fudan University (Shanghai, China). He is a member of the National Academy of Science of Germany.

Professor Krutmann’s research is in the field of derma-toxicology and immune-dermatology with special emphasis on environmentally-induced skin diseases and skin aging. His scientific contributions include the development of UVA1 phototherapy, the discovery that infrared A radiation and air pollution contribute to skin aging, and that the aryl hydrocarbon receptor is involved in skin stress responses including photocarcinogenesis. Prof. Krutmann is author or co-author of more than 400 papers. 

Prof. Krutmann is the recipient of the International Arnold-Rikli-Award, the Albert Fleckenstein Award, the Paul Gerson Unna Award, the Oscar Gans Award, the C.E.R.I.E.S. Research Support Award, the Dermopharmacy Innovation Award and the Xu Guang Qi Lecturer Award. 

Since 2010, he is a member of the Leopoldina, the German National Academy of Science. Since 2012, he has been the coordinator of the Leibniz Research Alliance “Healthy Ageing” (a strategic alliance of 23 Leibniz institutes). 

Jean Krutmann obtained his MD from the University of Münster in 1986. After several stays abroad (postdoc at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA and DFG stipend at the University Hospital for Dermatology in Vienna, Austria) he became Resident/ Assistant/Associate Professor at the University Hospital for Dermatology in Freiburg, Germany. From 1994 until 2001 he was full Professor/Deputy Director of the University Hospital for Dermatology Düsseldorf, Germany. In 2001 he was appointed Chair of Environmental Medicine at the Medical Faculty of Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and thereby also Director of IUF. Under his directorship in 2011 the institute became a member of the Leibniz Association and was renamed IUF – Leibniz Research Institute for Environmental Medicine.

His research focuses on dermatotoxicology, immunodermatology and photodermatology with an emphasis on environmentally-induced skin diseases and aging. In addition to being a clinical advisor to RepliCel, Professor Kturmann has been a consultant to, or IUF has received funding from Amway, Allergan/Skinceuticals, Beiersdorf, bitop, Blue Lagoon, Estee Lauder, Evonik, Galderma, Henkel, Horphag, ISDIN, Kiessling, Lancaster-Coty, LaRoche-Posay, L’Oreal, Lycored, Mary Kay, Procter & Gamble, Repairogen, Stada, Symrise, Unilever, Vichy, Walgreen-Boots-Alliance.