Ko Wen-je was born on 6 August 1959 in Hsinchu City, Taiwan. And he is the incumbent mayor of Taipei, the capital city of Taiwan. Before being elected mayor, he was an attending physician and Chairman of the Department of Traumatology at National Taiwan University Hospital. He was also a professor at National Taiwan University College of Medicine and specializes in trauma, intensive care, organ transplant, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), and artificial organs among others. Apart from his practice, Ko is known for his numerous media appearances and interviews as a social and political commentator.
In the 2014 Taipei Mayoral Election, Ko ran as an independent candidate. He won the election with 853,983 votes to become the first non-partisan mayor of the city since the introduction of direct election of the office.
Ko Wen-je grew up in a modest household. After graduating from Hsinchu Senior High School, he was accepted into the Medical School at NTU. At graduation, Ko placed first nationally on his medical examinations and received his medical license. After working in emergency for 11 years, Ko travelled to the United States in 1993 and undertook a year of research on artificial livers at the University of Minnesota.
After returning to Taiwan in 1994, Ko continued to work in the emergency ward while at the same time beginning his Ph.D. studies at NTU. Ko received his medical doctorate in 2002. Ko helped found NTU’s first organ transplant team with the goal of doing heart transplants. With the hope of increasing the transplant success rate, Ko brought in ECMO technology from the US, and improved transplant success from 19% to 51%. On January 30, 2008, Ko set the world record for keeping a patient alive with ECMO for 117 consecutive days. Using the US treatment standards as a guide, Ko established a set of standards for organ transplant procedures in Taiwan that was later promulgated throughout Taiwan by then the Department of Health.
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