Dr. Mao-Sheng Li

About

Dr. Mao-Sheng Li is the founder and president of Maosheng Fertility Center at Lee Women’s Hospital in Taichung, and one of the founding figures of reproductive medicine in Taiwan. In 1987, while at Chung-Shan Medical University Hospital, he led a team that delivered Taiwan’s first test-tube baby achieved entirely by a local medical team — at the time, Taiwan was the only place in Asia where a test-tube baby had been born. National Taiwan University and Chang Gung memorial hospitals, which had sent teams abroad to learn IVF without success, later visited his two-room laboratory to study how it had been done.

He holds a PhD in obstetrics and gynecology from Toho University in Japan and completed postdoctoral research at the University of Pennsylvania, where he trained in cell culture and laboratory embryology. That combination of endocrinology, culture technique, and laboratory discipline became his signature approach: he treats IVF as a system in which the clinic and the lab must work as one.

After founding his own OB-GYN clinic in 1994 — upgraded to Lee Women’s Hospital in 2015 — he built it into one of Taiwan’s highest-volume fertility programs. Over four decades of practice, he has helped deliver more than 40,000 IVF babies for families from 38 countries, while serving as president of both the Taiwan Society of Reproductive Medicine and the Taiwan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Clinical Expertise

• Infertility and IVF: Four decades of combined clinical and laboratory experience; protocol design for difficult and previously failed cases, now extending into the hospital’s AI-assisted embryo selection era.
• Reproductive endocrinology: System-level command of hormone biology and embryo culture, rooted in his University of Pennsylvania laboratory training, used to trace infertility to its endocrine cause.
• Obstetrics and high-risk pregnancy: Full obstetric care from positive test through delivery for patients conceived through assisted reproduction.
• Donor egg and donor sperm programs: The driving force behind the hospital’s donor egg and donor sperm programs for patients with premature ovarian insufficiency or hereditary disease risk.

Why Choose Dr. Mao-Sheng Li

A pioneer of Taiwan’s own reproductive medicine The 1987 birth was not imported expertise — it was achieved by a local team in a converted space of barely a few square meters, at a time when Asia’s only other test-tube baby attempts were overseas. That origin story underpins more than forty years of uninterrupted IVF practice at the same institution.

Depth on both the academic and clinical sides A Toho University PhD, a University of Pennsylvania postdoctoral fellowship, full professorships at Chung-Shan Medical University and China Medical University, and the presidency of two national specialty societies — few practicing fertility physicians carry equivalent standing in both the operating lab and the academic community.

National recognition His honors include a 2011 Guinness World Record (gathering 1,232 IVF-born children), the 2017 Taiwan Medical Paradigm Award from the Chinese Medical Association Foundation, the 2020 National Innovation Award for the Spirit of Innovation, and service as a Policy Adviser to the Office of the President from 2016 to 2020.

A multigenerational patient community From a three-ping laboratory to campuses in Taichung, New Taipei and a Zhubei branch under construction, his teams have served families from 38 countries; the hospital’s patient culture of “passing on the gift of pregnancy” traces directly to his own practice philosophy.

Professional Affiliations

• President, Taiwan Society of Reproductive Medicine (1992-1994)
• President, Taiwan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology (2002-2004)
• Policy Adviser, Office of the President (2016-2020)
• Councilor, Taichung City Medical Association; Councilor, Taiwan Stem Cell Medicine Society
• Committee Member, Artificial Reproduction Counseling Committee, Health Promotion Administration
• Hospital Evaluation Commissioner, Ministry of Health and Welfare; Medical Affairs Review Commissioner, Department of Health
• Honorary Consultant, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, MacKay Memorial Hospital
• Board-certified in perinatology (fetal nuchal translucency accreditation), urogynecology and pelvic reconstruction, and gynecologic endoscopy and minimally invasive surgery; Guiding Physician in OB-GYN ultrasound, Medical Ultrasound Society; Fellow, International College of Surgeons; Ministry-of-Education-accredited Professor

Suitable For

• Patients with complex or long-standing infertility: Deep archives of difficult-case management; second opinions after multiple failed cycles elsewhere benefit from his protocol-level analysis.
• Advanced-age patients: Systematic experience with diminished ovarian reserve and individualized stimulation, drawn from four decades of cases across the age spectrum.
• Families needing donor egg or donor sperm programs: He personally leads the hospital’s compliant donor programs for premature ovarian insufficiency and hereditary disease carriers.
• Patients who want a founder-level opinion: When you want the physician who built the program to review your treatment plan, Dr. Li is the most direct choice.

Milestones & Media Firsts

Dr. Li’s career tracks Taiwan’s fertility-medicine milestones itself: Asia’s first gender-and-gene-screened embryo birth (2012), the first successful IVF for a mainland Chinese patient visiting Taiwan (2009), the nation’s first pregnancy for a couple with spinal cord injury (2003), Asia’s first successful embryo genetic testing pregnancy (1997), and Taiwan’s first testicular sperm extraction success (1995). These “firsts” are a recurring subject of Taiwanese medical media coverage of the hospital.