MBBS (Singapore), FRCS(Ed), FRCOphth (UK), MMed (Ophth) (Singapore), FAM (Singapore), PhD (London)
Professor Aung is currently:
- Chief Executive Officer, Singapore National Eye Centre
- Academic Chair, Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences Academic Clinical Program (EYE ACP), Duke-NUS Medical School
- ‘Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple’ Distinguished Professor of Ophthalmology, Duke-NUS Medical School
- Associate Dean, Office of Research, Duke-NUS Medical School
- Senior Consultant, Glaucoma Department, Singapore National Eye Centre
- Principal Investigator and Chairman of Board, Singapore Eye Research Institute
- Group Director, Research (Scientific), SingHealth
Having obtained his MBBS from the National University of Singapore, Prof Aung obtained the Fellowships of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the Royal College of Ophthalmologists in 1997. He completed a glaucoma fellowship in the Singapore National Eye Centre from 1999-2000, and from 2000-2003, he trained at the Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London and Moorfields Eye Hospital; and was awarded a PhD in Molecular Genetics from University College London in 2004.
Professor Aung is a clinician scientist, with clinical practice focusing on glaucoma and research interests in angle closure glaucoma and glaucoma genetics. Professor Aung’s research has secured more than SGD50 million in competitive research grant funding. He is currently the Lead PI of the Large Collaborative Grant (LCG), “Tackling and Reducing Glaucoma Blindness with Emerging Technologies (TARGET), a $25 million multi-disciplinary and multicenter program grant awarded by the National Medical Research Council, Singapore in 2022.
Professor Aung currently has more than 800 publications (h-index 104) including 15 major papers in Nature Genetics (6 as First or last author) as well as multiple papers in JAMA and Lancet. Prof Aung has delivered more than 300 Invited Lectures at many international meetings around the world including several named lectures. He is a member of the Editorial Boards of Ophthalmology, Eye, Progress in Retinal and Eye Research and Graefe’s Archive for Clinical Experimental Ophthalmology, as well as 5 other journals.
Prof Aung was awarded the Nakajima Award (2007) and De Campo Award (2013) by the Asia Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology, the Alcon Research Institute Award (2013), the Singapore Translational Research (STaR) Investigator Award (2014, and 2020), the Robert Ritch Award for Excellence and Innovation in Ophthalmology by the Glaucoma Foundation (2017), as well as numerous other awards/medals.
Professor Aung currently serves as the Vice-President of the Asia Pacific Glaucoma Society. He was President of the World Glaucoma Association from 2016-2017, President of the College of Ophthalmologists of Singapore from 2012-2014 and President of the Singapore Society of Ophthalmology from 2009-2011.
Professor Aung is actively involved in medical education of undergraduates and post-graduates. He supervises and mentors Research Fellows, Trainees and Students, especially in the areas of glaucoma and translational research.
