Prof Wong completed medical school (MBBS) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) as a President’s Scholar. He obtained a MPH and PhD from the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA and received clinical training in ophthalmology at the Singapore National Eye Centre (SNEC), with retinal fellowships at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA and the University of Sydney, Australia.
In 2022, Prof Wong was appointed the Founding Head and Chair Professor of Tsinghua Medicine, a new academic health system based at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
From 2014 to 2021, Prof Wong was Arthur Lim Professor of Ophthalmology and Medical Director at SNEC, one of the largest tertiary eye hospitals globally, with 100 ophthalmologists across 10 sub-speciality departments, managing >400,000 outpatient visits. Prof Wong was concurrently Deputy Group CEO (Research and Education) and Vice-Dean at SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Centre, with 30,000 staff and managing >2.5 million outpatient clinical appointments per year. In this role, he leads four cluster-wide offices (Group Research, Group Education, Joint Office of Academic Medicine, Office of Academic Clinical Development), which plan and coordinate clinical and translational research, innovation, enterprise and industry collaboration across 11 hospitals and healthcare institutions, including Singapore General Hospital (ranked #8 best hospital, https://www.newsweek.com/best-hospitals-2020), and 5 national specialty centers (Cancer, Heart, Neuroscience, Eye, Dental). His offices also oversee appointments, promotion and tenure of >2,000 faculty (Asst, Assoc and full Professors) and leads an education enterprise training medical students, residents and fellows, as well as nursing students and a diverse range of allied health professionals (e.g., physiotherapists, pharmacists).
Prior to these roles, Prof Wong was Group Director of Research, SingHealth, Head of the Academic Medicine Research Institute (AMRI), Executive Director of the Singapore Eye Research Institute (SERI), Chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at National University of Singapore, Head of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Melbourne, Australia and Managing Director of the Centre for Eye Research Australia.
Prof Wong is a physician-scientist, and an internationally renowned retinal specialist, with a clinical practice focused on macular and retinal diseases, including diabetic retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration, retinal vascular diseases and myopic macular degeneration. Prof Wong leads an inter-disciplinary research program on epidemiological, translational and clinical research on retinal diseases and ocular imaging. He has published >1500 papers, with papers in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Lancet, JAMA, Annals Internal Medicine, Nature and Nature Medicine. He is Highly Cited Researcher (top 1%, 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023). He has given >500 invited named, plenary, and symposium lectures, and received >US$50 million in grant funding. He is a two-times recipient of the Singapore Translational Researcher (STaR) Award (2008, 2014), the highest award for senior clinician-scientists.
Research Impact
Prof Wong’s research has improved the understanding of the burden and risk factors of diabetic retinopathy, a leading cause of blindness. From 2010, Prof Wong set up the national “telemedicine” screening program for diabetic retinopathy. His research on retinal imaging which have shown that measurements of changes in blood vessels in the retina may be a unique non-invasive test for a person’s cardiovascular risk has led to development of a novel imaging software, now licensed and used by >30 international clinical, research and industry partners. In the past 5 years, his team have led research in artificial intelligence (AI) and digital health. He is Co-Founder of two start-up companies: plano (https://www.plano.co/) and EyRIS (http://eyris.io). For his work on diabetic retinopathy, he was personally featured in a profile the Lancet (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(11)61075-1/fulltext).
Professional Service
Prof Wong is on the Editorial Boards of Lancet Digital Health, NEJM AI and JAMA-Ophthalmology and previously on Boards of American Journal of Ophthalmology, Diabetes Care, Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences (IOVS) and British Journal of Ophthalmology, amongst many other journals. He is the current President of the Asia-Pacific Ocular Imaging Society (APOIS) and is Vice-President of the Asia-Pacific Vitreo-Retinal Society (APVRS), an elected Trustee of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) and Council member of the Asia Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology (APAO) and the Asia-Pacific Teleophthalmology Society (APTOS). He has served on the Executive Committee of the Macula Society, the Board of the International Council of Ophthalmology (ICO), and was past President of the College of Ophthalmologists, Singapore. He is an elected Council member and currently Assistant Master of the Academy of Medicine Singapore. He is on the Board of the National Medical Research Council (NMRC) Singapore and was previously a Council member of the Singapore Medical Council.
Awards & Honors
Prof Wong has been recognized with numerous awards, such as the Commonwealth Health Minister’s Award, the Arnall Patz Medal from the Macula Society, the Alcon Research Institute Award and the Eisenhower Fellowship. He has given numerous named lectures, including the De Ocampo Lecture and the Jose Rizal Medal Lecture, Tano Lecture, the Fred Hollows Lecture, the Sir Runme Shaw Memorial Lecture, and the Sir Norman McAlister Gregg Lecture. He has been recognized as the top researcher from NUS (Outstanding Researcher Award on two occasions, 2004, 2009) and the University of Melbourne (Woodward Medal). He has received the National Outstanding Clinician Scientist Award and the President’s Science Award in 2010, and the President’s Science and Technology Award in 2014, the highest awards for healthcare and scientific contribution in Singapore.
He is an elected Fellow of the Singapore National Academy of Sciences, one of two physicians on the Academy. Prof Wong was elected as an international (foreign) member of U.S. National Academy of Medicine in 2020, and as international (corresponding) fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences in 2021.
In 2023, Prof Wong was awarded the 16th Beijing “Great Wall Friendship Award” by the People's Government of Beijing Municipality.
