Professor Aung is a clinician scientist whose research has secured more than S$20 million in competitive research grant funding, and 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. 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 has more than 700 publications 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 200 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.
Professor Aung was President of the World Glaucoma Association from 2016-2017 and he also serves as Board Member of the World Glaucoma Association and Asia Pacific Glaucoma Society. He was 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.