A/Professor Zhong Liang is an internationally recognized academic clinician-scientist-innovator and engineer whose work bridges cardiovascular medicine, medical imaging, artificial intelligence, and translational bioengineering. He is Principal Investigator at the National Heart Centre Singapore (NHCS), Associate Professor at Duke-NUS Medical School and the Department of Biomedical Engineering, National University of Singapore (NUS). He is also the Founding Chair of the College of Healthcare Engineering (CHE), Co-Director of the Cardiovascular Systems Imaging and Artificial Intelligence (CVS.AI) Laboratory, and Head of Cardiovascular Bioengineering and Technologies at the National Heart Research Institute Singapore (NHRIS). Through these leadership roles, he has pioneered interdisciplinary programmes that integrate engineering innovation with clinical care, research, and healthcare transformation.
A/Professor Zhong's research focuses on the development, validation, and clinical deployment of advanced technologies for cardiovascular disease, spanning artificial intelligence, cardiovascular imaging, computational modeling, and digital twins. His work has advanced the fields of coronary CT, cardiac MRI, 4D flow imaging, cardiovascular biomechanics, and precision cardiovascular medicine. He has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed publications, with an H-index exceeding 40 and more than 6,500 citations, more than 10 patents, reflecting sustained scientific impact across cardiology, radiology, biomedical engineering, and translational medicine.
As Principal Investigator, he has secured more than S$15 million in competitive research funding across over 20 grants. He leads several nationally significant programmes, including APOLLO, a large-scale AI platform for automated coronary CT analysis, and SENSE, a healthcare system-wide initiative focused on real-world implementation of AI-enabled cardiovascular imaging technologies. These programmes have established large multi-centre datasets, enabled clinical deployment across healthcare institutions, and accelerated the translation of AI technologies from research to practice.
A major focus of his recent work is the development of cardiovascular digital twins that integrate multimodal imaging, physiology, biomechanics, and artificial intelligence to enable predictive and personalized cardiovascular care. His research has led to successful technology licensing and commercialization through spin-off ventures, bridging academic innovation with industry, regulatory pathways, and healthcare adoption.
A/Professor Zhong is widely recognized internationally for his scientific leadership. He serves on the Technical Community Committee of Cardiopulmonary Systems and Physiology-based Engineering of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) and previously served as Chair of the IEEE EMBS Chapter Development Committee, contributing to the growth and development of the global biomedical engineering community. He is also General Chair of the International Conference on Mechanics in Medicine and Biology (ICMMB 2027) and the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Conference (EMBC 2027), one of the world's largest and most influential biomedical engineering conferences.
He holds senior editorial leadership positions across leading international journals, serving as Deputy Editor of IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering (Q1), JACC: Asia (Q1), Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (Q1), and Medical & Biological Engineering & Computing (Q2), and as an Editorial Board Member of the Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (Q1). These appointments reflect international recognition of his expertise and influence in shaping scientific directions across cardiovascular medicine, imaging science, and biomedical engineering.
Beyond his research contributions, A/Professor Zhong has played a leading role in establishing international standards and consensus in cardiovascular imaging. He has led and co-authored multiple international consensus statements and recommendations on 4D flow cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging, published in leading journals including the Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Nature Review Cardiology, and the Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance between 2019 and 2026. These consensus documents have contributed to harmonizing methodologies and accelerating global adoption of advanced cardiovascular imaging techniques.
A/Professor Zhong is a highly sought-after international speaker and has delivered more than 50 invited lectures, keynote presentations, and plenary talks at major international conferences and scientific meetings between 2019 and 2026. Through these activities, he has contributed significantly to knowledge dissemination and scientific exchange across Asia, Europe, North America, and Oceania.
In addition to his international scientific leadership, Professor Zhong has made substantial contributions to institutional and workforce development. As the Founding Chair of the College of Healthcare Engineering within SingHealth, he established one of the first healthcare engineering initiatives in the region, supporting education, training, and professional development for more than 400 healthcare engineering professionals. He has fostered strategic collaborations with NUS, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT), Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), and Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS), creating interdisciplinary internship programmes that strengthen the future healthcare engineering workforce.
His contributions have been recognized through numerous national and international awards, including the Singapore Cardiac Society Young Investigator Awards (2011, 2012), ASEAN Federation of Cardiology Young Investigator Award (2012), Asia-Pacific Pediatric Cardiac Society Sejong Medical Award (2012), Huanghe Bei Innovation and Entrepreneurship Award (2015), GCEO Excellent Research Award (2021), and the Senior Clinician Innovator Award (2024), OpenGov Excellent Award (2026).
Through his scholarship, international leadership, technology translation, and institution-building efforts, Professor Zhong Liang has established himself as a leading global figure in cardiovascular imaging, artificial intelligence, and healthcare engineering, with a distinctive track record of translating scientific innovation into measurable clinical and societal impact.