Prof. Tien Y Wong was invited to receive the Friedenwald Award of ARVO

   　(Translated by YU.Y.C)On April 23 local time, The annual meeting of Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, ARVO 2023) was opened in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, where experts from all over the world gathered to share the latest research results in the world of ophthalmology and discuss the direction of future research. At this event, Prof. Tien Y Wong, a medical discipline leader of Tsinghua University and chief ophthalmologist of Beijing Tsinghua Changgung Hospital, was awarded the ARVO Achievement Award (FARVO) -- Friedenwald Award for his academic achievements in the field of ophthalmology and his outstanding contributions to ophthalmology and vision science in the world. This is the first time that FARVO has awarded the award to an academic working in an institution on the Chinese mainland.

　　Founded in 1928, the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) is the world's largest and most respected visual and ophthalmic research organization, with membership including nearly 12,000 researchers from 75 countries. ARVO Annual Meeting is a gathering of ophthalmic vision scientists, students and people in related fields to share the latest research results and innovative solutions. Many international ophthalmologists speak out at ARVO Annual Meeting to share the latest research and progress in ophthalmology. FARVO is an honor established to recognize members' achievements, leadership, and contributions to the Association. The Friedenwald Award, which belongs to the FARVO group, recognizes an individual's outstanding contribution to the world of ophthalmology and vision science.

Prof. Tien Y Wong delivered the keynote speech

　　At the awarding ceremony, Prof.Tien Y Wong was invited to make a keynote report, introducing the progress, lessons learned and challenges that human beings have made in the continuous struggle against diabetes retinopathy (DR).He called on experts and scholars around the world to jointly pay attention to and solve the public health problem of diabetes and diabetic retinopathy, which has become an "epidemic" affecting hundreds of millions of people worldwide. DR Is still the leading cause of blindness in adults, he noted,and by 2040, about 600 million people worldwide are expected to have diabetes, one-third of whom will have DR, and as many as one-tenth will have diabetic macular edema (DME).There is now a clearer understanding of the epidemiology and modifiable risk factors for DR, paving the way for extensive healthcare system management. Now, landmark clinical trials provide evidence of the effectiveness of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) therapy as a standard for DME management; The development of ocular imaging techniques, particularly optical coherence tomography (OCT) and OCT angiography, allows for improved risk stratification and more precise prognosis and improved management;There are also effective ways to improve screening for DR, which is generally accepted as a strategy for preventing visual impairment, including the availability of low-cost digital fundus cameras, improvements in remote ophthalmic platforms, and the rapid development of artificial intelligence. Despite these promising advances, humans have not won the DR Pandemic, and significant challenges remain globally, such as many people with DR In the community are unaware of their condition, and many countries do not have access to anti-VEGF therapy or screening programmes.

　　The conference was live-streamed worldwide in the form of a combination of online and offline, attracting the attention and participation of tens of thousands of top ophthalmic experts, who had academic exchanges on cutting-edge ophthalmic topics. From basic to clinical, from micro to macro, from individual treatment to global health issues, it presents a wonderful academic feast.

　　Prof. Tien Y Wong is the founding director and Chair Prof. of Tsinghua Medicine, Tsinghua University, Senior consultant of SingHealth Group, Academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Singapore and foreign academician of the National Academy of Medicine of the United States. He graduated from the National University of Singapore with a President's Scholarship in Medicine, and later from Johns Hopkins University in the United States, where he received a master's degree and a doctorate in Public health. He completed his clinical training in ophthalmology at the National Eye Centre in Singapore; He completed his retinal specialist training at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Sydney, Australia. As a clinical scientist and an internationally renowned retinal expert, Prof. Wong is mainly engaged in clinical work related to macular and retinal diseases, such as diabetic retinopathy, age-related macular degeneration, retinal vascular disease and myopic macular degeneration. He is also committed to the research and innovation of retinal diseases and eye imaging (including artificial intelligence). He has made a series of pioneering work in the interdisciplinary research of epidemiology, translational and clinical research in retinal diseases and eye imaging. In 2010, Wong and his team launched the national telemedicine screening program for diabetic retinopathy, and retinal imaging studies have shown that detecting changes in retinal blood vessels may be an effective noninvasive way to detect cardiovascular risk. This discovery has led to the development of new imaging software, and the software developed by the team has been widely certified and used in more than 30 international clinical, scientific and industrial cooperation institutions. Based on Prof. Huang's in-depth and continuous pioneering research in the field of diabetic retinopathy, the world-renowned magazine Lancet has conducted a Prof.ile interview with him.

　　Prof.Wong is an internationally renowned clinical scientist and academic leader. He was named to the Clarivate List of Highly Cited Researchers in 2018, 2020, 2021, and 2022, with an h-index of 214. In February 2023, Ranked third in Asia in the Asia-Pacific Eye 100 - Most Influential Ophthalmologists 2022 organized by APJO; On April 12, he was named "The World's Top 100 Most influential Ophthalmologist" by The Ophthalmologist (UK), the world's leading ophthalmology magazine, in 2023 (2022 will also be awarded the same award). On April 23, he received the FARVO ----Friedenwald Award from the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO). Over the past two decades, Prof. Wong has held key leadership positions in universities and research institutions in Singapore and Australia. He has served as Medical Director of Singapore's National Eye Centre, Deputy Chairman of SingHealth, Deputy Dean of Duke-NUS Medical School, Executive Director of the Singapore Eye Research Institute, Head of the Department of Ophthalmology at the National University of Singapore, and Head of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Melbourne, Australia. For his outstanding achievements and contributions in the field of science, Prof. Wong was elected as a foreign academician of the US National Academy of Medical Sciences in 2020.