(Written & Translated By YU.Y.C）On February 23, the 16th "Great Wall Friendship Award" award ceremony and discussion meeting was held in Beijing Shougang Park. Professor Wong Tien Yin, Vice provost of Tsinghua University, Director of the School of Medicine, and well-known ophthalmology expert of Tsinghua Changgung Hospital affiliated to Tsinghua University, won the award.

The "Great Wall Friendship Award" is the only award and the highest honor awarded by the Beijing Municipal Government to foreigners in Beijing. Since its establishment in 1999, 221 foreigners from 32 countries have won the award. The 16th Great Wall Friendship Award has been awarded to 15 foreigners who have made outstanding contributions to the development of Beijing, five of whom are from the medical and pharmaceutical fields.

Wong Tien Yin is an academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Singapore and a foreign academician of the National Academy of Medicine. He graduated from the National University of Singapore with a bachelor’s degree in medicine and received a presidential scholarship, later receiving a doctorate degree in public health from Johns Hopkins University.

His clinical work primarily focuses on macular degeneration and retinal diseases, and he is dedicated to research and innovation in retinal diseases and ocular imaging (including artificial intelligence). He is a renowned clinical scientist and international expert in the field of retinal diseases, who has made groundbreaking contributions in the epidemiology, translational research, and clinical investigation of retinal diseases and ocular imaging.

Professor Wong has published more than 1,500 peer-reviewed papers, been invited to more than 500 international lectures, and has an h-index of 214. He was featured on Clarivate’s global list of “highly cited scientists” in 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2022, ranking first in the global ophthalmology field.

Every month, Professor Wong goes to the ophthalmology department of Tsinghua Changgung Hospital affiliated to Tsinghua University in Beijing to treat patients. Through the contact with patients, he has a deeper understanding of Chinese medical treatment. With practical actions, he deeply participated in the construction of China's medical and health care industry, taking China's major demand for medical services as an important basis and direct guidance for the formulation of Tsinghua Medical School's curriculum and medical student training program, leading the new Tsinghua Medical School to step by step towards high-quality development.