Dr Daniel Ting is the current Associate Professor in Ophthalmology with Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore. Graduated as the SingHealth Residency Valedictorian in 2016 (across all specialties), he started his vitreo-fellowship training as an Associate Consultant in the Singapore National Eye Centre. In 2017, he was chosen to be the 2017 US-ASEAN Fulbright Scholar, representing Singapore to visit Johns Hopkins University (JHU) School of Medicine and Applied Physics Laboratory to deepen his understanding on the use of artificial intelligence, big data analytics and telemedicine in the field of Ophthalmology.
In collaboration with several leading eye centres globally (USA, Mexico, China, Hong Kong, Australia, Singapore), Assoc Prof Daniel and team have developed and validated a novel and robust artificial intelligence (AI) system using deep learning to detect referable diabetic retinopathy (DR), referable glaucoma suspect (GS) and age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The study findings were recently published in the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) (Ting et al, JAMA Dec 2017). Assoc Prof Daniel has also been awarded an approximately USD 1 Million Research Grant from the Singapore National Medical Research Council to help to build an AI-integrated system for the Singapore national DR screening program. Apart from DR screening, he is also actively researching on the utilization of AI and retinal imaging in predicting current and future micro- and macro-vascular complications for population with diabetes.
Academically, Assoc Prof Daniel has shown stellar performance in clinical, surgical, research and leadership during his Ophthalmology residency period with Singapore National Eye Centre and SingHealth Duke-NUS Medical School. Academically, he maintained the 1st ranking nationally in the US-based exam, Ophthalmic Knowledge Assessment Program-International (OKAPI), for 3 consecutive years from 2012 to 2014. In 2013, he was awarded the prestigious UK FRCOphth McCartney Prize, an award given to the world’s highest score in Ophthalmic Pathology. He is also the inaugural SNEC Richard Fan Gold Medal Award winner in 2014. Throughout his residency years, he has won a total of 9 SingHealth RISE Awards in SNEC, including the Outstanding Resident Award (2014 and 2015), Young Inspiring Resident Award (2014), ITE award (2012, 2013 and 2014), Young Educator Award (2013) and Residents’ Committee Award (2013, 2014). He has also been awarded the Young Innovator Grant (2017) and Singapore General Hospital Young Investigator Award (2017) for his work in Artificial Intelligence and Diabetes Eye Diseases. Leadership wise, he is the Chairman of the SingHealth Residents’ Committee, representing and leading >1000 residents in education, humanitarian, research and welfare initiatives. As part of the National Health Care Leadership College/ Ministry of Health initiatives to nurture the future health care leaders of Singapore, he was nominated as the inaugural SingHealth Ophthalmology Chief Resident to join the Singapore National Chief Residency Program in 2015, and was subsequently awarded the Outstanding Chief Resident Award in 2016.
He completed his PhD entitled ‘Novel Imaging Technology for Diabetic Retinopathy (DR)’ with the University of Western Australia. One of the scientific findings on ‘Retinal Video Recording: A Novel Method to Diagnose Diabetic Retinopathy’ has scored multiple media releases in Australia, United States and was ranked the top story of Medscape Ophthalmology in 2011. Moreover, he has evaluated several novel methods to capture and read retinal images, using portable retinal cameras and tablets. His study results have also contributed to the paradigm shift in DR screening, going from heavy, immobile and costly retinal cameras to the light, portable and economical ones, enabling many more patients with easier and earlier access to DR screening to prevent blindness. For retinal research, he has published extensively in high impact journals, including JAMA, Lancet, Nature Biomedical Engineering, Ophthalmology, JAMA Ophthalmology and American Journal of Ophthalmology. He also serves as a reviewer in several high impact journals, including Diabetes Medicine, Diabetes Care, Hypertension, Ophthalmology, American Journal of Ophthalmology, JAMA Ophthalmology, Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences and Retina. He is also an external grant reviewer for the artificial intelligence grant in Ophthalmology.