Professor Dr. Syed Modasser Ali received his MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery) from Dhaka Medical College, Bangladesh and is a well-known ophthalmic surgeon in Bangladesh. He was the Health and Family Welfare and Social Welfare adviser to the Honourable Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina from 2009 to 2013. He is the founder of Mojibunnessa Eye Hospital, the first registered eye hospital in Bangladesh and founding editor-in-chief of the Bangladesh Ophthalmic Journal, the first peer-review ophthalmic journal in Bangladesh. He is regarded as one of the pioneers of Community Ophthalmology (public eye health) and his book titled Community Ophthalmology, published in 1985, is considered to be the first textbook on the subject by the British Journal of Ophthalmology. In 2013, He was named as one of the 20 most innovative surgeons alive by healthcare education website (Healthcare-Administration-Degree.net). He is also a recipient of Bangladesh National Personality Research Centre’s Freedom Fighter Award for his services during the Bangladesh Liberation War.

He was the Director-General of Health Services for the Bangladesh government in 2001, Dean of the Faculty of Postgraduate Medicine and Research at Dhaka University from 1998 to 2001, Chairman of the Bangladesh Medical Research Council (BMRC) from 1998 to 2003 and Director (and Professor Emeritus) of the National Institute of Ophthalmology in Dhaka, Bangladesh from 1997 to 2001. Under his chairmanship BMRC was awarded the prestigious WHO 50th Anniversary Primary Healthcare Development Award in 1998. He was also the president of the Ophthalmic Society of Bangladesh and in January 2015 the first peer-reviewed ophthalmic journal in Bangladesh, the Bangladesh Ophthalmic Journal, was launched him as the founding editor-in-chief. Besides he is an Executive Board member of the World Health Organization (WHO). Currently, he is the chairman of the governing body of Dhaka City College, one of the oldest colleges in Bangladesh, member of the board of directors of Beacon Pharmaceuticals Limited (Bangladesh), the first manufacturer of anticancer drugs in Bangladesh and has returned as Chairman of the Bangladesh Medical Research Council (BMRC).