Professor Augustine F B Cheng had a qualification in Medicine at the University of Manitoba, Canada. He also obtained a PhD degree in Medical Microbiology with a special interest in the virulence of Neisseria gonorrhoeae. His other qualifications included Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists, Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine (Pathology) and Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia.

He joined the Department of Microbiology in the Faculty of Medicine at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1983, and served as the Chairman of the Department during the period of 1990 to 2004. Professor Cheng's research interests include antimicrobial susceptibility testing, pharmacokinetics, mechanisms of resistance and clinical trials, development of rapid diagnostic methods for infectious diseases, molecular virology and epidemiology, control of hospital infection, mycobacteriology and helicobacteriology.