Prasong Tienboon was born and raised in Sukhothai province Thailand. He undertook his medical training (Doctor of Medicine - MD) at Chiang Mai University in 1976. He received his Board of Pediatrics Certificate of Proficiency from the Thailand Medical Council in 1981 and his Master’s Degree in Community Nutrition (MCN) from the University of Queensland, Australia in 1984. He then pursued his PhD at Deakin University in the Section of Human Nutrition, Australia (1991) in conjunction with an Internal Medicine specialist training in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism at the Monash Medical Centre, Melbourne, Australia. He also trained in Pediatrics and Gastroenterology at the Royal Children Hospital, in Melbourne. Through assiduous continuing education, he added clinical strengths in pursuit of a combined career in clinical nutrition and paediatrics.
After his studies in Australia, he returned to Thailand and became an Associate Professor at the Chiang Mai University, his former alma mater, in 1993 and was certified as a Specialist in Pediatric Nutrition from the Royal College of Pediatricians of Thailand in 2010. He became Head of the Division of Nutrition and Nutrition Research Center, Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine at Chiang Mai University where he practised as a Pediatrician and Medical nutritionist until his untimely death. In addition he was an Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics in the Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, and Louisiana State University, USA from 1997 to 2011.
He held several positions of note for clinical nutrition and paediatrics. These included Presidency of the Asia Pacific Clinical Nutrition Society (APCNS), 2005-2011; Presidency of Thai Clinical Nutrition Society (TCNS), 2005-2011; Editor-in-Chief of the Thai Journal of Clinical Nutrition (TJCN), 2007-2011; membership of the Editorial Board of the Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1995-2011;Chairman, Scientific Program of the Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition Society of Asia (PENSA), 1995-2011and Executive Committee Member: Pediatric Nutrition Society of Thailand (PNST), 1998-2011. He was a co-founder of the Asia Pacific Public Health Nutrition Association (APPHNA). His publications in his professional field have been extensive, as books, reviews, and original scientific papers.
He received the prestigious Knight Grand Cordon (first class) of the Most Noble Order of the Crown of Thailand from His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej in 2009 in recognition for his outstanding and long public service.
With great enthusiasm and commitment he organised the 7th APCNS Conference on Clinical Nutrition in Bangkok, June 5-8th 2011. Remarkably, he was an active participant in the very first APCNS conference, jointly with its Australasian counterpart, in Singapore in 1991, some 20 years before. Sadly, he died unexpectedly of ischaemic heart disease a matter of days before the conference he had so professionally planned. That conference and its impact on nutritional paediatrics in the Asia Pacific region and beyond stand as a vital testimony to his exceptional career and life.