After completing his high school education at the Haydarpaşa Military Veterinary School, Süreyya Tahsin Aygün served as a veterinarian during World War I. He concluded his studies in 1920 and subsequently moved to Anatolia to join the Turkish War of Independence. In 1922, he was awarded the Medal of Independence. Aygün was later sent to the Berlin Institute of Hygiene in Germany to receive specialized training in "virology, bacteriology, and infectious diseases." After earning his doctorate from the Berlin Higher Veterinary School in 1926, he advanced through the academic ranks, receiving the titles of Associate Professor in 1934, Professor in 1937, and Ordinaryüs Professor in 1944. Four years after attaining the rank of Brigadier General in 1946, he retired from the military to dedicate himself entirely to his academic research.
Aygün, who authored 18 books and 83 articles translated into various languages, co-isolated the rinderpest virus for the first time alongside Adil Mustafa Şehzadebaşı, successfully proving that the virus could pass through filters. One of his most crucial contributions was demonstrating that the drug containing the active ingredient thalidomide—used to prevent various skin diseases—adversely affected brain development in embryos, consequently causing children to be born with phocomelia. While thousands of children worldwide were being born with this condition and dying at an early age, the Turkish Ministry of Health refused to license the drug upon its arrival from Germany, acting strictly on the scientific grounds presented by Ordinaryüs Prof. Dr. Süreyya Tahsin Aygün and Prof. Dr. Şükrü Kaymakçalan. Thanks to these two visionary and investigative academics, Turkey became one of the few countries to remain entirely unaffected by this global tragedy. Furthermore, Ordinaryüs Prof. Dr. Aygün was the pioneer of stem cell therapy research in Turkey.