Janaka de Silva

Professor H. Janaka de Silva is a Sri Lankan academic and physician. De Silva is Senior Professor of Medicine at the University of Kelaniya.^[1][2] He is also the Director of the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine at the University of Colombo^[3] and Chairman of the National Research Council of Sri Lanka^[4]

Education

Janaka de Silva was educated at Royal College, Colombo. He qualified from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo with MBBS, and captained the University Rugby team. De Silva obtained a MD from the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine, University of Colombo, a DPhil from the University of Oxford, and MRCP (UK). He was a graduate student at Pembroke College, Oxford, funded by a Wingate Scholarship,^[5] Wellcome Trust Fellowship and an Overseas Research Student award, and had his higher specialist clinical training at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford.

Educational and Professional activities

De Silva was appointed Professor of Medicine, University of Kelaniya in 1996. He was Dean of Medicine at Kelaniya (1997-2006) and a member of the University Grants Commission of Sri Lanka (2008-2011). In the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine, University of Colombo, he chaired the Board of Study in Medicine (2001-2003), the Specialty Board in Gastroenterology (2009-2014), and the Board of Management (2013-2014).^[6] He currently serves as a member of the Advisory Board of the University of Medical Sciences of Bhutan.

De Silva and colleagues set up the first formal training programme for gastroenterologists in Sri Lanka at the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine. Together with Kemal Deen and other colleagues he set up a liver transplant service in Sri Lanka.^[7]

De Silva is Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians London, the Ceylon College of Physicians, which he served as President in 2004, and the National Academy of Sciences of Sri Lanka. He was President of the Gastroenterological and Digestive Endoscopy Society of Sri Lanka and a Member of the Council of the Asia Pacific Association of Gastroenterology. De Silva has also served as a member of the Sri Lanka Medical Council, the Board of the National Science Foundation and the National Research Council.

Research

De Silva has published widely (over 5000 citations, h-index 35, i10-index 91). He was Joint Editor of the Ceylon Medical Journal from 1999-2014 ^[8] and is currently Joint Editor of the Online Appendix of Kumar and Clark's Clinical Medicine, a Deputy Editor of PLoS NTD, and a member of editorial boards of several medical journals.

De Silva is a Senior Advisor to the South Asian Clinical Toxicology Research Collaboration, ^[9] and a member, Asia Pacific regional working parties on portal hypertension, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and inflammatory bowel disease. He was member and subsequently Chairman of the International Scientific Advisory Board, Wellcome Trust Mahidol University Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Programme, a WHO temporary advisor, and team leader of the WHO funded project that estimated the global burden of snakebite in 2007. ^[10]

Honours

De Silva is an Honorary fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the Royal College of Physicians of Thailand, and the College of General Practitioners of Sri Lanka. He has delivered several orations and received Presidential Awards for research. De Silva has received The Ten Outstanding Young Persons Award for Academic Leadership and Accomplishment, The Vice Chancellors and Directors Excellence Award for the Most Outstanding Researcher in Medical and Allied Sciences - a lifetime award, and the highest national titular honor for science in Sri Lanka - Vidyajyothi.^[11]

References