Janaka de Silva

Professor H. Janaka de Silva is a specialist physician. He is Professor of Medicine at the University of Kelaniya.^[1][2] De Silva has been appointed to a second three year term as Director of the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine at the University of Colombo^[3], and is also Chairman of the National Research Council of Sri Lanka^[4]

Janaka de Silva was educated at Royal College, Colombo. He qualified from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo with MBBS in 1982, and captained the University Rugby team. De Silva then obtained a MD from the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine, University of Colombo and a DPhil from the University of Oxford while on scholarship. ^[5] He had his higher specialist clinical training at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford and obtained MRCP (UK).

De Silva has been Dean of Medicine at Kelaniya, a member of the University Grants Commission of Sri Lanka and has chaired a number of committees and boards in the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine, University of Colombo. ^[6]

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

De Silva has wide research interests, ^[8] and holds several editorial appointments. ^{[9] [10]} He is an advisor to health related organizations, including the WHO. ^{[11] [12][13]} He was a former President of the Ceylon College of Physicians.^[14] In addition to awards and fellowships from professional bodies ^{[15] [16]}, he was conferred the title Vidyajyothi - the highest national honor for science in Sri Lanka. ^[17][18]

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