Sri Lankan malaria researcher
Kamini Nirmala Mendis is a Sri Lankan professor emeritus at the University of Colombo and former malaria expert at the World Health Organization (WHO ).
Education
Mendis went to Visakha Vidyalaya school in Colombo .[ 1] She went to the University of Ceylon to study medicine in 1972, and then moved to the University of London in the UK for her PhD in 1980.[ 2] For her M.D. in Microbiology, to complete her medical training, Mendis returned to her alma mater in 1989, now split into the University of Colombo .[ 2]
Career
Mendis was awarded a National Presidents Award for Outstanding Citizens in 1983.[ 2] In 1988, Mendis established the Malaria Research Unit within the Department of Parasitology of the University of Colombo , and she led them for 17 years.[ 2] [ 3] [ 4] Mendis won the 1991 Chalmers Medal from the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene , and the 1993 Bailey K. Ashford Medal from the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene .[ 2] [ 5]
In 1993, the labs of Mendis and Dyann Wirth published the first successful use of the electroporation method to insert new DNA sequence into a malaria cell, in this case Plasmodium gallinaceum .[ 6]
Mendis is considered to have been an "architect" of Sri Lanka's successful elimination of malaria, and often writes about how the country needs to actively maintain this status.[ 7] [ 8] [ 9] She continues to be a member of the WHO Malaria Policy Advisory Committee .[ 10]
References
^ "Visakha OGA honours its distinguished Old Girls" . www.sundaytimes.lk . Retrieved 2019-10-13 .
^ a b c d e The NIH Record . U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. 2000.
^ "PDRU – History | FOM" . Retrieved 2019-10-13 .
^ "WHO | May you live in interesting times: malariologist reflects on elimination success" . WHO . Archived from the original on June 23, 2018. Retrieved 2019-10-13 .
^ "American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene - MEDALS" (PDF) . 2019. Retrieved 20 Dec 2019 .
^ Goonewardene, R; Daily, J; Kaslow, D; Sullivan, T J; Duffy, P; Carter, R; Mendis, K; Wirth, D (1993). "Transfection of the malaria parasite and expression of firefly luciferase" . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America . 90 (11): 5234– 5236. Bibcode :1993PNAS...90.5234G . doi :10.1073/pnas.90.11.5234 . ISSN 0027-8424 . PMC 46690 . PMID 8506371 .
^ Nafeel, Nushka. "Annihilation of the deadly parasite" . Daily News . Retrieved 2021-12-22 .
^ Mendis, Kamini (2019-09-04). "Eliminating malaria should not be the end of vigilance" . Nature . 573 (7772): 7. doi :10.1038/d41586-019-02598-1 . PMID 31485061 . S2CID 201815309 .
^ "Scientists in Pakistan and Sri Lanka bet their futures on China" . www.nature.com . May 2019. Retrieved 2021-12-22 .
^ "Becoming malaria-free by 2020" . www.who.int . Retrieved 2019-10-13 .