RESEARCH TEAM
Dr. Helani Munasinghe
Director
(Senior Lecturer, Department of Botany, Faculty of Applied Sciences
Email: director.cpmhpr@sci.sjp.ac.lk
helani@sci.sjp.ac.lk
Dr. Helani Munasinghe
Director
Centre for Plant Materials and Herbal Products Research
Faculty of Applied sciences
University of Sri Jayewardenepura
Gangodawila, Nugegoda (10250)
Sri Lanka
Biography
Dr. D.H.H. Munasinghe is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura and her research centers on Molecular Biology focusing on food and drug safety and aging, using Caenorhabditis elegans as the model organism. She has obtained her BSc (Hons) Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka in 2001, MSc in Marine Biotechnology from Cheju National University, South Korea in 2004, and PhD from the University of Birmingham, UK in 2015. She has received BRAIN KOREA 21 project scholarship in 2002, Korea Science and Engineering Foundation (KOSEF) fellowship in 2003, Commonwealth Scholarship, UK in 2007 and Associate of the Higher Education Academy, UK (46539) in 2011. She has been working as a Senior Lecturer attached to the Department of Botany, University of Sri Jayewardenepura since 2006.
Mr. Aravinda Siriwardhene
Secretary
(Senior Lecturer, Department of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of Allied Health Sciences)
Email: aravindasjp@gmail.com
Prof. Chayanika Padumadasa
Committee member
(Professor, Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Applied Sciences)
Email: chayanika@sjp.ac.lk
Dr. Chinthika Gunasekara
Committee member
(Senior Lecturer, Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Medical Sciences)
Email: chinthika@sjp.ac.lk
Prof. Sugandhika Suresh
Committee Member
(Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medical Sciences)
Email: sugandhika@sjp.ac.lk
Prof. S.B. Navarathna
Committee member
(Professor, Department of Food Science and Technology, Faculty of Applied Sciences)
Email: sbnava@sci.sjp.ac.lk
Dr. Isurika Fernando
Committee member
(Senior Lecturer, Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Applied Sciences)
Email: isurika.fernando@sjp.ac.lk
Prof. Ajita Abeysekera
External member
(Professor Emeritus, Department of chemistry, Faculty of Applied Sciences)
Email: ajith.abeysekara@sjp.ac.lk
From Traditional Herbal Medicine to the Novel Therapeutics
Sri Lanka has a long history of utilizing herbal materials with unique medicinal properties for the treatment of a vast number of diseases. However, still, it is a field that is to be explored for the development of novel therapeutics to treat life-threatening diseases.