Sri Lankan virologist
Joseph Sriyal Malik Peiris
SBS
FRS
FRCP
FRCPath
FFPH (
Sinhala : ජෝසප් ශ්රියාල් මලික් පීරිස්, born 10 November 1949) is a
Hong Kong -based
Sri Lankan
virologist , most notable for being the first person to isolate the
SARS virus .
[2] He is the current Tam Wah-Ching Professor in Medical Science, and Chair Professor of Virology at the Division of Public Health Laboratory Sciences, School of Public Health,
University of Hong Kong .
[7] He was a member of the
Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization of the
World Health Organization from 2009 to 2010.
[10]
Early life and education
Peiris was born on 10 November 1949
[6] in
Kandy ,
Sri Lanka . He attended school at
St. Anthony's College, Kandy ,
[11] and entered the
University of Ceylon ,
Peradeniya in 1967,
[3]
[12] obtaining his
MBBS in 1972.
[5]
After a year with the National Health Department at the General Hospital in
Matale ,
[3] Peiris joined the Department of
Microbiology at his alma mater, where Sarathnanda "Chubby" Arseculeratne, Peiris's future
father-in-law , worked at the time. Despite his interest in
immunology , Peiris started working on
virology at the urge of Arseculeratne.
[13] He was awarded a
Commonwealth Scholarship in 1977
[14] and went to the
University of Oxford for a
DPhil at the
Sir William Dunn School of Pathology ,
[3] graduating in 1981.
[5] A major aspect of his DPhil study was the paradoxical role that
antibodies may play in
facilitating rather than blocking the entry of
viruses , such as the
West Nile virus and the
dengue virus, into
macrophages , a type of
white blood cell .
[15] He underwent his training in
clinical pathology at the Public Health Laboratory at
Birmingham and
Newcastle University ,
[16] and completed his
pathologist examination in 1982.
[8]
Career and research
After his
DPhil , Peiris returned to
Sri Lanka as a senior
lecturer and set up a virology department at the
University of Peradeniya , which was created after the split-up of the
University of Sri Lanka (formerly the
University of Ceylon ).
[9]
In 1988, because of the
Sri Lankan Civil War ,
[13] Peiris went back to
Newcastle upon Tyne to become a consultant virologist at the
Royal Victoria Infirmary .
[8]
[16] He moved to
Hong Kong in 1995, tasked with setting up a clinical
virology unit at
Queen Mary Hospital and the
University of Hong Kong .
[13]
Peiris's research interest is in
emerging viral diseases , especially those passed from
animals to
humans , using a multidisciplinary approach termed "One-Health", which Peiris has defined as a "collaboration between the animal health,
environmental health , human health, and laboratory sectors."
[13]
Currently at HKU, Malik is the Tam Wah-Ching Professor in Medical Science and Chair Professor of Virology at the Division of
Public health Laboratory Sciences, School of Public Health.
[7] Since 2021, he has been working part time. He is also a co-director of the
WHO H5 Reference Laboratory and the WHO
SARS-CoV-2 reference laboratory,
[7] the Director of Centre of
Influenza Research
[17] and the managing director of the centre for
Immunology and
Infection .
[18] He retired from the position of co-director of the HKU-Pasteur Research Pole, jointly created in 2000 by HKU and the
Pasteur Institute in
France ,
[19] and became an Honorary Director.
[17]
Peiris has been an editor of
Current Opinion in Virology since 2011
[4]
[20] and of
mBio since 2016.
[4]
[21]
Peiris has held a number of roles at the
Hong Kong government , including a member of the Advisory panel on Emerging Infectious Diseases of the Hong Kong
Centre for Health Protection (CHP)
[22] and the Hong Kong
Research Grants Council between 2007 and 2009.
[23] He currently sits on the CHP Scientific Committee on
Emerging and
Zoonotic Diseases
[24] and Scientific Committee on
Vector -borne Diseases.
[25]
Notable findings
In 1997, after the first human outbreak of the
avian influenza
H5N1 virus in
Hong Kong , Peiris turned his attention to the virus, which claimed the lives of a third of its victims. Research in his group showed that the virus induces a high level of
cytokines when a type of
white blood cell called
macrophage is infected.
[26] This so-called "
cytokine storm " is now recognized as a major mechanism of avian influenza virus pathogenesis.
[27]
[28]
In 2003,
Hong Kong suffered another
viral disease outbreak, this time an unknown
respiratory disease , termed
severe acute respiratory syndrome , or SARS.
[29] Peiris became known worldwide when his group became the first to isolate the virus that causes this disease,
[30] a
novel coronavirus now known as
SARS-CoV-1 .
[31]
[32] By June 2003, Peiris, together with his long-time collaborators
Leo Poon and
Guan Yi , has developed a rapid
diagnostic test for SARS-CoV-1 using
real-time polymerase chain reaction .
[33]
In February 2020, Peiris published an article in
Nature Medicine , presaging the outbreak of a new
coronavirus .
[34] Peiris reported the next month that a
Pomeranian
dog was infected with
COVID-19 .
[35] This was later substantiated by other COVID-19
animal infection cases across the world, including a
tiger at the
Bronx Zoo
[36] and a
pug dog in
North Carolina .
[37]
He and collaborators also developed a
diagnostic test for 2019-nCoV (later renamed to
SARS-CoV-2 ), again using
real-time polymerase chain reaction ,
[38] and found that SARS-CoV-2 survives well on smooth surfaces and is susceptible to
disinfectants such as
household bleach ,
ethanol and
benzalkonium chloride .
[39]
Honours and awards
Personal life
Peiris is married to Sharmini Arseculeratne and they have a daughter, Shalini and a son, Shehan.
Sarathnanda "Chubby" Arseculeratne, an
Emeritus Professor at the Faculty of
Medicine ,
University of Peradeniya ,
[51] is Peiris's
father-in-law and his early mentor.
[9]
References
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External links
Quotations related to
Malik Peiris at Wikiquote
"Features", Daily News (online), June 2006, webpage:
DailyNews-fea01 : contains "Following the discovery of the cause of SARS, Professor Peiris was invited...".
"HKU ResearcherPage: Peiris, JSM", The HKU Scholars Hub (online database), webpage:
HKU Scholars Hub: Researcher Page
International National Academics Other