Biography:Malik Peiris

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Malik Peiris
Born (1949-11-10) 10 November 1949 (age 74)
Sri Lanka
NationalitySri Lankan
Alma materSt. Anthony's College, Kandy,
University of Peradeniya University of Oxford: Keble College
Known forDiscovery of SARS Coronavirus
Cytokine storm theory of avian influenza
AwardsFellow of the Royal Society (FRS), UK
Légion d'Honneur
Silver Bauhinia Star (SBS), Hong Kong.
Scientific career
Fieldsvirology, influenza, SARS, infectious disease, medicine, microbiology, International Public Health
InstitutionsUniversity of Hong Kong
Royal Society
Hong Kong University-Pasteur Institute Royal College of Pathologists
Doctoral advisorPorterfield JS

Joseph Sriyal Malik Peiris (裴偉士), ( ඡීරිස්), ( பீறிஸ்), FRS, Légion d'Honneur, was born on 10 November 1949,[1] in Sri Lanka. He is referred to in scientific publications and media reports as JSM Peiris, JS Peiris, Joseph Peiris and, most commonly, as Malik Peiris. His close family and friends prefer to use the middle name Sriyal. He is a distinguished old boy of St. Anthony's College Kandy and later studied medicine at the University of Ceylon, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. This was followed by post graduate study at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, UK, leading to the award of the DPhil degree. After further work in the UK and Sri Lanka, he founded the clinical diagnostic and public health virology laboratory at Queen Mary Hospital, which is part of the University of Hong Kong, in 1995. Malik Peiris and his team of scientists and doctors were strategically placed to face the challenges of the Avian influenza virus outbreak, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) coronavirus outbreak, and the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus outbreak. Original research carried out by the Hong Kong laboratories have made major contributions to the knowledge of the causative viruses of these diseases, and the understanding, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of the diseases that these viruses cause. During the years 2003-2004, Malik Peiris was credited with authoring the highest number of high impact publications in the scientific world.[2] He and his co-workers have published more than 600 scientific papers in a research career spanning more than 35 years[3] and are credited with 32 scientific patents relating to diagnosis of viral infections.[4] He currently holds the Tam Wah-Ching Professorship, Division of Public Health Laboratory Sciences, University of Hong Kong, where he continues to lead ground breaking research with a particular interest in newly emerging virus diseases at the animal-human interface.[5]

Academic and Clinical Training

Joseph Sriyal Malik Peiris started his university studies in the Medical faculty of the University of Ceylon's Peradeniya campus in October 1967 and graduated MB BS with honours in September 1972.[citation needed] After completing the clinical internships, he joined the department of bacteriology in the medical school as a junior lecturer and was awarded a Commonwealth scholarship in 1977 for post graduate research training at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology in Oxford, with Dr JS Porterfield as his research advisor and mentor. He was awarded the DPhil degree in 1981. A major aspect of his DPhil dissertation 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, the first line defense cells of the body.[6]

Research training in Oxford was followed by two years of training in clinical pathology as a Registrar in Virology with Professor Richard Madeley at the department of Clinical Virology, Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle upon Tyne, culminating in the award of the Membership of the Royal College of Pathologists.

Avian Influenza

After the first outbreak of avian influenza virus H5N1 in humans in Hong Kong in 1997, Professor Peiris's attention was turned to the virus, which claimed the lives of one third of its victims. Research in his laboratory showed that the virus induces high levels of chemicals called cytokines when it infects a type of white blood cell. This was later shown to correlate with high levels of cytokines in infected humans.[7] This so-called "cytokine storm" is now recognised as a major mechanism of avian influenza virus pathogenesis.[8]

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)

In 2003, Hong Kong suffered another virus outbreak, this time from an unknown respiratory disease, termed SARS.[9] Malik became known worldwide when his laboratory was the first to isolate the virus,[10] a novel coronavirus (CoV), now known as SARS-CoV.[11]

Joseph Malik Sriyal Peiris, PhD, has been the scientific director of the HKU-Pasteur Research Centre at the University of Hong Kong.[12] Malik Peiris[13] is also notable for having isolated the causal agent for the respiratory infection SARS in early 2003.[14][15]

Honours

Malik continues to work at the University of Hong Kong and was appointed scientific director of the Hong Kong University-Pasteur Institute.[16] He is the first Sri Lankan to be elected to the Royal Society of London, the highest scientific honour in the Commonwealth. He was decorated as Knight of the Légion d'Honneur of France on 15 October 2007 [citation needed]. He was awarded the Silver Bauhinia Star (SBS) in 2008 from the government of Hong Kong SAR for "outstanding achievements in the field of virology and pathology, in particular his contribution to the prevention and control of infectious diseases."[17] In May 2017, Malik was elected as a foreign associate of the US National Academy of Sciences [18][www.nasonline.org/news-and-multimedia/news/may-2-2017-NAS-Election.html].

Family

Malik is married to Sharmini (nee Arsecularatne) and they have a daughter Shalini and a son Shehan.

References

  1. ↑ "The Academy of Sciences Malaysia has decided to award the Mahathir Science Award 2007 to Professor Joseph Sriyal Malik Peiris for his outstanding contribution to Tropical Medicine.". 2010. http://www.akademisains.gov.my/msa/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=49:recipient-1&catid=36:past-recepients&Itemid=2. Retrieved 19 May 2011. 
  2. ↑ http://ip-science.thomsonreuters.com/m/pdfs/klnl/2006-01/hottest-research-2003_2004.pdf
  3. ↑ "Error: no |title= specified when using {{Cite web}}". https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Joseph_S_Peiris. Retrieved 21 September 2015. 
  4. ↑ "Error: no |title= specified when using {{Cite web}}". http://hub.hku.hk/cris/rp/rp00410. Retrieved 21 September 2015. 
  5. ↑ http://sph.hku.hk/en/about-us/faculty-and-staff/academic-staff/peiris,-joseph-sriyal-malik
  6. ↑ "Antibody-mediated enhancement of Flavivirus replication in macrophage-like cell lines". Nature 282 (5738): 509–11. 1979. doi:10.1038/282509a0. PMID 503230. 
  7. ↑ Cheung CY et al. (2002). "Induction of proinflammatory cytokines in human macrophages by influenza A (H5N1) viruses: a mechanism for the unusual severity of human disease?". Lancet 360 (9348): 1831–7. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(02)11772-7. PMID 12480361. 
  8. ↑ Peiris et al.; Yu, WC; Leung, CW; Cheung, CY; Ng, WF; Nicholls, JM; Ng, TK; Chan, KH et al. (2004). "Re-emergence of fatal human influenza A subtype H5N1 disease". Lancet 363 (9409): 617–9. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(04)15595-5. PMID 14987888. 
  9. ↑ "SARS: epidemiology, clinical presentation, management, and infection control measures". Mayo Clin. Proc. 78 (7): 882–90. 2003. doi:10.4065/78.7.882. PMID 12839084. 
  10. ↑ "Coronavirus as a possible cause of severe acute respiratory syndrome". Lancet 361 (9366): 1319–25. 2003. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(03)13077-2. PMID 12711465. 
  11. ↑ "Pathogenesis of severe acute respiratory syndrome". Curr. Opin. Immunol. 17 (4): 404–10. 2005. doi:10.1016/j.coi.2005.05.009. PMID 15950449. 
  12. ↑ "Visit of the Grand Chancellor of the Légion d'honneur", Consulate General of France in Hong Kong and Macau, 2007, webpage: FHK17: (states "Lap Chee Tsui and Pr Malik Peiris, scientific director of HKU-Pasteur Research Centre received the award of Knight").
  13. ↑ His name is typically as "Malik Peiris".
  14. ↑ "Up Close and Personal With SARS", Dennis Normile, Science, Vol. 300, p.886, May 2003, webpage: SMag86.
  15. ↑ "Features", Daily News (online), June 2006, webpage: DailyNews-fea01 : contains "Following the discovery of the cause of SARS, Professor Peiris was invited...".
  16. ↑ HKU-Pasteur Staff page
  17. ↑ Hong Kong SAR 2008 Honours list
  18. ↑ "National Academy of Sciences, USA". http://www.nasonline.org/news-and-multimedia/news/may-2-2017-NAS-Election.html. 

External links

  • "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: [1]




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