Dr. Meran Keshawa Ediriweera

Dr. Meran Keshawa Ediriweera is a Senior Lecturer in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. He was educated at Richmond College, Galle. Currently, he coordinates the MSc in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology program in the department. In 2026, the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) offered him an Ibn Sina Global Fellowship, a prestigious fellowship for a foreign academic by a Middle Eastern university. He also serves as a visiting scholar at Karunya University of Science and Technology, India.

After completing his undergraduate degree in India, he joined the Institute of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IBMBB), University of Colombo, for his Master’s degree in Molecular Life Sciences. Following his PhD in Molecular Biology and Medicinal Chemistry from the IBMBB, he moved to South Korea for a postdoctoral fellowship at the Functional Genomic Biochemistry Laboratory of the Subtropical/Tropical Organism Gene Bank, Jeju National University.

Dr. Ediriweera has authored nearly 68 publications in peer-reviewed international journals covering Cell Biology, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Pharmacognosy, Nanotechnology, Bioinformatics, and Drug Discovery. He was the first from Sri Lanka to publish his research findings and several write-ups in reputed international journals such as Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy, Biochimie, Scientifica, Natural Products Research, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, Oncology Letters, Applied Biological Chemistry, Molecules, Seminars in Cancer Biology, Drug Discovery Today, BIOCELL, and Medicines.

Through personal invitations from journals, Dr. Ediriweera has reviewed nearly 640 research papers, review articles, short communications, grant proposals, and book chapters published in over 200 different journals and books. He has supervised and guided undergraduate and postgraduate students in Cell Biology, Molecular Biology, Biochemistry, and Medicinal Chemistry.

He has been awarded the Presidential Award for Scientific Publications and the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science (SLAAS) General Research Committee (GRC) Best Postgraduate Research Award in Life and Earth Sciences in recognition of research carried out in Sri Lanka. Dr. Ediriweera was ranked among the top 2% of scientists from Sri Lanka in 2023, 2024, and 2025, according to Stanford University’s list of the World’s Top 2% Scientists. In addition, he was recognized among the top 0.5% of scholars worldwide and as a top scholar in Life Sciences and Biochemistry in Sri Lanka, according to the 2024 ScholarGPS rankings (calculated over the last five years).

Dr. Ediriweera received his first international research grant as Principal Investigator from the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) to investigate the effects of odd-chain saturated fatty acids on epigenetic modifications in breast cancer cells. He was awarded a TWAS/UNESCO research grant. He also received a grant from the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) to investigate the epigenetic effects of marine flora and fauna. The International Coconut Community (ICC) appointed Dr. Ediriweera as a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee on Health (SACH).