Biography

Prof.O.V.D.S.J. Weerasena is currently a Professor in Molecular Biology at the Institute of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IBMBB), University of Colombo. Jagathpriya weeerasena graduated from Faculty of Science University of Colombo in 1996 and obtained PhD from the Faculty of science, University of Colombo in year 2002.
He served as a Research Scientist in Genetic Center, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala Sweden and as a Research associate in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Medicine Colombo. In 2005, he joined the IBMBB, University of Colombo as a Senior Lecturer.
Prof. Weerasena is a recipient of several research collaborative grants from funding agencies/Institutions (NSF and NRC). In addition he has research collaborations with many research institutions and private sector institutions in Sri Lanka. He has trained many PhD, MPhil & MSc students, some of whom are serving different Institutions in Sri Lanka and overseas. Prof. Weerasena has received several awards for his research including Presidential Research Award, Vice Chancellor’s Award for Research Excellence, National Research Council Merit awards for research and the National Science Foundation Research Awards.
He has been serving as a coordinator for MSc in Molecular Life Sciences program and Scholarship programms for international students and as the secretary for Research and Higher Degrees committee of the IBMBB. He has served as a resource person for many national and international workshops on Molecular biology and Bioinformatics and as a Reviewer for many National and international journals and symposia, a secretary to the council of the Institute of Biology Sri Lanka (IOBSL). He is a Section Editor for Sri Lankan Journal of Biology, and currently a council member of IOBSL.
His current research areas include studying Genetic diversity of crop plants species and development of molecular markers. Investigation of Bioactivities of natural products, molecular characterization of microbes, and development of molecular based species identification methods, cloning, expression and characterization of recombinant proteins. He has published his work extensively in International Journals of high impact factor.