Prof. Lallindra Gooneratne
Professor Lallindra V. Gooneratne
Dr. Lallindra Viranjan Gooneratne had his primary and secondary education at Royal College, Colombo. He won College colours in 3 sports: swimming, tennis and water polo and went on to captain the swimming team that won the Sri Lanka schools championships in 1984. He also captained the College water polo team. He obtained Sri Lanka National Schools colours for aquatic sports in 1985. The culmination of his school career was being appointed Head Prefect of Royal College in 1986.
He entered North Colombo Medical College and graduated in 1995 with second class honours at the 2nd, 3rd and Final MBBS examinations.
He gained entrance to the Postgraduate training programme in Pathology in 1999 and obtained Diploma in Pathology from the PGIM, University of Colombo in 2001 and MD (Haematology) in 2004 under the supervision of Dr Mala Tudawe, Consultant Haematologist at NHSL.
He joined the Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo in 2003 as a probationary lecturer.
He proceeded to King’s College hospital, London in 2005 for his overseas training and was fortunate to train at one of the largest haematology centres in London, under the auspices of Prof Ghulam Mufti and Prof Roopen Arya. He obtained MRCPath in Haematology and was subsequently awarded FRCPath in Haematology in 2006. It was during his time at King’s that he developed a keen interest in haemato-oncology and bone marrow transplantation, and acquired coagulopathies. He worked as the medical bone marrow transplant co-ordinator at King’s where over 120 transplants were performed each year.
On his return to Sri Lanka in 2007, he strived to introduce a haematopoietic stem cell transplant programme and a flowcytometry facility for the diagnosis of haematological malignancies to the state sector. However, his effort was futile.
He established the first flow cytometry laboratory for the diagnosis of haematological malignancies in Sri Lanka in 2009 at Asiri hospital and provided this essential diagnostic service to patients with blood cancers throughout the country.
Dr Gooneratne established the first allogeneic haematopoietic stem cell transplant center in the country at Asiri Central hospital in 2014.
He was President of the Sri Lanka College of Haematologists in 2014 and has served as a council member of the Ceylon College of Physicians and Secretary of the College of Pathologists of Sri Lanka. He is currently a member of the scientific committee and formerly a member of the registry committee of the Asia-Pacific blood and marrow transplant society.
Dr Gooneratne currently works as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo and is the Director of the Clinical Haematology and Bone Marrow transplant unit at Asiri Central hospital, which is a training facility approved by the PGIM to which postgraduate trainees in Clinical Haematology are assigned to for training. He is currently the Chairperson of the Specialty board in Haematology and Transfusion Medicine, PGIM and is a member of the Board of study in Pathology and the Specialty Board in Molecular Medicine. He is also a member of the faculty board of the Faculty of Health Sciences, Open University of Sri Lanka. He is an examiner and has been the Chief Examiner for the MD in Clinical Haematology examination conducted by the PGIM, University of Colombo.