Chanaki Amaratunga
DeTACT Coordinator
Chanaki Amaratunga is a Sri Lankan scientist who joined MORU in 2019 to coordinate the Development of Triple Artemisinin Combination Therapies (DeTACT) project. This is in line with her research interest of working on bench-to-bedside strategies for treating drug resistant malaria in low- and middle-income countries.
Chanaki obtained her PhD from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, working on the vaccinology and immunology of malaria. She did post-doctoral research on molecular biology and protein chemistry of malaria at the International Center of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, New Delhi, India.
Chanaki further trained at the Laboratory of Malaria and Vector Research (LMVR) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), USA, where she worked on laboratory and clinical studies of drug resistant malaria and also served as the International Scientific Program Manager for LMVR/NIH.
Recent publications
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Raising awareness of antimicrobial resistance: development of an ‘antibiotic footprint calculator’
Prapharsavat R. et al, (2023), Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, 78, 1317 - 1321
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Triple Artemisinin-Based Combination Therapies for Malaria - A New Paradigm?
van der Pluijm RW. et al, (2021), Trends in parasitology, 37, 15 - 24
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Analysis of Plasmodium vivax schizont transcriptomes from field isolates reveals heterogeneity of expression of genes involved in host-parasite interactions.
Siegel SV. et al, (2020), Scientific reports, 10
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Development of copy number assays for detection and surveillance of piperaquine resistance associated plasmepsin 2/3 copy number variation in Plasmodium falciparum.
Ansbro MR. et al, (2020), Malaria journal, 19
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Triple artemisinin-based combination therapies versus artemisinin-based combination therapies for uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum malaria: a multicentre, open-label, randomised clinical trial
van der Pluijm RW. et al, (2020), The Lancet, 395, 1345 - 1360