Nimanthi Jayathilaka

Nimanthi Jayathilaka is a professor at the Department of Chemistry, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka.

We have discovered early markers for prognosis of development of severe Dengue. The findings were recently published in the Journal of Biomedical Science and Biomed Research International. Only a small percentage of dengue infected patients develop severe symptoms.

However, there is no way to predict who will develop severe symptoms among dengue patients during their admission to hospitals.The discovered method will predict who will develop severe dengue before any severe symptoms appear. Therefore, hospital care can be provided to those patients who may develop severe symptoms to reduce mortality.

Due to this discovery, monitoring all dengue patients with hospital care will not be necessary. This will relieve the burden of hospital care. We are currently in the process of developing economic methods for prognosis of severe dengue that can be used in resource limited settings based on these markers.

These studies are supported by the UNESCO and the International Development Research Center, Ottawa, Canada under the Early Career Research Fellowship Grant awarded by the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD), the National Science Foundation, Sri Lanka and the University of Kelaniya.

Research themes: Evaluating early molecular markers of severe dengue. Evaluating chemical and nutritional qualities of edible oils and antioxidants.

Areas of expertise: Dengue, biomarkers of disease severity, infectious disease markers, edible oils and nutrition, antioxidants and bioavailability

Selected publications

Senanayake C. M., Hapugaswatta H.,Samarawickrama G. R., Jayathilaka, N. and Seneviratne K. N. (2021). Effect of chain length and saturation of the fatty acids in dietary triglycerides on lipid metabolism in Wistar rats, Journal of Food Biochemistry doi.org/10.1111/jfbc.13664
Hapugaswatta, H., Wimalasekara, R. L., Perera. S. S., Premaratna, R., Seneviratne, K. N., Jayathilaka, N. (2021). Expression of nitric oxide synthase and nitric oxide levels in peripheralbloodcells and oxidized low-density lipoprotein levels in saliva as early markers of severe dengue, Biomed Research International doi.org/10.1155/2021/6650596
Karunasiri A N; Senanayake C M; Hapugaswatta H; Jayathilaka N; SeneviratneK N. (2020). Protective Effect of Coconut Oil Meal Phenolic Antioxidants against Macromolecular Damage: In Vitro and In Vivo Study. Journal of Chemistry DOI: 10.1155/2020/3503165
Karunasiri A N, Gunawardane M, Senanayake C M, Jayathilaka N, Seneviratne K N, (2020) Antioxidant and Nutritional Properties of Domestic and Commercial Coconut Milk Preparations, International Journal of Food Science, Vol 2020, doi.org/10.1155/2020/3489605
Hapugaswatta, H., Amarasena, P., Premaratna, R., Seneviratne, K. N., Jayathilaka, N. (2020). Differential expression of microRNA, miR150 and enhancer of zeste homolog 2 (EZH2) in peripheral blood cells as early markers of severe forms of Dengue, Journal of Biomedical Science. 27:25, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12929-020-0620-z