National Award for popularising Science and Technology for Rajarata scientist

Friday, 13 December 2013 03:57 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

By Ruzaik Farook Dr. Faiz Marikkar was one who received National award of Prof MTM Jiffry Memorial Award for popularising Sciences and Technology 2013. The awarding ceremony was held at the BMICH recently and it was awarded by the National Science Foundation. He also received Ten Outstanding Young Persons of Sri Lanka (TOYP) award for his outstanding academic accomplishment.

An old boy of St. Aloysius College, Galle, Dr. Marikar is one of the most experienced scientists in the field of molecular biology in the country. He is currently the Head of the Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Allied Sciences of the University of Rajarata. He holds a B.Sc., (Hons) from the University of Ruhuna. He read part of his postgraduate degree in the University of Sheffield before transferring to the University of Nanjing in China. He holds a M.Sc., Ph.D. and D.Sc. from the University of Nanjing. His doctoral dissertation was based on genetics, molecular biology and microbiology related to human cancer genetics. Being an exceptional scholar, Dr. Marikar was offered a Fulbright Fellowship during which he was at the University of John Hopkins and simultaneously received an opportunity to work with the University of Harvard. Dr. Marikar received an honorary Post Doctorate from the University of Colombo when he returned to the Island. He has a vast amount of published work, among which are scientific books and articles that can be seen in the Science Citation Index including Science and Nature.He is the pioneer of the SLIIT journal and the English-Chinese-Sinhalese dictionary. He was awarded the Presidential Award in 2001 and was also honoured with two NBQSA awards by the British Computer Society. This year he placed first at the Jiangsu Provincial Awards for Science and Technology. Dr. Marikar’s research interests include plant pathology, tissue Culture, human cancer genetics, plant genetics, bacterial genetics, And fly (Drosophila spp) genetics. He is multilingual and is able to Converse in English, Tamil, Sinhalese, Arabic and Mandarin.