Traian V. Chirilă

Did You Know?

• He spent his childhood in Chișineu-Criș, a small town in Transylvania.
• He is nicknamed 'Tanu'.
• He is married to Mika, who is from Japan, and they have a son named Sebastian.

Education

Traian V. Chirilă began his academic journey in Romania, completing a Bachelor of Engineering in polymer technology in 1972 and a doctorate in organic chemistry in 1981, both at the Polytechnic University of Timișoara. Following ten years of polymer and organic chemistry research, he moved to Australia. In 1984, he worked as a research fellow at the Curtin School of Applied Chemistry. Two years later, he took a senior scientist role at the Lions Eye Institute in Perth, tasked with founding a department focused on polymeric biomaterials for eye care. In 2005, he relocated to the newly established Queensland Eye Institute in Brisbane as a senior scientist, where he created an ophthalmic bioengineering department. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute in 1992. Today, he holds three adjunct professorships: at Queensland University of Technology’s School of Physical and Chemical Sciences, the University of Queensland’s Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, and its Faculty of Health Sciences.

Research

Chirilă contributed to the synthetic and structural chemistry of acetals, particularly cyclic acetals. He studied hydrogels containing UV-absorbing agents, correlating their concentration, absorptive properties, and extractability. He investigated the interaction of polymers with IR laser radiation, showing that monomer release from IOL materials after irradiation with surgical IR lasers is too low to cause harmful effects in the eye. He conducted the first investigation of the interaction between poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (PHEMA) and UV laser radiation, and first used X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy to study ablation of ophthalmic hydrogels with excimer lasers. He invented melanin-containing synthetic hydrogels that absorb UV and blue radiation for use as IOL materials, and reported the first polymer-biopolymer combinations as interpenetrating polymer networks (IPNs). He developed the artificial cornea initially called the Chirila keratoprosthesis, later commercialized as AlphaCor, which received FDA and other regulatory approvals for human use. He created high-water-content hydrogels as potential vitreous substitutes and an in vitro evaluation methodology. He evaluated porous hydrogel scaffolds for nerve repair, developed polymer matrices for sustained release of bioactive agents including therapeutic oligonucleotides, and created an orbital implant commercialized as AlphaSphere. He also contributed to the history of ophthalmology and biomaterials and developed tissue-engineered corneal constructs for ocular surface restoration.