AP De Silva on building molecular fluorescence sensors for healthcare

The Life Scientific

BBC

Technology, Personal Journals, Society & Culture, Science

4.6 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 18 November 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

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Summary

From humble beginnings in his native Sri Lanka, to a more than 40 year academic career at Queen’s University Belfast, Prof. AP (Amilra Prasanna) De Silva’s research into molecular photosensors has led to a pioneering career in that’s evolved from chemistry to medical diagnostics on one hand, to information processing on the other.

Prof. De Silva challenged cultural expectations and overcame the lack of opportunities in chemistry that were available in Sri Lanka in the early 1970s. He first moved to Belfast to pursue research in photochemistry at Queen’s University. Inspired by his grandmother’s struggle with high blood pressure he engineered a unique sodium photosensor by marrying fluorescent molecules with chemical receptors. As a result of his international collaborations, a commercial, portable sensor was developed to detect salts and minerals in the blood. Its speed of analysis has since saved countless lives and improved healthcare around the world.

AP talks to Jim Al-Khalili about his passion for engineering molecules and how his photochemical innovations have since crossed into computer science. They’ve been developed to perform molecular computations far inside the human body - where silicon microchips fear to tread. A new deeper understanding of life inside our tissues and cells beckons.

Presented by Jim Al-Khalili Produced by Adrian Washbourne Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem A BBC Studios Production

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:07.0	Hello, I'm Emma Barnett. For most of my career, I've been on live radio, and I love it.
0:13.3	But I've always wondered, what if we'd had more time? How much deeper does the story go?
0:19.2	I remember having this very sharp thought that what you do right now, this is it.
0:24.3	This defines your life.
0:26.0	I'm ready to talk and ready to listen.
0:28.3	I'm insulted by how little the medical community is ever bothered with this.
0:33.9	Ready to talk with me, Emma Barnard, is my new podcast.
0:37.0	Listen on BBC Sounds. Welcome to the
0:39.5	podcast of the Life Scientific. Hello, as little as 30 years ago, if you'd ended up critically
0:46.0	ill in intensive care and needed a detailed analysis of your blood to decide the next course of
0:51.3	treatment, chances are doctors would have had to wait a day or more for results to come back from a lab,
0:57.2	time that could have meant the difference between life and death.
1:00.0	But that weight has been transformed down to less than a minute, thanks to the research of my guest today.
1:05.7	Professor Amilra Prasana de Silva, or AP DeSilver, as he likes to be known,
1:10.5	is a pioneer in the fields of
1:12.4	photochemistry and molecular computing. Born in Sri Lanka, AP studied at both University
1:18.3	of Colombo and then at Queen's University of Belfast, where he's still based today as
1:23.1	Emeritus Professor of Chemistry. In the 1980s, he developed a molecular photosensor. Yes,
1:29.1	this will be explained that's led to a range of small, portable blood analysers that have
1:35.1	saved thousands of lives around the world. His achievements have won in many awards,
1:39.4	including a prestigious Royal Society of Chemistry blue plaque. But he insists it's a career that's been shaped
	...

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