Traian V. Chirilă (born 14 February 1948 in Arad, Romania)[1] is a Romanian-Australian polymer and organic chemist who is the inventor of AlphaCor, an artificial cornea in current clinical use throughout the world.
[2] Chirilă was born and educated in Romania, where he obtained a BEng in polymer technology (1972) and a PhD in organic chemistry (1981) from the Polytechnic University of Timișoara.
In 1986 he joined Lions Eye Institute in Perth as a senior scientist with the task of establishing a department for research and development of polymeric biomaterials for ophthalmology.
In 2005, he joined the newly founded Queensland Eye Institute in Brisbane, where he was offered a position of senior scientist to continue his research and to establish a department of ophthalmic bioengineering.
[citation needed] He spent his childhood in a small town in Transylvania, Chișineu-Criș, graduating from the local high school in 1966.