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.
After ten years of research in polymers and organic chemistry, he relocated to Australia. During 1984 he was a research fellow at the Curtin School of Applied Chemistry. 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. He was made a fellow of Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) in 1992. Currently, he holds three adjunct professorships at the School of Physical and Chemical Sciences of Queensland University of Technology, Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology of University of Queensland, and Faculty of Health Sciences of University of Queensland.