Medicinal Chemistry of Neglected Tropical Diseases: Advances in the Design and Synthesis of Antimicrobial Agents

Venkatesan Jayaprakash is working as Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences & Technology, Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi-835215, Jharkhand, India. He got his Bachelor of Pharmacy degree from Madras Medical College, Chennai, India and Master of Pharmacy degree form Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India. He obtained his PhD in Pharmacy from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, India in the area of Antitubercular Drug Design.

Medicinal Chemistry and Organic synthesis of Small molecule heterocyclic compounds against communicable diseases is the focus area of his research. He is in collaboration with leading biologists around the world for his research in the area of Tuberculosis, Dengue and Chikungunya. He has around fifty publications to his credit. He has also handled two Indo-German and an Indo-UK collaborative research projects. Currently he is working in the area of Antitubercular Drug Design exploring the enzymes in the biosynthesis of Mycobactin. A chapter in this book is also dedicated to the drug design approaches in the inhibition of Mycobactin biosynthesis.

He has supervised four PhD scholars along with Dr. Barij Nayan Sinha and is currently supervising two Research Scholars in the area of Tuberculosis and Dengue. He also supervised the theses of around twenty M. Pharmacy graduates. He is serving as Editor for Journal of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and acted as Member of Editorial Board of PharmBIT, an official journal published by Pharmaceutical Society of Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences & Technology, BIT, Mesra.

Dr. Daniele Castagnolo obtained his Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Siena (Italy) in December 2006 working with Professor Maurizio Botta on the design and synthesis of anti-mycobacterial agents exploiting in-silico approaches (ligand -based virtual screening). After completing his Ph.D., Dr. Castagnolo carried out his postdoctoral studies at the Helsinki University of Technology (Finland), the University of Siena as Research Fellow, and the University of Manchester (UK). In November 2012, Dr. Castagnolo joined Northumbria University Newcastle as a lecturer and he started his independent research activity. Finally, in September 2015, Daniele moved to King's College London, at the Institute of Pharmaceutical Science, where he is currently lecturer of pharmaceutical chemistry. The main research activity of Dr. Castagnolo is represented by the design, synthesis and identification of novel active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) for the treatment of bacterial and viral infections. In particular, Dr. Castagnolo has a solid background in the repurposing and optimization of mislaid and abandoned drugs to accelerate the discovery and development of more efficient and broad(er)-spectrum treatments against drug-resistant tuberculosis and re-emerging and neglected viral infections. Finally, Dr. Castagnolo is also working on the development of novel and sustainable and "green" (bio)-catalytic processes for the manufacturing of heterocyclic drugs.

Dr. Castagnolo research group consists of 2 PhD students, 2 Postdoctoral Research Assistants and 3 MPharm students. Daniele has a solid experience in the supervision of postgraduate students. The research activity of Dr. Castagnolo is described in 44 interdisciplinary pharmaceutical/chemistry international peer-reviewed papers and 2 book chapters including recent articles in Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, Chemical Communications, ACS-Catalysis. DC works obtained 817 citations (h-index = 16, i10-index = 25).

Dr. Castagnolo has secured external funding to support his research from EPSRC (Global Challenge KCL Internal Competition and Strategic Research Fund), BBSRC (i-case studentship in collaboration with Prozomix Ltd), Royal Society of Chemistry (Research fund 2015 and Undergraduate Research Bursary 2015), the BSAS (KTN Scholarship) and Northumbria University (fully funded PhD Studentship). DC is member of the COST Action CM1303 Systems Biocatalysis, MC member of the COST Action CM1207GLISTEN and MRSC member of the Royal Society of Chemistry. DC is Scientific Advisor for www.lifescienceevents.com.

Yusuf Özkay is working as an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, Anadolu University, Eskisehir, Turkey. He graduated from Faculty of Pharmacy, Anadolu University in 2003 and remained at Anadolu University Faculty of Pharmacy to complete his Master of Science in 2005 and PhD degree in 2009. He received the Associate Professor degree in 2011. His current research interests are synthesis of new compounds such as antimicrobial, anticancer, cholinesterase inhibitor, monoamine oxidase inhibitor and cycloxygenase inhibitor candidates. He has worked on nearly 30 projects on pharmacology evaluation of newly synthesized compounds. He has directed 8 projects in this area. He has about 40 publications in reputed journals, book chapters, about 70 presentations, 3 national university and 1 drug industry scientific awards. He is the vice dean of Anadolu University Faculty of Pharmacy since April 2013.