Drug Discovery Africa Speakers

Professor Richard Kwamla Amewu

Richard Kwamla Amewu a synthetic organic chemist with special interest in the development of novel therapeutic agents. His research covers drug-design, chemical biology, and medicinal chemistry of antimalarial, antimycobacterial, and anticancer drugs as well as treatment for neglected diseases. Prof Amewu’s research also focuses on exploring the key pharmacophore in natural products and designing semi synthetic or purely synthetic as well as manipulation of undruglike chemical entities with therapeutic properties into druglike compounds.
Prof Richard Amewu has an outstanding track record in interdisciplinary chemical biology research which is well-embedded in the drug discovery research community. His research experience, including candidate selection of three molecules for antimalarial and antituberculosis is well known and resulted in several high-profile publications in high impact peer-reviewed journals including nature communication and four patents. One of the flagship projects he worked on was the medicinal chemistry of 1,2,4,5- Tetraoxanes where the peroxidic moiety in Artemisinin was explored by incorporating two peroxide warheads into the compounds. Two frontrunner compounds were candidate selected for evaluation as a potential antimalarial drug.
He is the founder, and the leader of the Drug Innovation Group based in the Department of Chemistry at University of Ghana where they are carrying out medicinal chemistry on phenotypic hits. Prof Amewu built the infrastructure for organic synthesis through the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), LifeArc, WHO and other funders.

Professor Gordon A. Awandare

Gordon A. Awandare is the Pro Vice-Chancellor responsible for Academic and Students Affairs. He is the founding Director of West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP), and a Professor at the Department of Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology (BCMB) at the University of Ghana, Legon. He is also a visiting Professor at the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK.

In 2014, he led the establishment of WACCBIP after winning one of the World Bank’s African Centres of excellence grants. Subsequently WACCBIP has won several other big grants, including a Wellcome Trust DELTAS grant, which altogether have secured over $40 million to University of Ghana for equipment, infrastructure, and fellowships to about 300 African scientists for Masters, doctoral and postdoctoral training. He has supervised 14 postdoctoral fellows, 20 PhD students and 23 Master’s students.

His research interest is in the molecular and cellular aspects of infectious diseases in Africa, with specialization in the biology of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, and the pathogenesis of its infections in African children. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Prof Awandare’s team have played a leading role in Ghana’s response by providing research data on seroprevalence and genomic diversity of circulating SARS-CoV-2 viruses. He has more than 130 peer-reviewed journal publications in a wide range of journals, including some of the leading infectious diseases and immunology journals.

Prof Awandare was a recipient of the Royal Society Pfizer award for 2015 for achievements in molecular and cellular studies of malaria, and science capacity building in Africa. At the University of Ghana, he received the Distinguished Award for Meritorious Service in 2014, Citation of Honor in recognition of contributions to science development in the College of Basic and Applied Sciences in particular, and University of Ghana in general in 2020 and Meritorious Award in Recognition of Outstanding Service, College of Basic and Applied Sciences in 2021.

He is a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Royal Society of Biology of the UK. In 2019, he was appointed the first Global Editor for Africa for Experimental Biology and Medicine, the journal of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine. He also serves on numerous prestigious international boards and committees.

Professor Linda Eva Amoah

Linda Amoah is an associate Professor of immunology and specialize in malaria elimination, malaria diagnostics, asymptomatic infections, gametocyte biology, transmission-blocking immunity and antimalarial drug discovery. My laboratory is taking an integrated approach to both evaluate malaria transmission in the field and design new transmission blocking agents.

I am very interested in developing and evaluating effective diagnostic tools that can aid in the identification of all Plasmodium species contained in symptomatic and asymptomatic infections. My laboratory partners with the Ghana National Malaria Elimination Program to conduct routine surveillance of Pfhrp2 gene-deletant parasites in order to inform policy on malaria diagnosis in the country.

In addition to producing and evaluating the efficacy of transmission blocking malaria vaccine candidates, I have projects in place to evaluate the development of transmission blocking immunity and the production of gametocytes during a natural infection.

My laboratory is also much into drug discovery. Having begun with the screening of natural products for antimalarial activity, my laboratory has advanced its drug discovery research to include drug resistance and mechanism of action studies and is currently serving as the biology group of the Ghana Drug Discovery Hub (DDH).

Professor Lyn-Marie Birkholtz

Lyn-Marie Birkholtz is a full professor in Biochemistry and director of a Tier 1 DST/NRF South African Research Chair (SARChI) in Sustainable Malaria Control. She leads the Parasite Cluster within the UP Institute for Sustainable Malaria Control. She is an elected member of the Academy of Science of South Africa. She is trained as Geneticist and Biochemist and received her PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Pretoria, followed by postdoctoral fellowships in Germany and the USA. Prof Birkholtz is a NRF B2-rated scientist and was recognised by UP recognised as Exceptional Young Researcher in 2010 and 2013, and as Exceptional Academic Achiever for 2019-2021. She received the Vice Chancellor’s Exceptional Supervisor Award in 2018 and the NSTF Science Communication Award in 2018.

Dr Beatriz Baragaña

Beatriz Baragaña is Portfolio Leader for Apicomplexan Drug Discovery at the Drug Discovery Unit (DDU). As Portfolio Leader Beatriz leads our Malaria, Cryptosporidiosis and Schistosomiasis drug discovery programmes focused on delivering new early leads for validated molecular targets and pre-clinical candidates.

The most advanced compound discovered by the malaria team, M5717 (DDD489) has recently demonstrated single dose cures of malaria infections in a Phase I clinical study. The DDU malaria team has been awarded the prestigious Medicines for Malaria Venture Project of the Year Award twice (2014 and 2018).

Beatriz graduated with a BSc in Chemistry from University of Oviedo (Spain) and a PhD in Organic Chemistry from the same university under the supervision of Prof. Barluenga. She went on to join Prof. A. P. Davies lab at Trinity College (Dublin) followed by an industrial postdoctoral position as Medicinal Chemist at Bayer AG (Wuppertal, Germany). She moved to Scotland in 2001 and joined Avecia (now Piramal Pharma) where she became a team leader working in antibody drug conjugates for the treatment of cancer. In 2007 she joined Prof. Ian H. Gilbert group at the University of Dundee.

Dr Robert Bates

Robert Bates received his B.S. in chemistry from MIT and a Ph.D. in organic synthesis with Prof. William Roush at the Scripps Research Institute of Florida. In 2011, he joined GSK’s Global Health Medicines R&D unit in Tres Cantos, Spain as a medicinal chemist in the tuberculosis group. From making designing and synthesizing new drug candidates as a chemist he then transitioned into project leadership, and eventually to TB Portfolio Leader.
In this role, he is responsible for overseeing pre-clinical research activities both in discovery and to support the translational development of GSK’s significant pipeline of TB assets. Areas of current discovery interest in GSK include exploring the biology of host-pathogen modulation for potential new drug targets, prosecuting challenging biological targets via novel modalities, and developing tools for designing/identifying promising new drug combinations in the future.
Of particular note, Robert has been involved in the discovery and early development processes of four molecules now in active clinical development. He was directly involved in the discoveries of GSK2556286 and sanfetrinem cilexetil for TB. His role as portfolio leader has further encompassed GSK3036656 and alpibectir (boosted ethionamide).
Along with his internal responsibilities, Robert is also the GSK representative for a number of influential TB collaborations and consortia including the TB Drug Accelerator, PanTB, and ERA4TB. Robert’s work within GSK and with collaborators has led to over 30 peer reviewed publications and multiple patents.

Dr Stephen Brand

Stephen Brand is a seasoned medicinal chemist with over 25 years experience in pharma and academic drug discovery across a broad range of therapeutic areas.  As a scientific director at MMV I provide medicinal chemistry support and strategic leadership to our discovery partners to help them deliver high-quality preclinical candidates for treatment or chemoprevention of malaria. I also provide pharmacometrics support and training to our discovery teams, particularly in the use of the free tools MMVSola and MMVFree which help maximize their chances of achieving the challenging single dose criteria. I’ve always been passionate about drug discovery in a global health context because of the opportunity to work collaboratively with world experts to deliver health equity. I would love to see an end to malaria in my lifetime. In my free time I will mostly be found mountain biking, ski mountaineering, trail running or swimming in the Swiss mountains.

Dr Arnab Chatterjee

After receiving his PhD in the lab of the late Prof. Robert Grubbs at Caltech in 2002, Arnab joined the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF) as a Principal Investigator in the chemistry department in 2002. His work over 9+ years at GNF has been focused on hit-to-lead and lead optimization in several medicinal chemistry projects ranging from a variety of therapeutic areas (neuroscience, oncology, respiratory disease and infectious diseases). The project teams he has worked with have produced 8 preclinical candidates optimized for both inhaled and oral formulations with three novel first-in-class compounds in clinical trials (including two for malaria infection) including Ganaplacide in Phase 3 for malaria. Since May 2012 he has been responsible for setting up and leading the chemistry group at Calibr in La Jolla, CA working across a wide variety of disease areas including eight active lead optimization programs in various diseases including regenerative medicine, respiratory, infectious and childhood diseases. In total Dr. Chatterjee has 20+ years’ experience as a medicinal chemist and has developed multiple drugs currently in clinical trials and late-stage preclinical development at GNF and Calibr including running the ADME and PK group at Calibr and leading the establishment of the best-in-class drug repurposing collection called Reframe. His work at Calibr includes seven compounds in clinical development for infectious disease and regenerative medicine. His research interests include application of novel synthetic methods to expedite the structural diversification in medicinal chemistry and cell-based lead optimization and in parallel integrating those efforts in gating preclinical ADME and pharmacokinetics studies in rodents to generate novel proof of concepts in relevant animal models.

Dr Laura Cleghorn

Laura Cleghorn is the Tuberculosis Portfolio Leader in the Dundee Drug Discovery Unit (DDU) where she leads a team of multi-disciplinary researchers focussed on identifying novel inhibitors with the potential to be progressed toward pre-clinical candidate selection and evaluated as a new therapy for TB. Multiple strategies are employed to achieve the goal of identifying molecules targeting new pathways or those exhibiting improved profiles against a known mechanism of action. This is a highly collaborative research program where the work is coordinated with an international network of collaborators to maximise impact.

Laura obtained a BSc(Hons) in Chemistry from the University of Edinburgh then worked at Organon Laboratories as a graduate medicinal chemist before moving to the University of Leeds where she obtained a PhD in Organic Chemistry in the lab of Prof. Ron Grigg. In 2006, Laura joined the newly formed Drug Discovery Unit as a medicinal chemist, initially working on Human African Trypanosomiasis, before moving to the Tuberculosis group in 2013, where she became the Portfolio Leader in 2020, and was afterwords promoted to the position of Reader in 2022.

Professor Laurent Dembele

Laurent Dembele is an Associate Professor in Biotechnology microbiology engineering at the Université des Sciences, des Techniques et des Technologies de Bamako (USTTB), focused on P. falciparum and non-falciparum species (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34021751/ and https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37093000/) drug discovery and drug development. He also investigates the parasite liver and blood stages biology (https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3461 and https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31094679/), drug pharmacology (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51994-3 ) and drug resistance (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-40974-8 and https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38136946/ ) in real world parasites.

Dr Thierry Diagana

Thierry Diagana is the Head of Global Health and California Sites at Novartis Biomedical Research. He earned his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Paris V and completed his post-doctoral work at the Salk Institute. Thierry’s career includes roles of increasing responsibilities at Exelixis, the Institute for OneWorld Health, and the Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases, where he led significant research on malaria and participated in the discovery and development of affordable treatments for tropical diseases. Since 2017, he has led the Novartis Global Health research team based in Emeryville, California.

Dr Beverly Egyir

Beverly Egyir obtained her PhD in Molecular Bacteriology and Infection from University of Copenhagen, Denmark, with funding from the Danish International Development Agency, through the Antibiotic Drug Use Monitoring and Evaluation of Resistance Project and did a Postdoctoral training at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom with support from ALBORADA TRUST under the Cambridge Africa Partnership for Research Excellence project. Her research focuses on the use of phenotypic and molecular tools, such as whole genome sequencing for surveillance of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in bacteria species from humans, animals and the environment. She has a special interest in superbugs like methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and extended spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) producing bacteria (among others) with an overall goal of tackling AMR through research, surveillance and capacity building on the African continent. Between 2018 – 2020, she served as the Technical Lead for training on the first Fleming funded country grant award for the nationwide surveillance on antimicrobial resistance in humans and animals in Ghana. Dr. Egyir is a member of the following groups: Wellcome Trust SEDRIC Genomics for AMR surveillance Working Group, Africa CDC-Pathogen Genomic Initiative focus group on Genomic AMR Surveillance, SEQAFRICA consortium, and the National Antimicrobial Resistance Group, Ghana.

Professor Edmund Ekuadzi

Dr. Edmund Ekuadzi is an Associate Professor of Pharmacognosy and Head of the Central Lab, within the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. He leads a team of researchers focused on natural product drug discovery. His expertise lies in isolating and identifying anti-infective compounds from medicinal plants, providing a foundation for the development of novel therapeutics. He is also actively involved in mentoring students and fostering collaboration with both local and international researchers.

Ms Suze Farrell

Suze Farrell is the Training Manager for WCAIR. She has been leading the development the training programme since 2018. The training programme has welcomed nearly 30 trainees from 14 countries to Dundee, from PhD students through to professorial staff. We have also delivered short courses in South Africa, UK and Malawi. We are now developing training that can be delivered to scientists while they are still in their own countries, which is a requirement with current travel restrictions but will hopefully also allow us to train more people.

Dr Arnold Forkuo Donkor

Arnold Forkuo Donkor is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Pharmacology, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi – Ghana. He is a registered Pharmacist and a Pharmacologist with a solid research background, industry experience and a teaching portfolio. He is also a Next Generation Scientists fellow of the Novartis Institute of Biomedical Research (NIBR) and the University of Basel, Switzerland.
He is currently a Co-Chair of the Africa Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetic (DMPK) Network and leads the DMPK group of the Bill and Melinda Gates funded “Ghana Drug Discovery Hub” project.
His research revolves around the discovery and subsequent development of bioactive compounds (NCEs) from plants with biological activities. His focus in the drug discovery process is to develop in vitro, in vivo methods, tools and bioanalytical techniques to assess Absorption-Distribution-Metabolism-Excretion (ADME) or pharmacokinetic properties of new chemical Entities (NCEs).
His laboratory, with mentorship from the DMPK teams of the Drug Discovery Unit, University of Dundee and the H3D, University of Cape Town, runs various in vitro DMPK assays to support the drug discovery drive in Ghana and the Sub-region.

Professor Ian Gilbert

Ian Gilbert obtained a PhD in synthetic chemistry, working with Andrew Holmes at the University of Cambridge. this was followed by a post-doctoral fellow with Parke-Davis Research in Cambridge, before spending a year teaching chemistry at the University of Zambia in Lusaka. On returning to the UK, Ian undertook post-doctoral work at the University of Cambridge in the area of chemical biology, before establishing his own independent medicinal chemistry research group at the Welsh School of Pharmacy in Cardiff University. The focus of Ian’s research was drug discovery for neglected tropical diseases. In 2005, Ian moved to a chair at the College of Life Sciences, University of Dundee. There, he helped to establish the Drug Discovery Unit. Ian is on the management team of the Drug Discovery Unit, initially as head of chemistry and from 2022, as Head of the Drug Discovery Unit. In 2023, Ian became Director of the Wellcome Centre for Anti-Infectives Research at the University of Dundee, which brings together the Drug Discovery Unit, the Mode of Action group and the molecular parasitologists in Dundee to look at innovative approaches to drug discovery, training of drug discovery to scientists from Low- and Middle- Income Countries and public engagement.

Dr Fabian Gusovsky

Fabian Gusovsky, PhD is Vice President and Deputy Head, Microbes & Host Defense, Tropical Disease Drug Discovery at Eisai, Inc a Japanese Pharma company. He manages a team responsible for a Drug Discovery and Development portfolio with assets in Malaria, Tuberculosis and Neglected Tropical Diseases. These involve collaborations with leading global academic experts. He actively participates in Eisai’s Sustainability activities such as the distribution at Zero Cost of Diethylcarbamazine (a drug used for the treatment of lymphatic filariasis). He is a member of the Executive Group of the Global Alliance for the Elimination of Lymphatic Filariasis, and of the Executive Council supporting the Gates Foundation CEO Round Table.

Dr Jason Hlozek

Dr Jason Hlozek is a computational chemist at the University of Cape Town who is passionate about leveraging computational methods to address various scientific questions, particularly in the context of global health. During his postgraduate studies, he focused on applying molecular dynamics simulations for the study and optimisation of carbohydrate polymer anti-bacterial vaccines. Dr Hlozek is currently a researcher at the Holistic Drug Discovery and Development (H3D) Centre where he develops and implements artificial intelligence (AI)-based tools in order to accelerate infectious disease research and drug development on the African continent. This involves working closely with lab-based scientists to understand their individual data science needs and to then build solutions that facilitate scientific advances in low-resource settings.

Dr Sabrina Lamour-Julien

Sabrina Lamour-Julien is the Research Lead for Therapeutics in Infectious Diseases at the Wellcome Trust, driving research and development for therapeutic interventions that are affordable, appropriate, and accessible for communities most in need. She currently manages the therapeutic team that oversees and supports drug discovery and early clinical development programmes related to vector-borne diseases and drug resistant infections. In her previous role at Wellcome, Sabrina supported a diverse portfolio of product-development projects and was also the Chair of Wellcome’s Race Equity Network from 2020-2021.

Prior to joining Wellcome in 2018, Sabrina managed international HIV modelling projects that developed the methods and tools used to generate global HIV/AIDS statistics, to support decision-making for HIV programmes, based at Imperial College London. Previously, Sabrina worked in early drug discovery for multiple years in industry in the UK and Germany, working on biologic and small molecule programmes. She holds a PhD in Clinical Research and MRes in Biomedical Research, specialised in host responses towards parasitic and viral infections

Professor Marcus Lee

Prof. Marcus Lee received his Ph.D from the University of Melbourne, and subsequently undertook postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Randy Schekman at the University of California Berkeley where he used yeast genetics and biochemical reconstitutions to study the biophysical basis for membrane curvature during vesicle formation. During this time, he became interested in the unique biology of the malaria parasite and joined the lab of Dr. David Fidock at Columbia University Medical Center to focus on uncovering mechanisms of resistance to novel antimalarial compounds. Marcus established his independent research group in 2015, joining the Malaria Programme at the Wellcome Sanger Institute as Group Leader. Marcus moved to the University of Dundee in 2023, where he is Professor of Parasite Molecular Genetics.

Mrs Marina Lazaridis

Marina graduated from the University of Pretoria with an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry (2012) followed by an Honours degree in Pharmacology (2013). Started working in the Clinical Research industry in 2014 as a Site Solutions Assistant and then moved over to the Software Development team (nuvoteQ) in 2015. Her current position as Chief Product Officer at nuvoteQ involves overseeing the entire research product suite. Marina also recently took on the role of Chief Executive Officer of the nuvoteQ Foundation. A non-profit organization aimed at protecting public health technologies and ensuring long-term sustainability thereof.

Dr Kenneth MacLeod

Dr Kenneth MacLeod is Technology Lead in the Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics (DMPK) group at the University of Dundee Drug Discovery Unit (DDU), UK. Kenneth completed his undergraduate degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Glasgow before moving to Dundee for a PhD in cytoprotective responses and subsequent postdoctoral research into the role of metabolism in resistance to anti-cancer therapy. Following a three-year period in contract research developing mass spectrometry-based analytical techniques for the characterisation of small and large molecule metabolism and toxicology, he joined the DDU in 2020 to lead the validation of novel methodology within the anti-infective drug discovery workflow. He is now working with several academic and industrial partners to implement these methods in the search for new medicines to treat diseases including tuberculosis, malaria, Chagas’ disease and schistosomiasis.

Dr Charles Mowbray

Dr Charles Mowbray is the Discovery Director at DNDi responsible for discovering and advancing new drug candidates into development. He works on infectious diseases including kinetoplastid diseases with a particular focus on leishmaniasis, Chagas disease, COVID-19 and Dengue.
Prior to joining DNDi, Dr Mowbray worked at Pfizer in Sandwich, UK for 19 years as a medicinal chemist and project leader across multiple diseases, target classes and medicinal chemistry strategies and from target selection through to clinical candidate delivery. Five of these drug candidates have entered Phase I and two have completed Phase IIb clinical studies.
Dr Mowbray gained both BSc and PhD degrees in chemistry from the University of Exeter and completed postdoctoral fellowships at the University of British Columbia and the University of Nottingham. Dr. Mowbray is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Professor Henry Mwandumba

Henry Mwandumba is Director of the Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Research Programme (MLW) and Head of the Mucosal and Vascular Immunology Group at MLW, Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) and Kamuzu University of Health Sciences in Malawi, and Honorary Consultant Physician at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre, Malawi. Henry studied medicine at the University of Zimbabwe School of Medicine and specialised in General (Internal) Medicine and Infectious Diseases in Liverpool. His research focuses on understanding the immunopathogenesis of HIV-associated illnesses to improve patient outcomes. His research has three major themes: HIV, Tuberculosis and Vascular Diseases. Henry is Past-President of the Federation of African Immunological Societies (FAIS) and Immediate Past-Treasurer of the East, Central and Southern Africa College of Physicians (ECSACOP). His research is supported by funding from the Wellcome Trust, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), National Institutes of Health (NIH), UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the German Research Foundation (DFG). He was Cornell University’s Distinguished African Scholar in 2015, was awarded the MRC/DfID African Research Leader Award in 2017, the Royal Society Africa Prize in 2019 and the Weber-Parkes Prize in 2022.

Dr Justin K. Nono

Justin Komguep Nono is an Immunoparasitologist and molecular biologist specialized in the study of Schistosomiasis and current Chief of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology and Head of the associated unit of Immunobiology of Helminth Infections at the Institute of Medical Research and Medicinal Plants Studies of Cameroon, with a secondment as honorary senior Lecturer at the Division of Immunology of the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

Dr Nono current research interests revolve around the mechanistic bases of human-schistosomes interactions with a focus on host determinants of susceptibility / resistance to infection and pathology, parasite ploys at play to evade the human host immune responses and the ultimate problem of developing novel vaccines and/or vaccination strategies against schistosomiasis.

His research approaches include immunepidemiological surveys, host omics, immune phenotypical and functional typing, all techniques put to contribution during clinical surveys he primarily carries out in populations from rural Cameroon

He has been a successful recipient of funding and awards from the United Nations (through the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology), the European Union (trough the European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership), the United Kingdom Royal Society, Merck KGaA, the African Academy of Sciences, the South African Academy of Sciences and the Claude Leon Foundation.

Dr Nono also engages in the teaching and training of students as he remains a strong advocate of local capacity building in sub-Saharan Africa in support of the transition towards locally-driven research, to facilitate the control and elimination of Schistosomiasis globally in particular, and foster development in general.

He is the current co-chair of the Research Working Group of the Global Schistosomiasis Alliance, the vice-president-elect of the Cameroon Immunology Society and a founding member of JRJ Health, a Cameroon-based association for the promotion of Health and well-being.

Professor Fidele Ntie-Kang

Fidele Ntie-Kang is an Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry, University of Buea in Cameroon, where he also heads the Centre for Drug Discovery. After studying chemistry and physics at the University of Douala in Cameroon, he completed a PhD in physical science at the Center for Atomic Molecular Physics and Quantum Optics (CEPAMOQ), University of Douala, focusing on computer-aided drug design. After working briefly at the Department of Chemistry (University of Buea), he moved to Germany where he carried out postdoctoral research under Prof. Wolfgang Sippl leading to a habilitation in pharmaceutical chemistry. His research has been focused on chemoinformatics for natural products research, a topic in which he is an editor of a book series. Besides, his team has been building and testing small molecules of natural and synthetic origin in the search for active molecules, e.g. antivirals, antimalarials, antidiabetics, and anticancer agents. He holds several editorial board appointments and is passionate about drug discovery from natural products identified from African medicinal plants as well as pseudo-natural products derived by fragment-based hybridization. He has received several awards, including the Commonwealth Professional Fellowship (Leeds, UK), Georg Forster postdoctoral fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Bonn, Germany), the Calestous Juma Science Leadership Fellowship from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (1 million US Dollars) and another joint grant awarded by the BMGF and LifeArc to develop an African-derived Natural Product Box. He is a part of several consortia, including being a founding member of the Grand Challenges African Drug Discovery Accelerator (GC-ADDA) consortium and a founding member of the Cameroon Academy of Young Scientists. He was previously a guest professor at the Technische Universitaet (Dresden, Germany) and an adjunct professor at Nelson-Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (Arusha, Tanzania). His major contribution is the development of the African Natural Products Database.

Professor Iruka N Okeke

Iruka N Okeke is Professor at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria.  She is a Fellow of the Nigerian and African Academies of Science and a Calestous Juma Science Leadership Fellow.  Iruka’s research group investigates the mechanisms bacteria use to colonize humans, cause disease and gain antimicrobial resistance.  She also studies laboratory practice in Africa and her group contributes to antimicrobial resistance surveillance in Nigeria.  Iruka’s drug discovery research is focused on neglected bacterial pathogens that are endemic in Africa.  Her group seeks antibacterial and antivirulence leads, elucidates their mechanisms of action and works with chemists to undertake structure activity relationship studies that can inform lead optimization.  Iruka is author/ co-author of several scientific articles as well as the books Divining Without Seeds:  The case for strengthening laboratory medicine in Africa (Cornell Univ Press) and Genetics:  Genes, Genomes and Evolution (Oxford Univ Press). A teacher scholar, Iruka has mentored over a hundred research students, the majority of whom continue to work in science and health. She is the 2023 recipient of the UK Microbiology Society’s Peter Wildy Award and received the 2024 American Society for Microbiology Moselio Schaechter Award.

Dr Devasha Redhi

Devasha Redhi is a Junior Research Fellow at the Holistic Drug Discovery and Development (H3D) Centre, University of Cape Town, South Africa.  Her current research focuses on using modelling techniques, such as nonlinear mixed-effects modelling and physiologically based pharmacokinetic modelling, to understand pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic relationships which can facilitate drug development programmes for malaria and tuberculosis.

Dr Janine Scholefield

After completing her PhD in Human Genetics at the University of Cape Town (UCT), Janine Scholefield spent three years as a Nuffield Medical Fellow at the University of Oxford. Since returning to South Africa she has specialised in cellular modelling of disease establishing induced pluripotent stem cell research in the country. Her research interest lies in developing physiologically relevant cellular models of disease using advanced technologies, including stem cells and genome engineering, especially within the unique context of the diverse sub-Saharan African genetic background. She is a Research Group Leader at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and holds a Senior Honorary lectureship position in the Department of Human Biology at UCT, and an Honorary lectureship position at the Department of Human Genetics at Wits. In addition, she is the Editor-in-Chief of the Springer Nature publication Gene Therapy.

Dr Thomas Spangenberg

With Merck since 2015 and based in Switzerland, Thomas is responsible for Global Health Research focusing on innovative therapeutics against malaria and schistosomiasis supported by Real-World Evidence. Before joining Merck, Thomas worked with Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) in the discovery team on the early stages of the antimalarial drug pipeline from compound screening to candidate selection. Thomas holds a PhD in organic chemistry from the Universities of Strasbourg (France) and Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany). In 2009, he was appointed as a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University (USA).

Professor Eric Strauss

Prof. Erick Strauss is regarded as a leading authority on the biosynthesis and enzymology of the essential metabolic cofactor coenzyme A (CoA), the elucidation of organism-specific differences in how CoA is made and used, and applying this knowledge to the development of novel antimicrobials for the treatment of malaria, tuberculosis and staphylococcal infections. He has an on-going interest in discovering new targets for antimicrobial development, and in finding adjunctive therapies that would assist the human immune system to counter such infections effectively. He currently leads the GC ADDA4TB consortium, a flagship project of the Grand Challenges Africa Drug Discovery Accelerator initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and LifeArc.
Erick is currently professor of Biochemistry at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, having previously held academic positions in the department of Chemistry and Polymer Science, also at Stellenbosch. He obtained his PhD in Chemistry and Chemical Biology from Cornell University in the USA in 2003, with a focus on mechanistic enzymology. He now has nearly 20 years’ experience in higher education, research and more recently also management, having served as head of the department of Biochemistry since 2022. More than 50 postgraduate students and postdoctoral fellows have completed their training under his supervision, with some having established their own academic groups or found positions in industry, including in drug development.
His awards and honours include receiving the DuPont Prize for Excellence in Teaching from Cornell University (1999); the Rector’s Award for Excellence in Teaching from Stellenbosch University (2007); the President’s Award from the South African National Research Foundation (2008); the Beckman-Coulter Silver Medal from the South African Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (2010); and the Raikes Medal from the South African Chemical Institute (2013). He was elected as a founding member of the South African Young Academy of Science in 2012. He is currently editorial advisory board member of the journals ACS Infectious Diseases and Biochemistry.

Dr Roslyn Thelingwani

Dr Roslyn Thelingwani is a preclinical Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics (DMPK) scientist with research focus in the area of antiparasitic drugs and neglected diseases. She has more than 15 years experience in the area. She trained as a biochemist the University of Zimbabwe where she did her undergraduate and master’s degrees in Biochemistry and Biotechnology respectively. She then received her PhD from the University of Cape Town South Africa. Dr Roslyn works in interdisciplinary and interinstitutional collaborative teams involved in different aspects of drug discovery in which she leads bioanalytical and preclinical drug discovery assays and studies. She has co-authored over 20 publications and one book chapter.

Dr Peter Warner

Peter joined the Gates Foundation in 2013 after a 28-year international career in the Pharma industry where he held several Vice-President level positions. Trained as a medicinal chemist, he has worked across a broad range of therapy areas delivering drug candidates to the clinic. Immediately prior to joining the Gates Foundation he led the AstraZeneca Neglected Diseases Research Unit in Bangalore. Within the Gates Foundation he manages a portfolio of drug discovery grants focused primarily on tuberculosis, malaria and anti-viral diseases. He is the leader of the TB Drug Accelerator consortium which comprises 26 organizations that together delivers at least 1 new candidate drugs into development each year.  Other interests include the use of AI/ML in drug discovery and developing drug discovery capabilities in Africa.

Dr Susan Winks

Dr Susan Winks (PhD, MBA) is currently employed as the Head of Research Operations and Business Development at the Holistic Drug Discovery and Development Centre (H3D) at the University of Cape Town and manages the team of professional staff that support the interdisciplinary drug discovery work at the centre. Her role includes ensuring operational continuity and sustainable growth by long-term strategic planning, management of partnerships and stakeholders, fundraising and renewal of funding agreements, management of internal governance structures and portfolio oversight. Her passion is around strategic planning and optimizing work environments to maximize the positive impact of the work to solve global problems.

Dr James Webster

James Webster is the team leader of the Computational Drug Discovery Developer Team (CD3T) within the Drug Discovery Unit (DDU) at the University of Dundee. His main research interest is in chemoinformatics and bioinformatics and their applications to problems in chemical biology. James completed his doctoral studies at the University of Sheffield within the chemoinformatics group developing new methods for reaction based de novo design. He then worked in industry at Evotec (U.K.) working on method development for multi-modal generative design – spanning small molecules to full scale protein design. At the DDU his research is focussed on utilising modern Design of Experiments (DoE) and AI/ML approaches to reimagine drug discovery and reduce the “time-to-hypothesis”.

Professor Susan Wyllie

Professor Susan Wyllie is the head of the MoA group. Susan has worked in kinetoplast biology for more than twenty years. Her studies have predominantly focused on deciphering drug mechanism(s) of action and mechanisms of drug resistance – in particular in Leishmania spp, the causative agent of visceral leishmaniasis.