Arnold Forkuo Donkor

I am Arnold Forkuo Donkor, a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Pharmacology, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi – Ghana. I hold a Bachelor of Pharmacy (B.Pharm) and PhD in Pharmacology from the same institution. I am also a Next Generation Scientists fellow of the Novartis Institute of Biomedical Research (NIBR) and the University of Basel, Switzerland.

My research revolves around the discovery and subsequent development of bioactive compounds (NCEs) from plants with biological activities. My 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).

The Wellcome Centre for Anti-Infectives Research (WCAIR) is the ‘go-to’ research institute for NTD drug discovery and provides bespoke theoretical and practical training to visiting scientists with the aim of training the next generation of drug discovery researchers.

Here at WCAIR, I work with scientists at the Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics (DMPK) section of the Drug Discovery Unit (DDU) to build my capacity in in vitro, in vivo and computational simulation and prediction technologies in assessing the drug-likeness of new chemical entities.

The skills developed here at Dundee will facilitate the training of my undergraduate and postgraduate students in DMPK and help refine natural product drug discovery in Ghana. Additionally, together with colleagues with this training and background, build a Centre of Excellence for in vivo/in vitro DMPK and drug discovery in Ghana with capacities of assessing core DMPK properties of natural product-derived/synthesized compounds. This will help give better information to predict how the DMPK properties of these compounds translate from in vitro and animal models to patients.