Contact:
Senior Principal Scientist & Chair
Department of Organic Synthesis & Process Chemistry
CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology
Hyderabad 500 007
- Prathama S. Mainkar is working as Senior Principal Scientist in CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology
- She is Chair, Dept. of Organic Synthesis & Process Chemistry.
- She has experience in various stages of drug discovery due to her association with industry and academia.
- She is trained in carbohydrate chemistry during her PhD.
- She has developed 3 compounds while working in a drug discovery company which are in phase trials.
- She has been associated with Open Source Drug Discovery programme of CSIR for finding a cure for TB and has synthesized a library of compounds.
- She has also developed an antifungal compound being developed for use for treatment of fruits like mango and strawberry post-harvesting.
- She has also worked in one of the leading CROs of the country synthesizing libraries of compounds under medicinal chemistry programmes.
- She is working in the areas of kinase inhibitions for cancer and other related areas.
- A new set of scaffolds with nanomolar HDACiactivity are the present focus for her.
- Prathama Mainkar’s research activities encompass an excellent blend of Medicinal Chemistry and Process Chemistry using modern tools of organic synthesis.
- Prathama was amongst the early women scientists who began her career in pharmaceutical industry and worked in the production plants as Project Leader for the manufacture of APIs which were made available to the Indian population.
- Later she changed her research focus to medicinal chemistry and drug discovery programmes of multinational companies at Sai LIfe Sciences (Ass. Dir. MedChem) and Evolva Biotech (Switzerland) (Head, Chemistry). The contributions of Dr. Prathama resulted in discovering a molecule which completed to Phase IIa clinical trials.
- Her contributions in developing HDAC inhibitors, peptide mimetics (deuterated amino acids, arenamides, teixobactin), carbohydrates (L-daunosamine, oligosaccharides of Mycobacterium szulgaiand tuberculosis), green synthesis of drug-like molecules and drugs (tapentadol, asenapine, zafirlukast, terutroban) are highly commendable.
- She was a team member of the total synthesis of largest man-made drug, Eribulin.
- She has 30 patents and 78 publications.
- She has experience in various stages of drug discovery due to her association with industry and academia and is trained in carbohydrate chemistry during her PhD.
- She has been associated with Open Source Drug Discovery programme of CSIR for finding a cure for TB and has synthesized a library of compounds.
- She is working in the areas of kinase inhibitions for cancer and other related areas.
- She is a gold medalist in school as well as college.