Dr. N. Shankaraiah's area of research interest is Design and synthesis of new chemical entities of anticancer agents in ‘Drug Discovery’; Asymmetric synthesis; Combinatorial chemistry (Solid-/solution-phase); Development of alternative sustainable technologies in pharmaceutical sciences – Green chemistry; Exploration of new synthetic methodologies including ‘Online Mechanistic Investigations by ESI-MS/MS'.
Dr. Chandraiah Godugu, Associate Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Dr. Godugu's area of research interests are Nanotoxicology studies of Nanoparticles used in Drug Delivery and other Biomedical applications, In vitro and In vivo Genotoxicological evaluation of Nanoparticles and Novel Drug Delivery Systems, The potential novel Treatment and Chemopreventive approaches with special emphasis on Ancient Indian Herbal medicine for management of Cancer and Diabetes.
Prof. Saurabh Srivastava, Professor
Department of Pharmaceutics
Dr. Saurabh Srivastava earned his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutics from “Panjab University, Chandigarh” and pursued his Masters in Pharmaceutical Sciences from “Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani, Rajasthan. He carries more than 17+ years of profound industrial and research experience working with several Pharmaceutical R&Ds, including IPCA labs, Mumbai, Wockhardt research centre, Aurangabad and His latest stint was with Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, Hyderabad, as Tech Lead for development and commercialization of various Differentiated, NDA and ANDA based products for different regulated markets.
Subsequently, he joined as an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutics, NIPER-Hyderabad. Presently he is acting as a Member (Board of Governors; NIPER-Hyderabad), Member (Board of Directors; AVISHKARAN-BIRAC-BioNEST of NIPER Hyderabad) and Head, Department of Regulatory Affairs (Add’l Charge) at NIPER Hyderabad. His Research Laboratory named Pharmaceutical Innovation and Translational Research Lab (PITRL) is predominantly working on the development and optimization of Industrially viable, feasible and scalable Differentiated formulations; (505(b)2, through the utilization of Micro/Nanostructured Targeted drug deliveries along with Novel platform technologies. His major therapeutic area of research is Diabetic Complications, Neurodegenerative disorders, Dermal diseases, Glioblastoma, Melanoma, Prostate, Breast Cancer and Oral Cancer.
He has mentored 40+ Masters Research scholars, and 11 PhD Research scholars are pursuing their Doctoral research, whereas, 04 PhD Scholars have already submitted their PhD under his supervision. He and his research team are actively involved in the execution of several Extra Mural Research (EMR) Projects and Industrial research projects (~1.5 CR.) to establish novel differentiated products. He has been awarded several appreciation and “Special Recognition Awards” from Dr. Reddy’s laboratories for his outstanding contribution to research and development along with the International Travel grant from CSIR, New Delhi. He was further elected as a Fellow of the Prestigious “Telangana Academy of Sciences” (TAS) in May 2024 and Fellow of “Education Research & Development Association” (ERDA) in November 2024. He had been instrumental in 02 “Commercial Products”, 17+ “International and National Patents”, 04 Edited books, 50+ Book chapters along with 200+ Publications in Journals of International repute with h-Index of 31 and 4000+ citations further to his credit.
Prof. Amit Awasthi, Professor
Department of Pharmaceutical Analysis
Dr. Asthana has more than 21 years of post-doctoral experience in the field of biomaterials, micro/nanotechnology, microfluidics device designing, fabrication and characterization, hot embossing, cleanroom operations, and paper-microfluidics. He has worked at Institutes and Universities of International fame such as the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Institute Curie, France; the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA; Chungnam National University, South Korea; and University of Queensland, Australia.
Dr. Asthana is a Fellow of the Telangana Academy of Science. He is the recipient of many fellowships including S.R.F. (C.S.I.R., India), Curie Fellowship (France), Brainpool Fellowship (KRF, South Korea), and Ramalingaswami Return Fellowship (DBT, India) . Dr. Asthana has many publications in journals of international repute and international conferences apart from 04 Indian and PCT patents.
His research interests include paper-based microfluidic devices and their applications in clinical diagnosis, 3D cell culture, drug screening, and other biomedical applications. His group is also working on the application of 3D bioprinting, biomaterials, micro/nanofabrication, digital microfluidics, a wide range of microfluidic applications such as nanoparticle generation, and generation of drug delivery vesicles apart from non-conventional ways of fabricating microfluidic devices.
Dr. Asthana has been instrumental in establishing PAHL BioNanoTherapeutics Pvt. Limited, a startup established with funding from BIRAC under Bio-Initiative Grant (BIG) at IKP Park, Hyderabad. Moreover, he is associated with many start-ups working on affordable diagnostic and medical device companies in India as a scientific advisor, such as FastSense Diagnostics (Pune, India) and Microfluidic Paper Medical Devices Pvt. Ltd (Hyderabad, India). He is also the chief scientific advisor for ChitoLytic Diagnostics, Canada.
Dr. Chandraiah Godugu, Associate Professor
Department of Regulatory Affairs
Dr. Godugu's area of research interests are Nanotoxicology studies of Nanoparticles used in Drug Delivery and other Biomedical applications, In vitro and In vivo Genotoxicological evaluation of Nanoparticles and Novel Drug Delivery Systems, The potential novel Treatment and Chemopreventive approaches with special emphasis on Ancient Indian Herbal medicine for management of Cancer and Diabetes.
Dr. B. Lakshmi, Assistant Professor
Department of Pharmaceutical Management
A Commerce graduate with an MBA (Finance). She is National Stock Exchange Certified (NCFM) in Derivatives (Dealers), Capital Markets (Dealers), Depositories, Financial Markets modules. She has about 12 years working experience in industry, research and academics. During her tenure at Centre for Urban Governance, Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI) she had coordinated with UNICEF - India, Ministry of Drinking Water & Sanitation, Government of India (GoI) for the launch of ‘WinS Leadership Course’ for government officials responsible for School Sanitation.
Dr. Vasundhra Bhandari, Assistant Professor
Department of Pharmacoinformatics and Department of Biopharmaceuticals
Pharmacogenomics and Precision Medicine, Antimicrobial Resistance and Drug discovery
Dr. Bhandari’s group is interested in new drug discovery, repurposing of drugs and understanding their novel mechanism of resistance. Her group is also interested to identify the interindividual variability against a treatment or drug deciphering a path to precision medicine. During her PhD and Postdoctoral work, she has identified novel drug targets and worked towards identifying the drug resistance mechanism operative in important human pathogens. Her lab is well funded with extramural grant support from government and private agencies.
At NIPER, she intends to use functional genomics/proteomics, epigenetics and gene editing tools for answering her research questions.
Prof. Srinivas Nanduri, Professor
Department of Medical Devices
Prof. Nanduri has accomplished Medicinal, Synthetic and Natural Product Organic Chemist with 30 years of industrial and academic research experience. Associated with the Indian Pharma, CRO and reputed academic institutions viz., Dr Reddy's Laboratories, Aurigene Discovery Technologies Ltd., Biocon BMS Research Centre, Albany Molecular Research, Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning and National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education & Research, Hyderabad in various positions and roles of scientific and managerial responsibilities. Led several integrated drug discovery programs encompassing all stages of drug discovery viz., Hit generation, Hit to Lead and Lead optimization involving both Natural Product and Synthetic products in the areas of oncology, metabolic disorders, and infectious diseases. The programs carried out include both internal programs and collaborative research programs with several pharmaceutical companies/Institutes. While some of the programs have successfully transitioned to the late Lead Optimization stages (pre-clinical/clinical), one of the programs has led to a Phase 2 clinical candidate. Experienced in leading cross-functional teams which include Medicinal Chemistry, biochemistry, pharmacology, DMPK and toxicology. Several patents/publications have been filed/published.
