Name: Dr. Rajesh Sonti Assistant Professor rajesh.sonti@niperhyd.ac.in +91 40 23074750 Extn- 2025 +91-040-23074750 (Ext. No: 2013) My Citations

ADDRESS, ROOM NO

Department of Pharmaceutical Analysis
Room no: 51
NIPER Hyderabad
Balanagar, Hyderabad-500037, TS, INDIA

QUALIFICATION: (REVERSE CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER)

• 03/2018 - Project management training based on IPMA standards, SPOL AG training center, Steinhausen, Switzerland
• 06/2015 - 06/2017 - DAS in European Centre of Pharmaceutical Medicine, University of Basel, Switzerland
• 06/2017 - GCP Training for Investigators and Study Teams, University of Basel, Switzerland
• 08/2008 - 10/2013 - PhD Chemical Biology, Prof. P. Balaram, Indian Institute of Science - Bangalore, India
• 06/2006 - 05/2008 - Masters in Chemistry, Sri Sathya Sai University - A.P, India
• 06/2003 - 05/2006 - B.Sc (Hons.) in Chemistry, Sri Sathya Sai University - A.P, India

EXPERIENCE

• 02/2020 - Present : Working as Assistant Professor at NIPER, Hyderabad.
• 11/2018 - 02/2020 : Collaborative Scientist, Prof. R. Gruetter, CIBM - EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland
• 11/2013 - 10/2018 : Postdoctoral fellow under Prof. S. Grzesiek, Biozentrum – Basel, Switzerland .

COURSES HANDLING(PHD/M.PHARM)

M.S (Pharm):
PA-510: Topics in Pharmaceutical Analysis
PA-610: Pharmacopoeial Methods of Analysis
PA-620:Modern Instrumental Techniques for Evaluation of APIs and Drug Products.

PhD:
PA-730: CE and SFC in Pharmaceutical Analysis
PA-760: Mass spectrometry in Pharmaceutical Analysis

PHD STUDENTS/MASTERS STUDENTS

Masters: Guided: 17 ; Ongoing - 7 [Advisor]
Ph.D: Ongoing - 4 [Advisor]
SERB JRF: Ongoing - 1

AWARDS / HONOURS

1. Recipient of partial travel grant from University of Basel for 58th ENC held at Asilomar, CA, USA
2. Selected for the EMBO 2013 travel grant of practical course on “Structure, dynamics and function of biomacromolecules"
3. Recipient of ICMRBS student travel Grant for XXVth ICMRBS 2012 held at Lyon, France.
4. Selected for the CSIR travel grant for XXVth ICMRBS 2012 held at Lyon, France.
5. Selected for the CICS-INSA travel grant for XXVth ICMRBS 2012 held at Lyon, France.
6. Recipient of ENC student travel award for ENC2011 held at Asilomar, CA, USA.
7. Selected for the DST travel grant for ENC2011 held at Asilomar, CA, USA.
8. Recipient of NMRS travel award for ENC2011 held at Asilomar, CA, USA.
9. Qualified in the All India Gate 2007.
10. Selected for summer internship at GE (SABIC –Plastics) analytical division in 2008.

RESEARCH AREAS/INTEREST

During his Ph.D. at IISC-Bangalore with Prof. P. Balaram, he has worked on designed and natural peptides that are hybrid beta-sheets, modified alpha-helices, and cyclic disulfide-bonded peptides. He has done the conformational analysis of several peptides and solved 23 structures of peptides by solution NMR. In Biozentrum, Basel-Switzerland, he worked with the protein, Abelson tyrosine kinase involved in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia in the group of Prof. Stephan Grzesiek. He tested the interaction of FDA-approved drugs, e.g., Gleevec (Novartis), Tasigna (Novartis), Sprycel (Bristol-Myers Squibb), Iclusig (ARIAD Pharmaceuticals), and Inlyta (Pfizer) that bind at the ATP binding site in a solution using NMR spectroscopy. These studies lead to the identification mechanism of Abl disassembled state upon binding of certain drugs from the assembled state. He characterized activities of several drug resistant mutants (‘gatekeeper,’ completely activated P242E/P249E), assessed their conformations, probed interdomain dynamics by 15N relaxation studies. At EPFL Laussane-Switzerland in the group of Prof. Rolf Gruetter, worked on the determination of lactate concentrations in the mice plasma and analyzed the fragmental labelling, 13C isotope enrichment by NMR. Furthermore, he worked on determining the concentrations of metabolites in mice cortex, hippocampus, and striatum regions using in vivo 9T MRS magnet. Further, European Centre of Pharmaceutical Medicine (ECPM-DAS) course at the University of Basel enhanced my knowledge and understanding of pharmaceutical medicine. With the best training and world-class experience received, he has started his career at NIPER-Hyderabad.

The scientific goal of my research is the application of analytical techniques such as Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), High resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) for the elucidation of structure, and dynamics of peptides with a particular emphasis on understanding conformational diversity of novel conopeptides as a core area. The group is also interested in drug-drug interactions, metabolism of herbal drugs and drug stability studies. We collaborate with several scientists and provide analytical support in NIPER and outside. Further, we actively engage in consultancy projects for the structure elucidation of APIs and higher-order structure determination of biosimilars for pharmaceutical companies.

FELLOWSHIPS/GRANTS

1. DST-SERB Startup Research Grant awarded in December 2021 - INR 27 Lakhs
2. Co-recipient of Swiss Cancer League grant of three years in 2014, Biozentrum, University of Basel, Switzerland.
3. Awarded CSIR Junior Research Fellowship Dec 2007 and Senior Research Fellowship in Aug 2010.

PUBLICATIONS / BOOK CHAPTERS

1. Santosh K. S.; Sarvan, M..; Siva, N. R. G.; Mohammad. N. A.; Grace. K..; Srinivas, N.; Sonti. R; Arunava, D.; Sidharth, C.; Venkata M. Y., Identification of nitrofuranylchalcone tethered benzoxazole-2-amines as potent inhibitors of drug resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis demonstrating bactericidal efficacy, Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry, 2022, 64, 116777.
2. Grzesiek, S.; Paladini, J.; Habazettl, J.; Sonti. R, Imatinib disassembles the regulatory core of Abelson kinase by binding to its ATP site and not by binding to its myristoyl pocket, Magnetic Resonance, 2022, 3, 1.
3. Gaurav. P.; Shaik, M. G.; Swayamsiddha, K.; Sai, M. C.; Dannarm, S. R.; Jitendra, G.; Sonti. R.; Srinivas. N, SmI2-mediated C-alkylation of Ketones with Alcohols in Microwave conditions: A Novel Route to Alkylated Ketones Chemistry - An Asian Journal, 2022, 17, 8.
4. Makhal, P. N..; Dannarm, S. R..; Shaikh, A. S.; Sonti. R.; Kaki, V. R. TBHP‐Mediated Selenocyclization of N‐Allylbenzamides/Benzthioamides via In‐Situ Generation of “PhSeOH” Species; ChemistrySelect, 2022, 7, 14.
5. Gaurav, P.; Shaik, M. G.; Swanand, V. J.; Preeti, R.; Swayamsiddha, K.; Mahesh, P. S.; Dannarm, S. R.; Sonti. R.; Srinivas. N, Cu(I)-Catalyzed Microwave-Assisted Multicomponent Reaction Towards Synthesis of Diverse Fluorescent Quinazolino[4,3-b ]quinazolin-8-ones and Their Photophysical Study; ChemistrySelect, 2022, 7, 14.
6. Dhurjad, P.; Dhavaliker, C.; Gupta, K.; R. Sonti, Exploring Drug Metabolism by the Gut Microbiota: Modes of Metabolism and Experimental Approaches. Drug Metab Dispos. 2022, 50, 224.
7. Darshana, Bora.; Reddy, Srinivas.; Stephy Elsa, John.; Sravani, Sana.; R. Sonti; N. Shankaraiah, Regioselective ortho-sulphonamidation of β-carbolines: Exploration of Intrinsic directing property of β-carbolines and their photophysical studies. Asian J. Org. Chem. 2021, 10, 3384.
8. Gangireddy, Navitha Reddy.; Laltanpuii.; R. Sonti, Review on in vivo profiling of drug metabolites with LC-MS/MS in the past decade. Bioanalysis. 2021, 22, 1697.
9. Rao, G. S. N.; Megha, S. P.; Samanthula, G.; R. Sonti, Cytochrome P450 enzymes: a review on drug metabolizing enzyme inhibition studies in drug discovery and development. Bioanlaysis. 2021, 13, 17.
10. Rao, G. S. N.; Nimisha, N.; R. Sonti, Drug Metabolic Stability in Early Drug Discovery to Develop Potential Lead Compounds. Drug Metab Rev. 2021, 53, 49.
11. Cherix A, Sonti R, Lanz B, Lei H. In Vivo Metabolism of [1,6- 13C2]Glucose Reveals Distinct Neuroenergetic Functionality between Mouse Hippocampus and Hypothalamus Metabolites. 2021; 11, 50.
12. Rao Gajula SN, Reddy GN, Reddy DS, Sonti R. Pharmacokinetic drug-drug interactions: an insight into recent US FDA-approved drugs for prostate cancer. Bioanlaysis. 2020;12, 1647.
13. Sonti R, Ines HH, Lamontanara AJ, Hantschel O, and Grzesiek S. “ATP site ligands determine the assembly state of the Abelson kinase regulatory core via the activation loop conformation”. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2018, 140, 1863.
14. Yarava JR, Sonti R, Kantharaju K, Raghothama S and Ramanathan KV. “Solid-state NMR at natural isotopic abundance for the determination of conformational polymorphism - the case of designed β-turn peptides containing di-prolines Amino Acids”. Chem Commun. 2017, 53, 1317.
15. Chandrappa S, Madhusudana Reddy MB, Sonti R, Basuroy K, Raghothama S, and Balaram P. “Directing peptide conformation with centrally positioned pre-organized dipeptide segments: studies of a 12-residue helix and β-hairpin”. Amino Acids. 2015, 47, 291.
16. Sonti R, Rao KN, Chidanand S, Gowd KH, Raghothama S, and Balaram P. “Conformational analysis of a novel 20 membered cyclic peptide disulfide from Conus virgo with a WPW segment: Evidence for an aromatic-proline sandwich” Chem. Eur. J. 2014, 20, 5075.
17. Sonti R, Dinesh B, Basuroy K, Ragothama S, Shamala N, and Balaram P. “C12 helices in long hybrid (αγ)n peptides composed entirely of unconstrained residues with proteinogenic sidechains” Org. Lett. 2014, 16, 1656.
18. Sonti R, Gowd KH, Rao KN, Raghothama S, Rodriguez A, Perez JJ, and Balaram P. “Conformational diversity in contryphans from conus venom. Cis/trans isomerisation and aromatic/proline interactions in the 23 membered ring of a 7-residue peptide disulfide loop.” Chem. Eur. J. 2013, 45, 15175.
19. Sonti R, Gopi HN, Muddegowda U, Raghothama S, and Balaram P. “A designed three stranded β-sheet in a α/β hybrid peptide” Chem. Eur. J. 2013, 19 5955.
20. Sonti R, Rai R, Raghothama S, and Balaram P. “NMR analysis of cross strand aromatic interactions in an 8 residue hairpin and a 14 residue three stranded β-sheet peptide” J Phys Chem B. 2012, 116, 14207.
21. Chandrappa S, Aravinda S, Raghothama S, Sonti R, Rai R, Harini VV, Shamala N and Balaram P. “Helix and hairpin nucleation in short peptides using centrally positioned conformationally constrained dipeptide segments” Org. Biomol. Chem. 2012, 10, 2815.
22. Ganesh NV, Ragothama S, Sonti R, and Jayaraman N. “Ring expansion of oxyglycals. Synthesis and conformational analysis of septanoside-containing trisaccharides” J. Org. Chem. 2010, 75, 215.

PATENTS

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INVITED TALKS

1. NMR spectroscopy: An analytical technique for chemists and biologists, SRM University, Sikkim, 7 June 2021.
2. Conformational analysis of cyclic peptides by NMR spectroscopy, Seethalakshmi Ramaswamy College, 27 February 2021.
3. NMR spectroscopy for Genotoxic impurity profiling, JSS college of Pharmacy, Ooty, 10-12 November 2020.
4. NMR spectroscopy, Bangalore University, 19-20 August 2020.
5. Basics to Advanced Topics in One Dimensional NMR Spectroscopy, REVA university, Bangalore, 23 May 2020.
6. Gave a talk on “Conformational analysis of peptide toxins and protein-drug interactions in solution by NMR spectroscopy” in December 2019 at NIPER Ahmedabad.
7. Gave a talk on “NMR analysis of peptides and protein drug interactions” in March 2018 at CIBM, EPFL Lausanne
8. Gave a talk on “NMR analysis of synthetic and natural peptides” in July 2013 at Biozentrum, Basel
9. Gave a talk on “Conformational diversity of contryphans by solution NMR” in NMRS 2012, Bangalore

SPONSORED PROJECTS

Nil

LABORATORY FACILITIES DEVELOPED

1. NMR experiments for the structure elucidation of pharmaceutical compounds and bioactive peptides.
2. Structural elucidation of alkaloids and terpenoids by UV, IR, Mass and NMR techniques

ADDITIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES

1. NMR facility in charge
2. Chair, International relations, Consulting, Alumni affairs Committee
3. Co-Chair, National Centre for Research and Development in Bulk Drug (NCRDBD)
4. Chair, International relations, Consulting, Alumni affairs Committee
5. Chief Warden, Boy's Hostel
6. Member, Industry interaction and international collaboration cell
7. Member, Board of Studies and Research
8. Member, Stores and Purchase (Capital)

ANY OTHER INFORMATION