Dr Eswara Kumar Aratikatla

Dr Eswara Kumar Aratikatla joined the medicinal chemistry group of H3D at the University of Cape Town in Feb 2022 as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow. He is currently working on a research project aimed at developing novel antituberculosis agents.

He obtained his M.Sc. in Organic Chemistry from Andhra University, India in 2010. Before his Ph.D., he worked as a Research Chemist in Laxai Life Sciences, India (2010-2011). In 2012, he joined CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory (CSIR-NCL), India to pursue his Ph.D. in Organic and Medicinal Chemistry under the supervision of Dr. A. K. Bhattacharya (2012-2018). His doctoral research at CSIR-NCL focused on natural products and medicinal chemistry. The research includes the design and synthesis of natural product-based antimalarial hybrid molecules (artemisinin-falcipain-2 hybrid molecules targeting falcipain-2 enzyme of Plasmodium falciparum in malarial parasite) and total synthesis of biologically active molecules/drugs. Later, he continued his research as a Research Associate at CSIR-NCL (2019-2020) where he worked on the synthesis of pharmaceutical drugs and fungicides. His doctoral research resulted in various peer-reviewed international publications including two medicinal chemistry US patents.

Eswar joined TCG Life Sciences, India in 2021 as a Research Scientist where he worked on synthesizing various target molecules in the drug discovery and development program before joining H3D in Feb 2022.