Ahmed Kamal's Biography

Ahmed Kamal, Outstanding Scientist and Head, Indian Institute of Chemical Technology

Dr Ahmed Kamal graduated from Osmania University, Hyderabad (India) and obtained his Masters degree in Organic Chemistry. He subsequently did his Ph.D. research in the area of Medicinal Chemistry from the Aligarh Muslim University. He later joined as a Scientist at the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT), Hyderabad. He carried out his post-doctoral research work at the University of Portsmouth, England and was a visiting scientist at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. For the last 30 years, he has pursued his research career at IICT, Hyderabad and is presently working in the capacity of Outstanding Scientist at IICT. He also holds an additional charge of Project Director of the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), Hyderabad. He served as Acting Director of CSIR-IICT during September 2012 till April 2013. His research interests mainly focus on the design and synthesis of gene-targeting compounds as new anti-cancer agents, and also design and synthesis of anti-tubercular compounds and biocatalytic transformations. He has won several honours and awards for his research like CSIR Young Scientist Award in Chemical Sciences (1991), Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India (1999), Best Patent Award from the Indian Drug Manufacturers Association (2005), Medal from the Chemical Research Society of India (2005), Ranbaxy Research Award in the field of Pharmaceutical Sciences (2005), UKIERI Standanrd Award for Biomedical Solutions between India and UK (2006), OPPI Scientist Award from the Organization of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (2009), Fellow of the A. P. Academy of Sciences (2010) and Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry (2011). He has over 360 publications, 16 review papers and 8 book chapters in the areas of biotransformations and medicinal chemistry. He has filed over 173 patents and five of his US patents have been licensed and some compounds from these patents are undergoing preclinical studies. He was instrumental in setting up of Biotechnology Incubation centre at S.P. Biotech Park at Hyderabad. About 60 students have completed their Ph.D. work under his guidance and over 20 of them are currently working for their Ph.D. programme in different universities. He is an editorial advisory board member for the journals like CHEMMEDCHEM (Wiley-VCH), MedChemCom (RSC) and Letters in Drug Design and Discovery (Bentham Science).