Academic Appointment
Dr. Patrick Kobina Arthur is lecturer at Department of Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology of the University of Ghana. He obtained his PhD in Developmental Biochemistry at the University of Göttingen in Germany. He has undertaken several post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Maryland - College Park, USA, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich (ETH-Zurich) and the Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge in the UK. The research activities are in the area Chemical Systems Biology of Infectious Pathogens that comprises Infection Biology of Tuberculosis, etc, Chemical Biology of Fungal Metabolites, Advanced Imaging Techniques and Mass Spectrometry based Proteomics of the perturbations caused in infectious pathogens by novel bioactive compounds. The mission of Dr. Arthur's research is towards the discovery and development a new antibiotics against tropical infectious diseases. Towards the discovery the novel anti-infective agents, the research group has presently isolated and screened more than three thousand distinct fungal species. The surprisingly high rate of the occurrence of anti-infective activities in the culture extracts of these fungi has led the group to develop a phenotypic array-based workflow as a key strategy. This allows for the comparison of the bioactive extracts to many standard antibiotics on the basis of their pattern of activities across different physiological conditions of the test organisms. Dr. Arthur’s group is currently in the process of isolating pure compounds from fungal extracts from the priority list. These compounds will be extensively characterized using NMR-structural elucidation, advanced imaging techniques and mass spectrometry-based proteomics to provide understanding of their mechanism of action to support pre-clinical development. Dr. Arthur has won a number of research grants from a number of organisations, such as DAAD-Germany, Grand Challenges Canada, TWAS-Italy, IFS-Sweden, and Gates Foundation/ NMIMR. Dr. Arthur was also selected as a fellow attending the Nobel Laureates Lindau Meeting as well as a member of the Global Young Academy (GYA) in 2012 where he served as a non-voting member of the Executive Committee of the GYA from 2012-2013.
- Infectious Diseases, Drug Discovery
- Chemical Biology: Natural Products from fungal metabolites
- Enzyme Biochemistry
- Fungal Culturing, Biofuel and Microalgae culturing
- BSc (Ghana)
- MSc, PhD (Göttingen)
Dr. Arthur's research interests are geared towards chemical biology and proteomics in the context of infectious diseases. This includes but not limited to:
Isolation and characterization of novel bioactive compounds from organisms originating from tropical-equatorial biodiversity hotspots, namely: Basidiomycetes (Wood Decaying Fungi), Ascomycetes (Marine Endophytic Fungi), Microalgae and Actinomycetes.
Targeted Proteomics (Selected Reaction Monitoring) of Mycobacteria (in collaboration with the Aebersold Lab, ETH-Zurich, Switzerland).
Chemical proteomics of target proteins in human parasites to specific novel bioactives and vice versa as well as corresponding off-target cellular proteins in humans.
Comparative and functional proteomics on target proteins & specific novel bioactives.
Clinical proteomics of novel bioactives, identification of biomarkers for in vivo activities.
Protein Biochemistry - Establish a library of 100 enzymes for molecular biology applications
Molecular and structural dynamics of ribonucleoprotein complexes.
1. Fatima A. Fordjour, Priscilla Osei-Poku, Afua K. A. Genfi, Kwaw G. Ainooson, Kingsley Amponsah, Patrick K. Arthur, G. Richard Stephenson, Alexander Kwarteng (2023). Use of medicinal plants as a remedy against lymphatic filariasis: Current status and future prospect https://doi.org/10.1002/hsr2.1295
2. Nyankson E, Aboagye SO, Efavi JK, Agyei-Tuffour B, Paemka L, Asimeng BO, Balapangu S, Arthur PK, Tiburu EK. Chitosan-Coated Halloysite Nanotubes As Vehicle for Controlled Drug Delivery to MCF-7 Cancer Cells In Vitro. Materials. 2021; 14(11):2837. https://doi.org/10.3390/ma14112837
3. Balapangu S, Nyankson E, Asimeng BO, Asiamah R, Arthur PK, Tiburu EK. Capturing Dioclea Reflexa Seed Bioactives on Halloysite Nanotubes and pH Dependent Release of Cargo against Breast (MCF-7) Cancers In Vitro. Separations. 2021; 8(3):26. https://doi.org/10.3390/separations8030026
4.Blessie EJ, Wruck W, Abbey BA, Ncube A, Graffmann N, Amarh V, Arthur PK & Adjaye J. Transcriptomic analysis of marine endophytic fungi extract identifies highly enriched anti-fungal fractions targeting cancer pathways in HepG2 cell lines. BMC Genomics volume 21, Article number: 265 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-020-6684-z
5.Arthur PK, Amarh V, Blessie EJS, Yeboah R, Kankpeyeng BW, Nkumbaan SN & Tiburu EK. In vitro antibacterial activities of selected TB drugs in the presence of clay minerals against multidrug-resistant strain of Mycobacterium smegmatis, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311916.2020.1742853
6.DNA double-strand break formation and repair as targets for novel antibiotic combination chemotherapy. Vincent Amarh & Patrick K Arthur. 2 Sep 2019. https://doi.org/10.2144/fsoa-2019-0034
7. Amarh V and Arthur PK. Fungal metabolites as sources of potential lead compounds for development of novel antibiotics targeting bacterial genome stability [version 1; not peer reviewed]. AAS Open Res 2019, 2:105 (https://doi.org/10.21955/aasopenres.1114972.1)
8. Aboagye SY, Amarh V, Lartey PA, Arthur PK. Wood-decaying fungi found in Southern Ghana: A potential source of new anti-infective compounds. AAS Open Res. 2019 Aug 27;2:20. doi: 10.12688/aasopenres.12957.2. PMID: 36419722; PMCID: PMC9648367.
9.Arthur P.K., Yeboah AB, Issah I, Balapangu S, Kwofie SK, Asimeng BO, Foster EJ, Tiburu EK. Electrochemical Response of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Corresponds to Cell Viability upon Exposure to Dioclea reflexa Seed Extracts and Antifungal Drugs. Biosensors. 2019; 9(1):45. https://doi.org/10.3390/bios9010045
10. Arthur P.K., Amarh V, Cramer P, Arkaifie GB, Blessie EJS, Fuseini M-S, Carilo I, Yeboah R, Asare L, Robertson BD. Characterization of Two New Multidrug-Resistant Strains of Mycobacterium smegmatis: Tools for Routine In Vitro Screening of Novel Anti-Mycobacterial Agents. Antibiotics. 2019; 8(1):4. https://doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics8010004