Dr. Kwaku Kyeremeh
Dr. Kwaku Kyeremeh, a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Chemistry, University of Ghana www.ug.edu.gh has received the prestigious MRC/DFID African Research Leader Award 2018 for the project 'Development of Novel Therapeutics for Parasite Infections and Cancer by Multi-step Microbial Biodiscovery Processes and iChip'. The African Research Leadership Award is run by the MRC and the UK Department for International Development and is jointly funded by MRC and DFID. The scheme aims to strengthen research leadership across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) by attracting and retaining exceptionally talented individuals who will lead high quality programmes of research on crucial global health issues relevant to SSA. Dr. Kyeremeh scored very high marks for the proposal reviews and interview which took place at the MRC Head Office at One Kemble Street, London. He will receive £732,376 towards his research which will be completed in the next five years.
The overarching aim of this project is to discover two or more novel structures with novel mechanisms of action for development into an antiparasitic, antibiotic or anticancer drug by exploring the huge microbial biodiversity of Ghana. In order to achieve the project objectives, Dr. Kyeremeh will collaborate with Professor Marcel Jaspars, Marine Biodiscovery Centre, University of Aberdeen, Scotland and Professor Fernando Reyes, Fundacion MEDINA, Granada, Spain.
In 2015, Dr. Kwaku Kyeremeh, in collaboration with other researchers from the University of Aberdeen and Wuhan University in China discovered a set of new alkaloids from a novel Ghanaian microorganism which have great potential as future microbial and cancer fighting agents. The compounds, Legonmycins A and B, were named after Legon, a surburb in Ghana, where the producing microorganism was found and isolated.
Congratulations to Dr. Kyeremeh for this sterling achievement and for making the University of Ghana proud.
Please click the link below for more information:
https://www.abdn.ac.uk/news/12382/
