Ashish K. Pathak, Ph.D.

Medicinal Chemist
Southern Research Institute
2000 Ninth Avenue South
Birmingham, AL 35205
Phone: 205-581-2542
E-mail: pathaka@southernresearch.org

Biography

Dr. Pathak received a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Lucknow, in Lucknow, India, where he studied synthesis and reactivity of organometallic complexes. He completed his postdoctoral work at the Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants in Lucknow, India, as a CSIR fellow and subsequently as an STA fellow at the National Institute of Health Sciences in Tokyo, Japan. Dr. Pathak joined Southern Research as a postdoctoral fellow in 1997 and gained experience in carbohydrate chemistry. He served as an Assistant Professor of Organic Chemistry at Western Illinois University in Macomb, IL, for four years prior to rejoining Southern Research in 2009. Dr. Pathak has more than 20 years of research experience in the area of semi-synthesis of bioactive natural products, carbohydrate chemistry, and small-molecule drug discovery. He has also published more than 45 research publications in journals of international repute.

Research Focus: Anti-Mycobacterial Drug Design and Delivery

Dr. Pathak's laboratory focuses on anti-mycobacterial drug design, drug delivery, and new synthetic procedures to obtain oligosaccharides. His laboratory has recently developed a new semi-synthetic triterpene saponin as a vaccine adjuvant/immune agonist. Further research with this technology is in progress. Dr. Pathak's laboratory is also developing imidazolium cation-supported, solution-phase methodology for efficient and cost-effective synthesis of biologically relevant oligosaccharides. Studies are being conducted on antibacterial drugs conjugated to small-size synthetic oligosaccharides for targeted polysaccharide-receptor, mediated drug delivery. The purpose of the studies is better management of currently available antibacterial drugs. Dr. Pathak's other research interests include design and synthesis of small-molecule inhibitors using high-throughput parallel solution-phase synthesis route against key enzymes such as fatty-acid biosynthesis and glutamate racemase in Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Francisella tularensis.

Publications