Medicinal Chemist
Southern Research Institute
2000 Ninth Avenue South
Birmingham, AL 35205
205-581-2542
pathaka@southernresearch.org
Dr. Pathak received his Ph.D. degree in chemistry from the University of Lucknow in Lucknow, India where he studied synthesis and reactivity of organometallic complexes. Dr. Pathak completed his postdoctoral work at the Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants in Lucknow, India as a CSIR fellow, and thereafter as an STA fellow at the National Institute of Health Sciences in Tokyo, Japan. He joined Southern Research Institute as a post-doctoral fellow in 1997 and gained experience in carbohydrate chemistry while working on synthesis of saccharides as anti-mycobaterial agents. He was Assistant Professor of Organic Chemistry at Western Illinois University in Macomb, IL for four years prior to rejoining Southern Research in early 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.
Dr. Pathak's laboratory focuses on anti-mycobacterial drug design, drug delivery, and new synthetic procedures to obtain oligosaccharides. His lab has recently developed a new semi-synthetic triterpene saponin as a vaccine adjuvant/immune stimulant. Further research with this technology is in progress. His lab is also developing an ionic, liquid-supported, solution-phase methodology for efficient and cost-effective synthesis of biologically relevant oligosaccharides. In Dr. Pathak's lab, studies are being carried out 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. Other interests of Dr. Pathak are design and synthesis of small-molecule inhibitors against key enzymes such as fatty-acid biosynthesis and glutamate racemase in Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Francisella tularensis.