Analytical chemistry, natural product chemistry, organic chemistry

VIMAL KUMAR NAIR, PhD Curriculum Vitae

**** ******* ****

Apt No:. 702

Bryan, TX 77801

Email: *****.******@*****.***

Ph No: 858-***-****

Seeking a challenging and responsible position in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology in-

dustry to utilize my education and experience

Education and Research Experience:

5/2012-present: Postdoctoral Research Associate, Texas A & M University, College

Station, TX (Advisor: Dr Romo/Luis)

Identification and screening of bioactive phytochemicals using HPLC-MS & MS/MS

techniques. By using HPLC MS/MS profiling, 80% of the compounds from the crude ex-

tract has been identified without the need for purification, which makes it a useful tool for

screening and dereplication.

Isolation and structure elucidation of secondary metabolites from Mormordica Charantia

and other medicinal plants for anticancer drug discovery using combination of MS and

NMR techniques.

Synthesis of Piperlongumin (PL) analogs as STAT3 inhibitors

Identification of the metabolites involves the spectroscopic techniques using NMR, MS,

GCMS, UV-VIS, IR and classical wet chemical techniques. Troubleshoot and mainte-

nance of analytical instruments as needed.

3/2011-4/2012: Post-doctoral research, Scripps Institution of Oceanography,

La Jolla CA (Advisor: Prof William Fenical)

The project involved structure elucidation of novel natural products from marine microorganisms

by using NMR spectroscopy, LCMS, HPLC, synthesis and purification of compounds by bioassay

guided silica gel chromatography/RP-18 followed by HPLC.

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10/2007-10/2010 Ph.D. (Chemistry); University of Göttingen, Germany (Advisor:

Prof Hartmut Laatsch)

PhD Thesis: Indole alkaloids as potential leads in drug discovery and further secondary metabolites from

terrestrial and marine bacteria. 2010, University of Göttingen, Germany.

Grade: Magna Cum Laude [http://webdoc.sub.gwdg.de/diss/2012/nair/nair.pdf]

MSc, Organic Chemistry, 2001-2003, University of Mumbai, India

MS Thesis: Isolation and structure elucidation of natural products from terrestrial and marine bacteria

BSc, Chemistry, 1998-2001, University of Mumbai, India

Industry Experience:

12/2003-03/2007 Aurigene Discovery Technologies Limited, [a subsidiary of Dr.

Reddy’s Laboratories, Bangalore, India]

Worked on drug discovery programs for small molecule inhibitors targeted for kinases such as

Aurora kinase, CDK and tyrosine kinases.

Synthesized 4-methoxy quinazoline scaffold and their libraries for structure activity relationship

against VEGF and Aurora kinases.

Synthesized 4 and 6 Acetyl Benzoxazolone and Benzothiazole scaffolds respectively. These reac-

tions were carried using Fries-rearrangement. The structure activity relationship was carried out to

determine their activity against CDK and Aurora kinases.

Synthesized Vasicinone and their libraries targeted against Aurora kinase. Efforts were directed to

make the molecule a potential drug candidate by lowering its IC50 to a single digit nano molar.

Awards and Achievements

2007-2010 DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) Award (3-year PhD Fellowship)

2009 Jung Chemie forum presentation Bis and Tris indole alkaloids from Antartica

2010 Blaubeuren Tagungszentrum Naturstoffe (Conference for Natural products in Blaubeuren,

Germany)

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Publications :

1. Lucknolide A and B, tricyclic ketal-lactone metabolites from terrestrial Streptomyces sp.

Prem P Yadav, Vimal Nair, Birger Dittrich, Anja Schueffler and Hartmut Laatsch, 2010,

Organic Letters, 12(17), pp 3800–3803 http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/ol1014703

2. Rare Prenylated Isoflavones from Tephrosia calophylla

Seru Ganapaty*, Vimal Nair, D. Rama Devi, Steve Thomas Pannakal, Hartmut Laatsch, Birger

Dittrich; Natural Product Communications Vol. 8, 2013

3. The Effect of Exogenous Amylolytic Enzymes on the Accumulation of Chlorogenic Acid Isomers

in Wounded Potato Tubers

Ana Mariel Torres-Contreras, Vimal Nair, Luis Cisneros-Zevallos, and Daniel A. Jacobo-

Velázquez. J. Agric. Food Chem., 2014, 62 (31), pp 7671–7675

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/jf5026983

4. Plants as biofactories: Stress-induced production of chlorogenic acid isomers in potato tubers as

affected by wounding intensity and storage time. Ana Mariel Torres-Contreras, Vimal Nair, Luis

Cisneros-Zevallos, Daniel A. Jacobo-Velázquez. Industrial crops, 2014, 62, 61–66

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0926669014004981

5. Screening Clitoria ternatea extract for Protection against LPS-induced Inflammation in Macro-

phage cells and Selectivity to Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) Activity.

Vimal Nair, Elisa Schreckinger, Woo Young Bang, Ricardo Elesbao Alves, Luis Cisneros-

Zevallos, Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, 2015 (accepted).

6. Anti-proliferative natural products from the flesh of Mormodica charantia (Bitter Melon), Vimal

Nair, Marvin J Meyers, Robert Steele, Ken Hull, Daniel Romo, Ratna B Ray 2015 Journal of-

Food Science. (in revision)

7. Identification of Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) Inhibitors from Acerola (Malpighia emarginata) Us-

ing a Combined Assay-guided Fractionation and Drug affinity Responsive Target Stability

(DARTS) methods. Vimal Nair, Elisa Schreckinger, Woo Young Bang, Ricardo Elesbao Alves,

Luis Cisneros-Zevallos, Plos One, 2015 (in preparation).

International conference Posters

1. INDOLE ALKALOIDS FROM ANTARCTIC DEEP ICE Streptomyces sp.

Vimal Nair, Imelda Schuhmann, Heinz H. Fiebig, Elisabeth Helmke and Hartmut Laatsch 14th

International Symposium on Marine Natural Products / 8thEuropean Conference on Marine Natu-

ral Products, 2013, http://www.manapro2013.com/

2. NEW BROMOINDOLE DERIVATIVES FROM A MARINE-DERIVED Streptomyces

Vimal Nair, Birger Dittrich, Elisabeth Helmke, Hartmut Laatsch, 14th International Symposium

on Marine Natural Products / 8th European Conference on Marine Natural Products, 2013.

http://www.manapro2013.com/

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3. New oxazoline-containing tetrapeptides from a marine-derived Streptomyces sp., strain CNX-225

Marina Scopel, Vimal Nair, William Fenical, 37th Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and

Chemicals, Natural Product Discovery & Development in the Post Genomic Era.

http://www.simbhq.org/docs/np/NP15Program.pdf.

Teaching Activities:

Taught 2D NMR courses for graduate students as a part of PhD program for 2 semesters 2009-2010 at

University of Gӧttingen, Germany.

Languages Known

English, German, Spanish

References (available upon request)

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Appendix

5/2012-Present: Postdoctoral research associate, Texas A & M University

HPLC/MS profiling for amazon crops: The identification of secondary metabolites from plants is an

important step in drug discovery and development. Mass spectrometry, particularly when combined with

high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC-MS), can enable detailed structural information to be

obtained on the metabolites. The crude extracts from the plant parts, flowers etc are run for HPLC-MS

profiling to determine their MS1 and MS2 fragmentation pattern. Using this result, determination of the

structure is performed with the help of Scifinder and identify the known structur es. Unknown fragmenta-

tion pattern are further studied by NMR to determine and characterize their structure. Using HPLC

MS/MS profiling we can identify 80% of the structures from the crude extract without purifying them.

This is very useful tool for screening and dereplication. I also troubleshoot the problems involved with the

analytical instruments and am also involved in the maintenance of HPLC and LCMS. Identification of the

metabolites involves the spectroscopic techniques using NMR, MS, UV-VIS, IR and classical wet chemi-

cal techniques.

Isolation of natural product from bitter melon targeted for prostate cancer: Two new compounds,

peroxide and sterol glucoside were isolated from the fleshy part of Momordica charantia (bitter melon).

Their structures were elucidated based on spectroscopic methods. Cytotoxic activities of peroxide and

glucoside were evaluated against PC3 and Cal27 cancer cell lines. The EC50 values and the antiprolifera-

tive effects of the glucoside were comparable with that of cholesterol β-D-glucoside (GC-2) which is

structurally similar to the newly isolated glucoside.

Synthesis of Piperlongumin (PL) Analogues as STAT3 inhibitors: I am using rational drug design and

medicinal chemistry at the start to develop our lead PL compound. I have performed a small-scale struc-

ture activity relationship (SAR) study to identify key functional groups or components in PL that contri b-

ute to the observed activity. Second, based on the results, medicinal chemistry will be carried out to syn-

thesize a collection (~50) of rationally designed analogs in order to find compounds with improved activi-

ty. Third, SAR as well as quantitative SAR (QSAR) studies of these compounds will guide the next round

of compound design and synthesis.

3/2011-4/2012: Post-doctoral research, Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Project CNX026: Novel depsipeptide Thiazomide A has been isolated which belong to a thiocoraline

class compound. The strain also produced two other new lower molecular weight molecules having a 3 -

hydroxy-quinolinic acid chromophore, which appear to be lower homologs. The structures of the new

compounds were elucidated by a combination of spectral methods and by a single crystal X -ray diffrac-

tion study that provided the absolute configuration of the molecule. Thiazomide A showed significant

cytotoxicity toward HCT-116 human colon carcinoma with an IC50 of 0.5 µg/ml. Studies now in progress

are designed to determine the mechanism of action of this new compound as well as its protein target.

Project CNX225: Two new tri substituted oxazoline indole-containing peptides, 225.F1A and 225F1B,

were isolated from the fermentation broth of an actinomycete identified by phylogenetic methods as a

Streptomyces sp. (strain CNX225). The planar structures of these compounds were assigned on the basis

of 1D and 2D NMR spectroscopy and MS analyses. Further, the absolute configurations of the structure

of one of the peptides were confirmed by a single crystal X-ray diffraction study. The innovative struc-

tures of the isolated compounds open up new challenges for synthetic chemistry and modify the structures

for its probable biological targets.

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