Sneha Paul, Research Scholar working with Prof. Anunay Samanta in the School of Chemistry at the University of Hyderabad (UoH) has been declared the Winner of the “Dr. K.V. Rao Research Awards” for the year 2019 in Chemistry. She presented a talk entitled “Targeting G-Quadruplex DNA with Small Molecules: Towards Development of Novel Anti-Cancer Strategies”. The work involves probing the Interactions of naturally occurring molecules like Psoralens and Flavonoids with secondary DNA structures called G-Quadruplex. The proposed Molecules Possess Anti-Cancer properties and are cheap, non-toxic and extremely target-specific. Details of the research can be found in the following links:
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.jpcb.7b12475
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.jpcb.9b00335
Meanwhile, Dr. S. Abdul Kalam,Ph.D. (doctorate) from Advanced Centre of Research in High Energy Materials (ACRHEM), School of Physics, UoH was awarded the Dr. K.V. Rao young scientist award (second runner-up) for the year 2019 in the Physics category.
Abdul Kalam Shaik has recently earned his Ph.D (doctorate) under the supervision of Prof. Soma Venugopal Rao. During his Ph.D he worked on developing Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopic (LIBS) technique using femtosecond pulses for the detection of Energetic Materials in the near and standoff regimes. Currently, His research interests are focused on approaches to detect high energy materials in trace levels in standoff mode through improving the LIBS sensitivity (by using noble metal nanoparticles) as well as for quantitative detection of trace elements in soils and ores. His research work was published in peer-reviewed journals (9), conference proceedings (2) and a book chapter. His other research interests include Filamentation, Plasma Imaging, and Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS). Earlier, Abdul was awarded the best oral presentation award in International Symposium on Plasma Physics, IPR, Gandhinagar, in November 2017 organized by PSSI (Plasma Scientific Society of India).
