Speakers

S. M. Abdur Rahman

Place of Birth : Bangladesh
Born : 1970
Position : Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh
Field of study : Synthetic Organic Chemistry, Pharmacology, Medicinal Chemistry, Nucleic acid Chemistry and Biology

Dr. S. M. Abdur Rahman was born in 1970. He obtained B. Pharm. (hons.) and M. Pharm. degree from University of Dhaka securing First class First position in both the examinations in 1993 and 1995 respectively. Dr. Rahman joined the Department of Pharmacy, University of Dhaka as a lecturer in January 1997. He received Japanese Government Monbusho scholarship in 1997 and completed his Ph.D. in Molecular Pharmaceutical Sciences at Osaka University (in 2001). In Ph.D. he completed the first total synthesis of Scopadulin an antiviral drug (Rahman, S. M. A. et.al. Org. Lett. 2001, 3, 619; J. Org. Chem. 2001, 66, 4831). Dr. Rahman returned to Dhaka University in 2001 and promoted to Assistant Professor. He was awarded Japan Science and Technology (JST) post-doctoral fellowship in 2002 and Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS) fellowship in 2004. In 2006, He was appointed as an Assistant professor in the Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences Osaka University and continued up to 2008. He developed a highly functional artificial nucleic acid 2’,4’-BNANC (Rahman, S. M. A. et al. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2007, 46, 4306; J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2008, 130, 4886).

He returned back to the University of Dhaka in 2008 and promoted to Associate Professor in the Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacology. In 2012, he became promoted to full professor in the same department. He was elected twice as the Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy in January 2017 and in April 2019 consecutively.

Dr. Rahman published about 60 scientific papers mostly in prestigious international journals. He presented his research work in about 25 international conferences. He also received several research grants and awards such as Third-world Academy of Science (TWAS) grant, JSPS-UGC bilateral projects award, Higher Education Quality Enhancement Project (HEQEP), several research grants from the Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Education of Bangladesh. He also received BAS-TWAS young scientist prize and award in 2010.

1. Bioactivity Directed Phytochemical Investigations of Indigenous Plants: his group is working on bioactivity directed phytochemical investigation of various plants of Bangladesh. One of his students has isolated a novel cleredon diterpene Crispen E from T. Crispa which showed prominent anticancer activity via inhibition of STAT-3 dimerization (Rahman, S. M. A. et al. Org. Biomol. Chem. 2015, 13, 3882-85).

2. Target oriented organic synthesis for developing novel therapeutic agent: Several benzimidazole derivatives were synthesized in his laboratory and screened for their pharmacological profiles. A number of synthesized derivatives exhibited potential antitumor, analgesic, antiinflammatory and antioxidant properties (Rahman et.al. Manuscript under preparation). Recently a number of nitazoxanide (NTZ) analogues were synthesized which showed highly significant anticancer and antibacterial activities superior to the commercially available drug NT (Rahman, S. M. A. et al. manuscript under preparation).

3. Development of Artificial Nucleic Acids for Gene Therapy and Diagnosis: Bridged Nucleic Acids (BNAs) are potential therapeutic tool for gene therapy. A number of BNA was synthesized in Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Osaka University during his post-doc and faculty position. He continued collaborative work with the Japanese professors and eventually developed few artificial nucleic acids. Some of them were applied in gene-based technologies such as antisense & RNA interference (RNAi) technologies (Rahman, S. M. A et al.: Biorg. Med. Chem. 2010, 18, 3474). Cationic phosphorothioate nucleic acid was also developed which showed superior hybridizing profiles against target DNA (Rahman, S. M. A. et al. Biorg. Med. Chem. 2012, 20, 4098). Recently his collaborator Prof. S. Obika successfully synthesized some nucleic acid analogues where he also has some contribution (Obika, S. et al. and Rahman, S. M. A. Biorg. Med. Chem. 2019, 27, 1728-1741).

1) Technical Services Officer, Quality Control Officer and Method development in-Charge: Beximco Pharmaceuticals Ltd., (1.10.1995 to 31.12.1996).

2) Lecturer: Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh (1.1.1997 to 15.2.2002)

3) Assistant Professor, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Dhaka, (16.2.2002 to 24.4.2008)

4) Japan Science and Technology (JST) post-doctoral research fellow: Osaka University (1.4.2002 to 30.9.2004).

5) Japan Society of Promotion of Science (JSPS) fellow: Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Osaka University (1.10.2004 to 30.9.2006).

6) Assistant Professor: Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Osaka University (from 1.10.2006 to 29.2.2008)

7) Associate Professor: Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacology, University of Dhaka (25.4.2008 to 29.4.2012)

8) Professor: Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Pharmacology, University of Dhaka, (30.4.2012 to date)

9) Dean: Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Dhaka (19.1.2017 to date; being elected twice in the Faculty of Pharmacy)