Dr. Muna Abubaker

Current positions

Specialist research infrastructure technician

Biography

I am a veterinary surgeon who went on to gain a First-Class degree in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Salford in July 2014. I was awarded Pathways to Excellence PhD studentship to pursue a PhD in Antimalarial Drug Discovery under the supervision of Prof Niroshini Nirmalan at the University of Salford. My research project focussed on lead optimisation of a natural product drug (Emetine Dihydrochloride) discovered through a repositioning screen of FDA-approved compound libraries. My project also involved training and collaboration with Prof Kamalinder Singh at University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN) to explore human serum albumin nanotechnology delivery systems for emetine. During the writing up phase of my PhD thesis, I worked as a malaria research technician in Dr Illaria Russo’s Malaria lab at the University of Manchester. Following my PhD, I worked as a research infrastructure technician at the University of Salford through Unitemps for 9 months. I took up my current job as specialist research infrastructure technician in September 2019

Areas of research

Drug discovery for antimalaria and anticancer, Natural product extraction