Dr Pramod Nair

Senior Research Fellow in Computational and Molecular Pharmacology

College of Medicine and Public Health

place Flinders Medical Centre Building (6D334)
GPO Box 2100, Adelaide 5001, South Australia

Dr. Nair is a pharmacist by training and a pharmaceutical scientist with >15 years of research experience in pharmacology and pharmaceutical sciences. His research interests include computational medicinal chemistry, structural biology, experimental pharmacology, and pharmacogenomics. His research focuses on preclinical studies including drug lead identification and optimization, drug metabolism, and personalised medicine. His research supports the development of novel therapeutics for various drug targets in cancer and neuropsychiatric disorders.

Dr. Nair is a Senior Research Fellow in Clinical Pharmacology. His current research focuses on understanding new drug targets for schizophrenia and related disorders, especially from a structural, genetic, and pharmacological perspective.

Dr. Nair obtained a Bachelor of Pharmaceutical Sciences with Distinction at the University of Mumbai (Bombay College of Pharmacy) India, in 2005. He completed his Masters of Science (Pharm.) at the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER) India, where he also worked as a Junior Research Fellow. He received the Australian government-funded Endeavour IPRS fellowship in 2009 and undertook Phd studies with Professor Alan Mark at the School of Chemistry & Molecular Biosciences, The University of Queensland. In 2012 he joined the Department of Clinical Pharmacology as a Postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Professor John Miners and Professor Ross McKinnon.

Qualifications

PhD (Med. Chem.) The University of Queensland, Australia 2009-2013.
M.S. (Pharm.) National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), India 2005-2007.
B. Pharm.(Distinction) Bombay College of Pharmacy, University of Mumbai, India 2001-2005.

Honours, awards and grants

2024 Innovation Partnership Seed Grant, $75,000, (Chief Investigator A, CIA).

2024-2026 National Health and Medical Research Council Ideas Grant, $755,276, CID.

2023 Emerging Leaders Showcase - Mid Career Academic Best Talk Prize (Runner Up) $500.

2023 Building Research Leaders Award (Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences (Adelaide Medical School)), $35,000, CIA.

2023 Oracle for Research Project Award, value $34,000, CIA.

2021-2022 Oracle for Research, value $75,000, CIA.

2022-2024 Medical Research Future Fund - Stem Cell Therapies Mission, $853,274, CIF.

2021-2022 Pipeline Accelerator, Australian Translational Medicinal Chemistry Facility, $53,750, CIB.

2020-2021 Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute (FHMRI), Early Career Research Kickstart grant $20,800, CIA.

2018 CERTARA New Investigator Award (Australasian Society of Clinical and Experimental Pharmacologists and Toxicologists)

2017 Flinders University Vice-Chancellor's Award for Early Career Researchers

2017 Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer, Flinders Medical Centre (FMC) Foundation, Early Career Research Grant $16,500, CIA.

2017 Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences (Flinders University), Early Career Research Grant $15,000, CIA.

2016 Flinders Medical Centre (FMC) Foundation Grant, $18,000, CIE.

2012-2016 Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, Flinders University (Australia).

2013 Travel Grant from Adelaide Pharmacology Group (APG) for ASCEPT, Annual General Meeting.

2010 Visiting Scientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich (Switzerland).

2010 Course Grant for the 8th Swiss National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) Structural Biology Course (Switzerland).

2009-2012 Australian Government funded Endeavour International Postgraduate Research Scholarship (IPRS) (Australia).

2009-2012 University of Queensland Research Scholarship (UQRS) (Australia).

2009 Top up Scholarship, The University of Queensland (Australia).

2009 Establishment Grant, The University of Queensland (Australia).

2007-2009 Junior Research Fellowship, NIPER (India).

2004 Sir Ratan TATA merit scholarship for academic excellence (India).

Supervisory interests
Binding free energy calculations
Computer aided drug design
Drug design
Drug discovery
Drug metabolising enzymes, cytochrome P450 and UDP-glucuronosyltransferase
Drug metabolism
Molecular dynamics simulations
Molecular modelling
Protein structure function
Structure function of drug metabolising enzymes
Higher degree by research supervision
Current
Associate supervisor: Drug Discovery: Design of DDAH-1 inhibitors (1), Pharmacology: UGT structure-function studies (1)