Rate My Professor Nafees Ahemad

Nafees Ahemad is an Associate Professor in the Malaysia School of Pharmacy at Monash University. He joined Monash University Malaysia in September 2012 initially as a lecturer and has since advanced to his current position. Prior to this appointment, he worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry at the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang. Ahemad earned his M.S. (Pharm) and Ph.D. in Natural Products Chemistry/Medicinal Chemistry from the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), Mohali, India. He is actively accepting PhD students from 2007 to 2025 and supervises doctoral candidates on projects such as the design and development of new histone deacetylase inhibitors as anti-cancer agents based on quinolone scaffolds.

Ahemad's research focuses on the total synthesis of natural products, synthesis of new chemical analogues for the discovery of anti-HIV agents derived from natural product templates, and computational-based rational design of novel drug candidates targeting HIV-1, dengue virus, and other therapeutics. As Chief Investigator, he leads projects including mechanistic studies on enzyme inhibition for new anti-HIV agents based on quinoline scaffolds (2020–2023), development of receptor-targeted fluorescent probes for breast cancer imaging (2020–2024), design and synthesis of benzimidazole sirtuin inhibitors against drug-resistant oral cancer cells (2020–2024), and mapping interactions of Chikungunya virus proteins with mosquito midgut cellular proteins (2017–2021). He has produced 105 research outputs, comprising 77 articles, 17 review articles, 7 book chapters, 2 editorials, and others. Key publications include "Pharmacological advances in anti-retroviral therapy for human immunodeficiency virus-1 infection: A comprehensive review" (Reviews in Medical Virology, 2024), "Quinolone Derivatives as Anticancer Agents: Importance in Medicinal Chemistry" (Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry, 2024), "High-throughput virtual screening, pharmacophore modelling and antagonist effects of small molecule inhibitors against cytotoxin-induced cytotoxicity" (Journal of Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics, 2025), "Antiviral Activity of Withanolide A Against Different Infectivity Phases of Dengue Virus Serotype 2 in Vero Cell Line" (Revista Brasileira de Farmacognosia, 2024), and "Deciphering quinazoline derivatives’ interactions with EGFR: a computational quest for advanced cancer therapy through 3D-QSAR, virtual screening, and MD simulations" (Frontiers in Pharmacology, 2024). His scholarship has accumulated 3,587 citations with an h-index of 29 and i10-index of 75 on Google Scholar. Ahemad has received the Bronze Medal at PECIPTA (2017), the award for "From grave to cradle: Hunting new antimicrobials through sustainable drug discovery" (2022), PVC’s Commendation for Excellence in Education (2021), and Supervisor of the Year – Outstanding Nominee Award (2018). His expertise aligns with UN Sustainable Development Goals 3 (Good Health and Well-being) and 14 (Life Below Water).