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Dr Pritika Ramharack

Post-Doctoral Fellow/ AdHoc Lecturer

PhD (Pharmaceutical Chemistry), M.Med (Medical Biochemistry), B.Sc(Biomedical Sciences)

Discipline of Pharmaceutical Chemistry

School of Health Sciences

University of KwaZulu-Natal-Westville

E-Block, Room 501-C

Tel: +27 (0) 31 260 7834

Email: ramharackp@ukzn.ac.za/  

           pritikaramharack096@gmail.com

 

Dr Ramharack is a passionate young research scientist with keen interest in biological advancements through computer-aided drug design. She holds the following qualifications from UKZN:  BSc Biomedical Sciences; MMed Medical Biochemistry and a PhD in Pharmaceutical Chemistry.

Her Masters degree entailed the investigation of the anti-proliferative effects of popular statin drugs on lung adenocarcinoma cells. Her NRF funded doctoral study examined the structural characteristics of the Zika Virus through the use of in silico tools.

Dr Ramharack joined the Pharmaceutical Sciences Discipline in 2016 as a Medicinal Chemistry AdHoc lecturer. She also currently holds a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Bio-computation and Drug design Laboratory, UKZN.

 

RESEARCH INTERESTS

- Bioinformatics

- Dimerization and protein folding

- Structure based drug disease for infectious diseases

- Mutational Effects on molecular systems

- Course-grained Modelling

- Molecular Mechanisms of Metabolic Diseases

 

PUBLICATIONS

1. Pritika Ramharack and Mahmoud E.S. Soliman (2016) Zika virus drug targets: a missing link in drug design and discovery – a route map to fill the gap, RSC Advances (6): 68719-68731.

 

2. Pritika Ramharack and Mahmoud E.S. Soliman (2017) Zika Virus NS5 Protein Potential Inhibitors: An Enhanced in silico Approach in Drug Discovery, Journal of Biomolecular Structure & Dynamics, 2017, 1-16.

 

3. Pritika Ramharack, Sofiat Oguntade and Mahmoud E.S. Soliman (2017) Delving into Zika Virus Structural Dynamics- A Closer look at NS3 Helicase Loop flexibility and its Role in Drug Discovery, RSC Advances, 7, 22133-22144.


4. Sofiat Oguntade, Pritika Ramharack and Mahmoud E.S. Soliman (2017) Characterizing the Ligand Binding Landscape of Zika NS3 Helicase- Promising Lead Compounds as Potential Inhibitors, Future Virology, 12(6), 1-15.


5. Letitia Shunmugam, Pritika Ramharack and Mahmoud E.S. Soliman (2017), Road Map For The Structure-Based Design of Selective Covalent HCV NS3/4A Protease Inhibitors, The Protein Journal, 5(36), 397-406.

 

6. Nikita Devnarain, Pritika Ramharack and Mahmoud E.S. Soliman (2017) Brain Grants Permission of Access to Zika Virus but Denies Entry to Drugs: A Molecular Modeling Perspective to Infiltrate the Boundary, RSC Advances, 7(75), 47416-47424.

 

7. Geraldene Munsamy, Pritika Ramharack and Mahmoud E.S. Soliman (2018) Egress and Invasion Machinery of Malaria: An In-depth Look into The Structural and Functional Features of The Flap Dynamics of Plasmepsin IX and X, RSC Advances, 8, 21829 - 21840.

 

8. Pritika Ramharack and Soliman M. E. (2018) Bioinformatics-Based Tools in Drug Discovery: The Cartography from Single Gene to Integrative Biological Networks, Drug Discovery Today, 23(9):1658-1665.


9. Nomagugu B. Ncube, Pritika Ramharack and Mahmoud E.S. Soliman (2018) An “All-In-One” Pharmacophoric Architecture for the Discovery of Potential Broad-Spectrum Anti-Flavivirus Drugs, Appl Biochem Biotechnol, 185(3):799-814.

 

10. Clement Agoni, Pritika Ramharack and Mahmoud E.S. Soliman (2018) Co-inhibition as a Strategic Therapeutic Approach to Overcome Rifampin Resistance in TB Therapy: Atomistic Insights, Future Medicinal Chemistry, 10(14):1665-1675.

 

11. Nomagugu B. Ncube, Pritika Ramharack and Mahmoud E.S. Soliman (2018) Using bioinformatics tools for the discovery of Dengue RNA-dependent RNA polymerase inhibitors, PeerJ, 6:e5068.


12.Clement Agoni, Pritika Ramharack and Soliman M. E. (2018) Synergistic Interplay of The Co-administration of Rifampin And Newly Developed Anti-TB Drug: Could It Be a Promising New Line of TB Therapy? Combinatorial Chemistry & High Throughput Screening, 21(6)453-460.

 
13. Stalielson Tatenda Ndlovu , Naseem Ullah, Shahzeb Khan, Pritika Ramharack  , Mahmoud Soliman, Marcel de Matas, Muhammad Shahid, Muhammad Sohail, Muhammad Imran, Syed Wadood Ali Shah, Zahid Hussain. Domperidone Nanocrystals with Boosted Oral Bioavailability: Fabrication, Evaluation and Molecular Insight into the Polymer-Domperidone Interaction. Drug Delivery and Translational Research, 9(1): 284-297.

 

14. Clement Agoni, Pritika Ramharack and Mahmoud Soliman (2018), Allosteric Inhibition Induces an Open WPD-Loop: A New Avenue Towards Glioblastoma Therapy. RSC Advances, 8:40187-40197.

 

15. Ayman Waddad, Pritika Ramharack, Mahmoud Soliman and Thirumala Govender (2018), Grafted hyaluronic acid N-acetyl-L-methionine for targeting of LAT1 Receptor: In-silico, Synthesis and Microscale Thermophoresis Studies. International Journal of Biological Macromolecules, 125: 767-777.

CONFERENCES

1. Pritika Ramharack, Savania Nagiah and Anil. A. Chuturgoon (2015) Atorvastatin Induces Apoptosis in Human Lung Adenocarcinoma Cells (A549), Proceedings of the 2015 UKZN College of Health Sciences Symposium, Durban, South Africa.

 

2. Pritika Ramharack and Soliman M E (2017) Zika Virus NS5 Protein Potential Inhibitors: An Enhanced In silico Approach in Drug Discovery, Proceedings of the 2016 International Conference on Medicinal and Pharmaceutical Chemistry. Dubai: Crowne Plaza.

 

RESEARCH SUPERVISION

- Sofiat Oguntade

- Clement Agoni (Suma Cum Laude)

- Nomagugu Ncube (Cum Laude)

- Ndumiso Buthelezi (Suma Cum Laude)



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