Affiliateship: 2021-2025
Cohort 6
Country (Nationality)
South Africa
Discipline
Chemical Sciences
Bio
Dr Prinessa Chellan completed her PhD in Chemistry in 2013 at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. She followed this with a post-doctoral position at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom, working on the preparation and study of new metallo-drugs for cancer, malaria and TB. In 2016, she was appointed as Lecturer in the Department of Chemistry and Polymer Science at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, where she continue to build on the research path she started during her post-doctoral studies. She is also involved in teaching undergraduate chemistry in several of the chemistry modules offered at the University.
Her current research focuses on new metallo-drug candidates using one of two design approaches, target-specific or derivatisation of ‘repurposed’ drugs, with the aim of overcoming resistance. In her group, they also study the stability and chemical reactivity of new complexes under physiological conditions with a variety of analytical and computational techniques to link this data to their activity in vitro and in vivo against infectious diseases, including P. falciparum and M. tuberculosis. She is committed to not just developing her own research career but also training the next generation of scientists, particularly women and individuals from previously disadvantaged backgrounds, in her home country, South Africa.