Our Members

Prof Grace Mugumbate

Principal Investigator

Computational Chemist: Computer-aided drug discovery and development for infectious diseases and cancer. Involved with applying chemogenomics, chemoinformatics and bioinformatics methods to facilitate the discovery of new chemical entities and drugs for treatment of infectious diseases and cancer and focusing on translating basic science ideas into drug.

Prof Upenyu Guyo

Co-Principal Investigator

Medicinal Chemistry: Research interests in process organic synthesis, product formulation, natural product chemistry and flow chemistry with hands-on laboratory experience, handling of air-sensitive compounds, synthetic catalyst development, and characterization using NMR & IR spectroscopy, Mass Spectrometry, and catalysis product characterization using GC/FID, GC/MS, and HPLC.

Dr Dubekile Nyoni

Researcher

Organic Synthesis: Background in the application of synthetic, kinetic and theoretical methods in the elucidation of reaction mechanisms and knowledge in the use of instruments such as NMR, HPLC and IR spectrometers.

Dr Ngceboyakwethu Zinyama

Researcher

Computational chemist: Research focuses on cheminformatics and chemogenomics, with an emphasis on drug design for cancer research. Involved in computational modeling and data analysis, as well as the integration of biological and chemical data through the application of advanced techniques in AI predictive modeling, data mining, and structure-based drug design, to identify promising drug candidates and contribute to the development of targeted therapies.

Sithulisiwe Ngwenya

PhD Student

Medicinal Chemist: Research focus is Drug Discovery in Natural Products with expertise in Molecular dynamics, Artificial Intelligence and Cheminformatics. Research title: Strengthening the fight against malaria: Artificial Intelligence Driven Optimisation and Synthesis of Quinoline Derivatives as Inhibitors of PfHsp70-1.

Tsungai Faith Manyadza

Researcher

Computational Chemist: Chemistry researcher, specializing in computational chemistry for drug design and discovery. With expertise in cheminformatics, molecular dynamics, and both structure-based and ligand-based drug design. She focuses on developing innovative therapies for infectious diseases, particularly malaria.

Blessed Mazarura

Resident Innovator

Medicinal Chemist: Research focuses on bridging the gap between Computer Aided Drug Discovery and Laboratory experimental work. This work seeks to enhance the efficiency of drug development by integrating virtual screening methods with practical testing.