Postdoctoral Research Associates / Graduate Students

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Naeem Asad, Ph.D. earned his MSc in Organic Chemistry from Punjab University, Lahore and his Mphil for the University of Engineering and Technology Lahore, Pakistan. He also held a position as a Lecturer/Assistant Professor at the Forman Christian College, Lahore. He obtained his Ph.D from the University of Kansas under the guidance of Professor Paul R. Hanson. While there, he worked towards the synthesis of different heterocycles, specifically cyclic sulfonamides. He also performed diversity oriented synthesis and constructed libraries of different heterocycles. During his post-doctorate, he worked methodology development towards the synthesis of different photocleavable protecting groups (PPGs) and also developed different biological probes. He carried out photochemistry expe the PPGs synthesized. At Medicines for All, he is involved in different projects entailing organic synthesis, method development as well as flow chemistry. 

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Dr. Chiranjeevi Barreddi received his Ph.D. from CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (CSIR-IICT) Hyderabad, India under the supervision of Dr. Malapaka Chandrasekharam. His research focused on catalysis, biology, and material chemistry. Dr. Barreddi then worked at Aragen Life Sciences for more than five years. There he worked in process research and development to help reduce manufacturing costs of active pharmaceutical ingredients in the early and late phases of development. He is currently a postdoctoral research associate with Medicines for All working on cost-effective approaches in the process development of APIs.

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Kevin Robb, Ph.D. is a native of St. Charles, Missouri. He received his B.S. in chemistry from Truman State University in 2013. He then enrolled in graduate study at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in the laboratory of Prof. Scott Denmark. While there, Kevin worked on numerous projects under the umbrella of organic synthesis and methodology, culminating in the study of preparative and mechanistic aspects of Lewis base catalyzed transformations. He contributed to the development of two catalytic, enantioselective transformations: 1) polyene sulfenocyclization and 2) carbosulfenylation of alkenylboronate complexes enabled by boronate migration. He received his Ph.D. in chemistry in 2019 and spent the next four years as an educator, first as assistant professor at Hastings College (NE) and subsequently as visiting assistant professor at Grinnell College (IA). Kevin primarily instructed organic and general chemistry during this time and mentored several undergraduate research projects. To further explore his interests in pharmaceutical chemistry and process development, Kevin joined the VCU M4ALL Institute in August 2023 as a postdoctoral research associate.

Someshwar Nagamalla, Ph.D., earned his B.S. from Kakatiya University and M.S. in Organic Chemistry from Osmania University. He completed his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry at Pondicherry University, India, in 2017 under the mentorship of Dr. C. R. Ramanathan. His doctoral research focused on the design and synthesis of BINOL derivatives for asymmetric transformations. Subsequently, he served as a scientist at Chemveda Life Sciences, Hyderabad, India, from 2017 to 2019, contributing to drug discovery and R&D initiatives. In 2020, He joined the research group of Prof. Shyam Sathyamoorthi at the University of Kansas as a Postdoctoral Research Scholar. During his tenure there, he specialized in total synthesis and tethered alkene functionalization reactions for the synthesis of medicinally active molecules. At Medicines for All, he is working on process development to access active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs).

Rama Sayini, Ph.D. brings nearly 6 years of professional experience in the area of synthesis and scale up. Prior to joining M4ALL, he spent two years working as an Associate Scientist (R&D) at Aragen Life Sciences in the CDMO and API Intermediates. He worked in the process development for various API drugs. Most recently, he was completing a postdoc appointment at Wayne State University in organic synthesis. Rama possesses a PhD in Organic Synthesis & Process Chemistry, focusing in the area of total synthesis of biologically active natural products from CSIR Indian Institute Of Chemical Technology (IICT).

Dr. Piyal Singh earned her Ph.D. in 2021 from the Indian Institute of Science, where her research was focused on the natural product syntheses using tartaric acid as chiral pool source. She brings experience in preparing/handling Grignard reagents and organolithium reagents. Following her graduation, she worked for a CRO based company, Syngene International, as the Research Investigator being responsible for multistep synthesis, team work planning and execution. Most recently, she was completing a postdoctoral appointment in the department of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry at the City University of New York (CUNY). During this appointment she was working on cross dehydrogenative coupling reactions as well as syntheses of purines and pyrimidines derivatives having luminescence properties.

Dr. Aline Souza is a postdoctoral research associate at Medicines for All
(M4ALL). She joins our team from Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar,
Brazil), where she received her PhD in 2021 under the supervision of Dr. Kleber
Thiago de Oliveira. Her research focused on the development of
methodologies involving the functionalization of C-H connections via
photocatalysis and electrochemistry in batch and continuous flow regime. She
has experience with condition studies that enable the synthesis of molecules
using continuous flow conditions, making processes safer and more
economical as well as assembly and design of systems and reactors that
operate in a continuous flow regime. While finishing her PhD, she had the opportunity to work for a small
pharmaceutical company, where she helped improve the manufacturing
process to supply two active pharmaceutical ingredients.

Ramesh Vediyappan, Ph.D. earned his BSc and MSc in Organic Chemistry from Periyar University in Tamilnadu, India. After earning his MSc, he began his career as a Process Chemist with Syngene International Limited, where he had the opportunity to work on various projects for 3 years.  After gaining some industry experience, Ramesh returned to school and obtained his doctorate in Organic Chemistry from Madurai Kamaraj University in Tamilnadu, India.  After graduation, he worked at Aragen Life Sciences (formerly known as GVK BIO) for more than three years as Associate Scientist. During his time with Aragen, he was promoted to Scientific Lead after gaining significant expertise in various MedChem projects.