Praveen Nekkar Rao

• Drug Discovery
• Rational Drug Design & Medicinal Chemistry
• Cancer Therapy
• Treatment of Neurodegenerative Disorders

• Drug discovery/rational design
• Synthesis and biological evaluation of novel organic molecules and peptides/peptidomimics as therapeutic agents

For more information see Dr. Nekkar’s Research Website.

Dr. Nekkar teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses. Course offerings have included:

• PHARM 141 Introduction to Medicinal Chemistry, Toxicology and Pharmacology
• PHARM 220-223 Integrated Patient Focused Care 1-4
• PHARM 320-324 Integrated Patient Focused Care 5-8
• PHARM 603 Selected Topics in Medicinal Chemistry
• PHARM 607 Advanced Pharmaceutical Analysis 
• PHARM 610 Topics in Drug Development

1. Tarek Mohamed, Arash Shakeri, Praveen P. N. Rao, Structure-activity relationship studies of isomeric 2,4-diaminoquinazolines on β-amyloid aggregation kinetics. ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters 7, 502-507 (2016),  (Cover page article)
2. Tarek Mohamed, Arash Shakeri, Praveen P. N. Rao, Amyloid cascade in Alzheimer's disease: recent advances in Medicinal Chemistry. European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry 113, 258-272 (2016)
3. Tin G, Mohamed T, Gondora N, Beazely M. A. Praveen P N Rao Tricyclic phenothiazine and phenoselenazine derivatives as potential multi-targeting agents to treat Alzheimer’s disease. Medicinal Chemistry Communication 6, 1930-1941 (2015), (Cover page article)
4. Xian-Le Bu, Praveen P N Rao, Yan-Jiang Wang. Anti-amyloid aggregation activity of natural compounds: Implications for Alzheimer's drug discovery. Molecular Neurobiology doi: 10.1007/s12035-015-9301-4, 2015.
5. Liu H, Ojha B, Morris C, Jiang M, Wojcikiewicz E. P, Praveen P N Rao, Du D. Positively charged chitosan and N-trimethylchitosan inhibit Aβ40 fibrillogenesis. Biomacromolecules 16: 2363-2373, 2015.
6. Tarek Mohamed, Tuan Hoang, Masoud Jelokhani-Niaraki, Praveen P N Rao. Tau-derived-hexapeptide 306VQIVYK311 aggregation inhibitors: Nitrocatechol moiety as a pharmacophore in drug design. ACS Chemical Neuroscience 4: 1559-1570, 2013.
7. Ravinder Kodela, Mitali Chattopadhyay, Satindra Goswami, Zong, Yuan Gan, Praveen P N Rao,  Kamran V Nia, Carlos A. Velázquez-Martínez, Khosrow Kashfi. Positional isomers of aspirin are equally potent in inhibiting colon cancer cell growth: Differences in mode of cyclooxygenase inhibition. Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics 345: 85-94, 2013.
8. Praveen P N Rao, Qiao-Hong, Chen, Edward, E Knaus (2006). Synthesis and structure-activity relationship studies of 1,3-diphenylprop-2-yn-1-ones: Dual inhibitors of cyclooxygenases and lipoxygenases. Journal of Medicinal Chemistry 49: 1668-1683, 2006.
9. Praveen P N Rao, Md. Jashim, Uddin, Edward, E Knaus. Design, synthesis and structure-activity relationship (SAR) studies of substituted-3,4,6-triphenylpyran-2-ones as selective cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitors. Journal of Medicinal Chemistry 47: 3972-3990, 2004.

• Indolizine derivatives, WO2013116948, 2013

• 2016 Outstanding Faculty Mentor in the Graduate Program
• 2015 Early Researcher Award, Ministry of Research, Innovation and Science, Government of Ontario

• Cross-appointed to the Department of Biology and the Department of Chemistry in the Faculty of Science

Dr. Nekkar serves as a reviewer to a number of medicinal chemistry journals. He collaborates with researchers from the University of Alberta, Florida Atlantic University and Department of Neurology and Center for Clinical Neuroscience, Daping Hospital, China.

The following news stories have featured Dr. Nekkar's research:

• July 29, 2015: Waterloo pharmacist examines drug therapies for Alzheimer’s disease

• July 29, 2015: Waterloo scientists receive nearly $250K for state-of-the-art infrastructure

• June 22, 2015: Prof. Nekkar Rao receives an Early Researcher Award

1995 BPharm (Manipal College of Pharmaceutical Sciences)

1998 MPharm (Manipal College of Pharmaceutical Sciences)

2004 PhD Pharmaceutical Science (University of Alberta)

2004-5 Postdoctoral Fellowship, Specialization in Medicinal Chemistry (University of Alberta)

2006-8 Postdoctoral Fellowship, Specialization in Medicinal Chemistry (The Scripps Research Institute)