MENTEE – Srijan Shrestha

Srijan is a third-year Ph.D. student at The University of Adelaide. He holds a Bachelor of Pharmacy degree from Tribhuvan University (Nepal) and is a registered pharmacist by profession. He completed a Master’s degree from Pukyong National University (Busan, South Korea) in 2018 focusing on the various small molecules that have the potential to become future therapeutics for diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease. He continued the similar projects for one more year as a research assistant in Prof. Choi’s research group and moved to Adelaide when he received a scholarship (RTP) for his postgraduate study.

Srijan’s current research focuses to explore and characterize the potential role of natural products (marine seaweeds) as neuroprotective and anti-inflammatory agents. It involves extraction and isolation of various components present in the natural product via HPCPC, HPLC, MS, and NMR spectroscopy and identification of the active compounds that are responsible for neuroprotection. They use various neuronal cell lines to mimic the neurotoxicity and try to rescue the cells with their extracts and pure compounds. Further, they seek answers from molecular docking and dynamic studies for the possible mechanism of action and the binding site information. Additionally, they are looking for their effects on gut health (barrier tissue integrity).