Appointments:
Senior Scientist, University of New Brunswick, Saint John, NB; Adjunct Academic, Dalhousie Medicine New Brunswick, Dalhousie University, NS; Founder and President, BioHuntress Therapeutics Inc., NB
Affiliations:
Department of Biological Sciences, University of New Brunswick, SJ; Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS; Canadian Cancer Society (CCS) Advisory Council on Research Member
Research Interests:
Nature-inspired novel therapeutics development for blood cancers and bone diseases, discovery & translational research and education, intellectual property strategies, creation of innovative interdisciplinary experiential learning opportunities, biomedical entrepreneurship bridging academia and industry.
Natural/nature-inspired novel therapeutics development is my primary research area. As a biomedical discovery and translational cancer researcher, I look up to nature for finding novel treatments from diverse natural sources to develop treatments for blood cancers and associated bone diseases. Interdisciplinary research innovation and commercialization in drug development fascinate me. I lead the systematic isolation of novel bioactive proteins and small molecules or identify the critical chemical structure of the natural products and collaborate with medicinal chemists to synthesize nature-inspired anti-blood cancer compounds for preclinical testing. I am passionate about cancer biobanking and employing clinical specimens for translational research. I believe in both publishing and patenting to add value to innovation-based collaborative cancer research.
What brought you to your current institution? The new medical school, the Dalhousie Medicine New Brunswick, was founded in 2010, opening several exciting opportunities, including health research. This made me relocate from Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, to Saint John, NB.
Hometown: Pondicherry, India (https://www.theguardian.com/travel/gallery/2012/dec/20/life-of-pi-on-location-pondicherry)
Why are you interested in your area of research? The fact that blood cancers are challenging to treat and that these cancers affect the quality of life of elderly individuals to young kids make me stay committed to blood cancer research. I believe that with my background as a serial inventor and a collaborative biomedical translational researcher, I can contribute to developing novel blood cancer and associated bone disease therapeutics that benefit patients.
Learn More about my research
https://www.unb.ca/annualreport/2018/innovation/mitacs.html
https://biohuntresstherapeutics.com/about-biohuntress/
Involvement with BHCRI to date:
I am an Affiliate member of BHCRI since 2016. I am serving on both CRTP training committee and the Integrated Learning Session sub-committee. Four of my students have received BHCRI awards.
Recent News:
Dr. Alli Murugesan’s collaborative translational research focusing on the potent bee-glue molecule (caffeic acid phenethyl ester analogue) as a novel treatment for blood cancers which was both published (American Chemical Society Editors’ Choice Article, 2020) and patented (Canadian patent, 2020), has received the Health Research Excellence Award by Dalhousie Medical Research Foundation (DMRF) in 2022 to make further progress in this area of cancer research.