Fidele Ntie-Kang
Workshop Organizer
Fidele Ntie-Kang is one of the organizers of the online workshop "Computational Applications in Secondary Metabolite Discovery (CAiSMD)". He currently heads the Molecular Simulations Laboratory, Chemistry Department, University of Buea (Cameroon). He studied Chemistry at the University of Douala (Cameroon) from 1999 to 2005, leading to Bachelor's and Master's degrees. His Ph.D. was based on molecular modeling of anti-tubercular drug target to design novel inhibitors, followed by an Habilitation in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale) (Germany), under Prof. Wolfgang Sippl. He is concurrently a Guest Professor or Lecturer at the Technical University, Dresden (Germany), an Adjunct Professor at the Nelson-Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology, Arusha (Tanzania) and has previously taught a course on ”Drug Design'' in the Masters Program in Pharmaceutical Biology, University of Applied Sciences, Zittau/Görlitz (Germany). His current focus is the discovery of bioactive natural products from African flora by the use of virtual screening followed by in vitro assays. A major contribution of his research team has been the development of the African natural products database. He has authored or co-authored more than 80 publications and has served as Associate Editor in several journals, as Guest Editor in special issues in the journals Molecules and Frontiers in Pharmacology. He holds several awards, including the Georg Forster Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany) and is a member of several academic societies, including the American Chemical Society and the Cameroon Academy of Young Scientists. He is the editor of the book series "Chemoinformatics of Natural Products'' published by Degruyter.
Jutta Ludwig-Müller
Professor & Workshop organizer
Prof. Jutta Ludwig-Müller is one of the organizers of the online workshop "Computational Applications in Secondary Metabolite Discovery (CAiSMD)". From 1999, she has been a Professor of Plant Physiology at the Technical University Dresden (Germany). After studying Biology at Frankfurt (Main) leading to a Diploma thesis on the topic "Auxin biosynthesis in Brassicaceae" (1981-1986), she completed her PhD dissertation in 1990 at the Botanical Institute of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität (JWGU) in Frankfurt (Main) on the topic "Auxin biosynthesis and the role of auxins during the clubroot disease", with several visits to the laboratory of Dr. Ephraim Epstein, Volcani Center, Israel. After a research assistanship and postdoctoral stay in the USA, she completed her Habilitation in 1996. From 1995 to1999, she was an Assistant Professor at the Botanical Institute of the JWGU. During this period she made several visits to the laboratory of Dr. Jerry D. Cohen, United States Department of Agriculture, Beltsville, Maryland (USA). Her research focuses on mechanisms leading to plant-pathogen (clubroot disease) interactions or the interaction with beneficial microorganisms (fungal endophytes). He group is interested in the role of plant hormones and secondary plant products for development of pathogenic or symbiotic interactions of fungi with host plants. For better understanding of the events leading to pathogenesis, the team have begun to identify differentially expressed genes during host/pathogen interaction. She is also interested in the role of auxins and glucosinolates during plant development and therefore they study the biosynthesis, metabolism and regulation mechanisms controlling the endogenous concentrations of these compounds. In addition to glucosinolates, her team also investigates the bioactivity of other secondary plant metabolites such as flavonoids and phenylpropanoids. In 2019, she was awarded the Spiridion Brusina Medal of the Croatian Society of Natural Sciences. She is a member of several scientific organizations, including the American Society of Plant Biology (ASPB). the German Botanical Society (DBG), Deutscher Hochschulverband (DHV) and the International Plant Growth Substances Association. She is a member of the editorial board of several journals, including being the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Actualia, (published by the German Botanical Society) and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Journal of Plant Growth Regulation (Springer).
Kiran K. Telukunta
Ph.D & Workshop helper
In 2018, Kiran completed his doctoral research in Pharmaceutical Bioinformatics at the University of Freiburg (Germany), while managing several Scientific IT infrastructure for Bioinformatic and Cheminformatics scientific projects, under Prof. Dr. Stefan Günther. Since then, he has worked on several projects, including as a Backend Developer and Software Engineer at Flowers-Software GmbH and Scientific Cloud Coordinator at VIB in Gent (Belgium). He has previously taught a course on ”Drug Design”in the Master's Program in Pharmaceutical Biology, University of Applied Sciences, Zittau/Görlitz (Germany). He is Information System Administrator at ISES, a voluntary organisation in Freiburg (Germany). He is the one of the directors of the TMS Foundation, which voluntarily prepared the submission platform for this online workshop. During the workshop, he plans to present some general guidelines and underlying principles of gene cluster analysis with applications using Galaxy.