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Dr. Asthana has more than 21 years of post-doctoral experience in the field of biomaterials, micro/nanotechnology, microfluidics device designing, fabrication and characterization, hot embossing, cleanroom operations, and paper-microfluidics. He has worked at Institutes and Universities of International fame such as the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Institute Curie, France; the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA; Chungnam National University, South Korea; and University of Queensland, Australia.
Dr. Asthana is a Fellow of the Telangana Academy of Science. He is the recipient of many fellowships including S.R.F. (C.S.I.R., India), Curie Fellowship (France), Brainpool Fellowship (KRF, South Korea), and Ramalingaswami Return Fellowship (DBT, India) . Dr. Asthana has many publications in journals of international repute and international conferences apart from 04 Indian and PCT patents.
His research interests include paper-based microfluidic devices and their applications in clinical diagnosis, 3D cell culture, drug screening, and other biomedical applications. His group is also working on the application of 3D bioprinting, biomaterials, micro/nanofabrication, digital microfluidics, a wide range of microfluidic applications such as nanoparticle generation, and generation of drug delivery vesicles apart from non-conventional ways of fabricating microfluidic devices.
Dr. Asthana has been instrumental in establishing PAHL BioNanoTherapeutics Pvt. Limited, a startup established with funding from BIRAC under Bio-Initiative Grant (BIG) at IKP Park, Hyderabad. Moreover, he is associated with many start-ups working on affordable diagnostic and medical device companies in India as a scientific advisor, such as FastSense Diagnostics (Pune, India) and Microfluidic Paper Medical Devices Pvt. Ltd (Hyderabad, India). He is also the chief scientific advisor for ChitoLytic Diagnostics, Canada.
During his Ph.D. at IISC-Bangalore with Prof. P. Balaram, he has worked on designed and natural peptides that are hybrid beta-sheets, modified alpha-helices, and cyclic disulfide-bonded peptides. He has done the conformational analysis of several peptides and solved 23 structures of peptides by solution NMR. In Biozentrum, Basel-Switzerland, he worked with the protein, Abelson tyrosine kinase involved in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia in the group of Prof. Stephan Grzesiek. He tested the interaction of FDA-approved drugs, e.g., Gleevec (Novartis), Tasigna (Novartis), Sprycel (Bristol-Myers Squibb), Iclusig (ARIAD Pharmaceuticals), and Inlyta (Pfizer) that bind at the ATP binding site in a solution using NMR spectroscopy. These studies lead to the identification mechanism of Abl disassembled state upon binding of certain drugs from the assembled state. He characterized activities of several drug resistant mutants (‘gatekeeper,’ completely activated P242E/P249E), assessed their conformations, probed interdomain dynamics by 15N relaxation studies. At EPFL Laussane-Switzerland in the group of Prof. Rolf Gruetter, worked on the determination of lactate concentrations in the mice plasma and analyzed the fragmental labelling, 13C isotope enrichment by NMR. Furthermore, he worked on determining the concentrations of metabolites in mice cortex, hippocampus, and striatum regions using in vivo 9T MRS magnet. Further, European Centre of Pharmaceutical Medicine (ECPM-DAS) course at the University of Basel enhanced my knowledge and understanding of pharmaceutical medicine. With the best training and world-class experience received, I have started my career at NIPER-Hyderabad.
The scientific goal of my research is the application of analytical techniques such as Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), High resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) for the elucidation of structure, and dynamics of peptides with a particular emphasis on understanding conformational diversity of novel conopeptides as a core area. The group is also interested in drug-drug interactions, metabolism of herbal drugs and drug stability studies. We collaborate with several scientists and provide analytical support in NIPER and outside. Further, we actively engage in consultancy projects for the structure elucidation of APIs and higher-order structure determination of biosimilars for pharmaceutical companies.
His area of research interests are Bioanalytical method development and metabolite profiling; Impurity profiling of drugs; Development of luminescence methods; Development of new analytical methods for controlling counterfeit of drugs and abuse of drugs; Analytical methods development and validation for drugs and their intermediates ; Stability studies of drugs and Drug-excipient compatibility studies; Standardization of herbal drugs.
Full Profile
Dr. Amol G. Dikundwar is an analytical scientist with expertise in materials characterization and pharmaceutical analysis. He earned his PhD in Chemical Sciences from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, in 2013, and brings over seven years of industrial experience in materials science engineering and analytical R&D. He has contributed to multidisciplinary drug discovery and development programmes, including process analytical technologies (PAT) and regulatory support for drug substances and drug products.
Since February 2021, Dr. Amol has been at NIPER Hyderabad, where he leads an interdisciplinary research group focused on understanding how molecular structure, solid-state properties, formulation design, and biological interactions collectively influence drug performance, quality, and therapeutic outcomes. His laboratory integrates crystallography, crystal engineering, and advanced solid-state pharmaceutics with modern analytical and bioanalytical approaches to address challenges across the pharmaceutical development continuum.
The group’s research spans:
The overarching goal of the laboratory is to integrate materials science, analytical technology, and systems-level biological investigations to develop innovative pharmaceutical solutions that enhance drug quality, safety, efficacy, and translational impact.
