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OUR JOURNEY

Welcome to University of Buea Center for Drug Discovery (UB-CeDD). Our journey began in 2012 as the Chemical Bioactivity Information Centre, hosted in the Department of Chemistry, University of Buea (Cameroon). This was generously funded with a seed grant donated by Lhasa Ltd (Leeds, UK). The goal was to set up a Center in Sub-Saharan Africa capable of providing expert advice on the use on chemicals by developing and deploying a knowledge base for the prediction of chemical toxicity as well as collection of knowledge on the traditional uses of African medicinal plants and their chemical constituents. Our small team back then was composed of trained data curation scientists who eventually constituted the nucleus that built the African Natural Products Database (ANPDB). Under the leadership of Dr. Fidele Ntie-Kang (the Center Leader), the team got involved in several molecular modeling for lead compound identification efforts and built the Center on capacity that was developed over a decade of continuous working with close and reliable collaborators. The UB-CeDD is built with seed funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation through a Calestous Juma Science Leadership Fellowship (worth 1 Million USD) donated to the Center Leader/Principal Investigator. 

The Principal Investigator

Fidele Ntie-Kang, PhD (Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences)

Fidele Ntie-Kang is currently heading the University of Buea Center for Drug Discovery (UB-CeDD), an initiative set up with seed funding from a Calestous Juma Science Leadership Fellowship funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He studied Chemistry at the University of Douala in Cameroon between 1999 and 2004, leading to BSc and MSc degrees. His Ph.D. work at the Centre for Atomic Molecular Physics and Quantum Optics (CEPAMOQ) was based on the computer-aided design of anti-tubercular agents. This was followed by a "Habilitation" in Pharmaceutical Chemistry obtained from Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (Germany), under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Sippl. He is experienced in molecular modeling and has been involved in the design and management of databases of natural products from African flora for virtual screening. He currently teaches physical chemistry, computational chemistry and medicinal chemistry at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels in the University of Buea, Cameroon and summer schools, since 2008. He has been an adjunct professor and guest professor in other universities in Africa and Europe. Fidele has been awarded several fellowships and distinctions, including a doctoral fellowship from the German Academic Exchange Services (DAAD), Our Common Future Fellowship by the VolksWagen Foundation (Germany), UNIDO Fellowship in ICS-UNIDO Trieste (Italy), Commonwealth Professional Fellowship in Leeds (UK), Georg Forster Postdoctoral Fellowship by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany), and ChemJets fellowship from the Czech Ministry of Youth, Sports and Education (Czech Republic). He is a member of several scientific organizations, including the African-German Network for Excellence in Science (AGNES), the African Scientific Institute (ASI), the German Chemical Society, the African Network for Drug Diagnostics and Innovation (ANDI) and the Cameroon Academy of Young Scientists (CAYS). Fidele has published above 100 journal articles and book chapters. He is a conference speaker, a reviewer and editorial board member of several journals. He is the Editor of "Chemoinformatics of Natural Products" a book series published by the DeGruyter (Germany).