Professor in Chemical Biology
Ganesan obtained a BSc (Hons) in Chemistry at the National University of Singapore (1986). He completed his PhD in synthetic methodology and total synthesis under the supervision of Clayton Heathcock at the Department of Chemistry, University of California-Berkeley (1992) and was subsequently a postdoctoral fellow with Gregory Verdine at the Department of Chemistry at Harvard University. In 1993, he joined the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Singapore as a Senior Research Chemist at the Centre for Natural Product Research and in 1996 became Principal Investigator of the Institute’s Medicinal and Combinatorial Chemistry group. In 1999 he joined the University of Southampton as a Reader in the Combinatorial Chemistry Centre for Excellence. In 2011 he became the Chair of Chemical Biology at UEA’s School of Pharmacy. He is Director of Postgraduate Research and Head of the Healthy Ageing research theme within the School.
Ganesan is co-founder of the biotech company Karus Therapeutics and Chair of the EU COST Action CM1406, ‘Epigenetic Chemical Biology’. He sits on the IUPAC Subcommittee for Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Development and the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Sector committee.
Ganesan’s research centres around chemical biology, medicinal chemistry and organic synthesis with an emphasis on biologically active natural products and epigenetics.