Sabesan Yoganathan

Sabesan Yoganathan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at St. John's University, part of the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. He joined the faculty in 2014 after completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Yale University under Professor Scott Miller. His research focuses on developing chemical and biological approaches to discover novel medicinal natural products and their analogs, targeting infectious diseases and cancer. Dr. Yoganathan holds a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Alberta and a BS in Chemistry (Biological Specialization) from McMaster University.

His educational background includes undergraduate training at McMaster University as an NSERC research fellow, followed by doctoral research under Professor John Vederas at the University of Alberta. His postdoctoral work at Yale advanced peptide-based catalysis for site-selective modification of natural products like daptomycin and vancomycin, enabling the creation of drug analogs.

Research Interests: The Yoganathan lab integrates chemistry and biology to design new drug candidates, including studies on multidrug resistance mechanisms, peptide-based catalysis, and natural product synthesis. Key areas include benzimidazole derivatives for cancer therapy, nanoparticle-based antimicrobials, and overcoming ABC transporter-mediated resistance in cancer cells.

Teaching Contributions: He teaches advanced medicinal chemistry courses (e.g., PHS 3508, PHR 5106) to Pharm.D. students and mentors graduate/undergraduate researchers. His team explores topics like synthetic methodologies for drug analogs and drug delivery systems.

Labs & Teams: The interdisciplinary Yoganathan Lab emphasizes translational research, with recent successes in preclinical drug development, nanomedicine, and drug repurposing strategies. The lab collaborates on projects such as novel BMP receptor agonists and inflammation-modulating agents for preterm birth prevention.