Nirthanan, Niru - Griffith University

个人简介

Dr. S. Niru Nirthanan graduated MBBS with a Gold Medal in Medicine in 1994 from the North Colombo Medical College, Sri Lanka. His PhD at the National University of Singapore, which detailed the structure and pharmacology of a novel family of snake toxins that are uniquely reversible in their action at nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, was awarded the Gold Medal for the Most Outstanding Doctoral Research in 2002. Dr. Nirthanan received the Joseph Brooks Fellowship in Neurobiology from the Harvard Medical School, Boston, to conduct postdoctoral research from 2002 to 2005, where he identified and characterized the binding pocket of positive allosteric effectors in the nicotinic receptor, a discovery with significant potential for development of novel drugs for Alzheimer’s disease. He joined the National Neuroscience Institute of Singapore as Principal Investigator in 2006 and established a Neuropharmacology Drug Discovery Laboratory from inception, with over $ 1,000,000 in nationally competitive and institutional grant funding. He relocated to Griffith University as faculty in 2008, where his current research in the Molecular Basis of Disease Program of the Griffith Health Institute, underpinned by strong international collaborations, focuses on the role of nicotinic receptors in health and disease and discovery of therapeutic leads from animal venoms. Dr. Nirthanan is deeply passionate about teaching and continues to engage in research in medical education, focusing on the use of technology in learning and teaching, and factors impacting on resilience among medical students. His contributions to learning and teaching at Griffith University have been recognized a Health Faculty Citation for Excellence in Teaching in 2010, Griffith Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2010 and an Office for Learning and Teaching (Australian Government) Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning in 2011.

研究领域

Therapeutic lead discovery from animal venoms and other natural compounds Pharmacology of ion channel neurotoxins Neurobiology of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors Mapping drug binding sites within the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor Role of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in Alzheimer’s disease

近期论文

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Dissabandara, L., Nirthanan, N., Khoo, T. K., & Tedman, R. (2015). Role of cadaveric dissections in modern medical curricula: a study on student perceptions. Anatomy and Cell Biology, 48(3), 205–212. Karaksha, A., Grant, G., Anoopkumar-Dukie, S., Nirthanan, N., & Davey, A. (2013). Student Engagement in Pharmacology Courses Using Online Learning Tools. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 77(6), 125–1–125–10. Roy, A., Zhou, X., Chong, M. Z., D’hoedt, D., Foo, C. S., Rajagopalan, N., … Kini, R. M. (2010). Structural and Functional Characterization of a Novel Homodimeric Three-finger Neurotoxin from the Venom of Ophiophagus hannah (King Cobra). Journal of Biological Chemistry, 285(11), 8302–8315. Pawlak, J., Mackessy, S. P., Sixberry, N. M., Stura, E. A., Du, M. H. L., Menez, R., … Kini, R. M. (2009). Irditoxin, a novel covalently linked heterodimeric three-finger toxin with high taxon-specific neurotoxicity. The FASEB Journal, 23(2), 534–545. Karaksha, A., Grant, G., Nirthanan, N., Davey, A., & Anoopkumar-Dukie, S. (2014). A Comparative Study to Evaluate the Educational Impact of E-Learning Tools on Griffith University Pharmacy Students’ Level of Understanding Using Bloom’s and SOLO Taxonomies. Education Research International, 2014, 934854–1–934854–11.