​​​Vallark Pharma is founded by Ravi Krishna Vallakati, who has acquired more than 20 years of experience both in academic research and industry. He has professional experience at Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories (Hyderabad, India), MD Anderson Cancer Center (Houston, USA), Albany Molecular Research Inc (Albany, USA) and Sciegen Pharmaceuticals (New York, USA). He obtained his Master of Science degree (MS) from the University of Minnesota and Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD) from the University of Houston in Organic Chemistry. During his MS degree his research focus was on new chiral Hypervalent Iodine reagents. During his PhD, he developed a biomimetic synthesis of all the antimalarial Flindersia alkaloids, delineated a strategy for the enantioselective synthesis of the flinderoles, and explored a synthetic methodology for asymmetric conjugate additions. For the duration of his postdoctoral training at the University of Kansas (Lawrence, USA), he worked on Medicinal Chemistry projects and developed synthetic methodology in Fluorine chemistry. After postdoctoral work at University of Kansas, he moved back to India in 2019 to establish Vallark Pharma Pvt. Ltd.

Dr. Viktor Zhdankin is currently working as a Professor at University of Minnesota, Duluth (USA) and holds the status of an Adjunct Professor at Tomsk Polytechnic University (RUSSIA). Prof. Zhdankin is well known for his discovery of azidoiodinane reagent (Zhdankin reagent), an azide radical source, which is a versatile azidation reagent. The discovery of Zhdankin reagent inspired many to develop other cyclic hypervalent iodine reagents, among them, noteworthy is the Togni reagent, a widely used trifluoromethylating reagent. For the last four decades, Prof. Zhdankin’s research contributions in Green and Sustainable Chemistry, Synthetic Organic Chemistry of Hypervalent Main-Group Elements, Synthesis of Heterocycles and Synthetic Organic Chemistry of Fluorine led him to publish more than 290 publications in leading international journals and 15 patents. He wrote several books, including: Handbook of Heterocyclic Chemistry, 3rd Edition (Elsevier, 2010), Hypervalent Iodine Chemistry: Preparation, Structure and Synthetic Applications of Polyvalent Iodine Compounds (Wiley, 2014), Organic Chemistry: A Two-Semester Course of Essential Organic Chemistry (Cognella, 2018) Prof. Zhdankin has been serving as an industrial consultant for several companies in USA and he is a member of Member of Scientific Advisory Board of World Iodine Association. He won many academic honors and awards over the years. In 2011, he was the recipient of National Award of the American Chemical Society for Creative Research & Applications of Iodine Chemistry. He received Markovnikov Medal for outstanding achievements in organic chemistry in 2019 from Moscow State University, Russia.

Website: https://www.d.umn.edu/~vzhdanki/

Prof. Jeremy May is currently serving as a graduate chair for chemistry department at University of Houston (USA). His research group mainly focus on synthetic organic chemistry, which includes total synthesis of natural products, synthetic methodology development in asymmetric synthesis, carbene/nitrene cascade reactions, new organometallic reactions and reagent development. To name a few of his contributions: a remarkable biomimetic synthesis of all antimalarial Flindersia alkaloids and carbene cascade reactions to synthesize novel and complex structural motifs have been greatly appreciated by scientific community. He was the winner of a prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award in 2014. Prof. May obtained his doctoral degree from California Institute of Technology under the guidance of Prof. Brian Stoltz followed by postdoctoral training with Prof. Samuel J. Danishefsky at Columbia university.

Website: http://may.chem.uh.edu/index.html