Kogularamanan "Rama" Suntharalingam has been selected by the Royal Society of Chemistry to receive the 2014 Dalton Young Researchers Award in Chemistry for his contributions to the design and development of new metallo-pharmaceuticals and to the understanding of their complex mechanisms of action.
Suntharalingam, who was born in 1986, is of Tamil origin and grew up in the U.K. He attended Imperial College London for his undergraduate studies, receiving a first-class MSci degree in chemistry in 2008. He continued his studies at Imperial College London and received a PhD in chemistry in 2012.
Under the mentorship of his PhD advisor, Ramon Vilar, Suntharalingam explored the interaction of metal complexes with quadruplex DNA. During that time, Suntharalingam published several high-impact papers in top-flight journals, and presented his findings at national and international conferences, including the "Dalton Transactions Younger Researchers Symposium" in 2011. Suntharalingam has also co-authored three book chapters, one as a single author.
Suntharalingam is currently a postdoc in Professor Stephen J. Lippard's research group in the Department of Chemistry. His current research combines facets of inorganic chemistry, nanotechnology, and molecular biology. Lippard refers to Suntharalingam as "a wonderfully creative addition to the laboratory."
There is a lectureship associated with the award; Suntharalingam will deliver lectures at up to four universities in the U.K. between this September and next May.
