Bahaa Elgendy, PhD

Bahaa Elgendy, PhD

Associate Professor

Bahaa Elgendy, PhD, holds a primary appointment as an Associate Professor of Medicinal Chemistry in the Department of Pharmaceutical and Administrative Sciences at the University of Health Sciences & Pharmacy (UHSP) and a secondary appointment in the Department of Anesthesiology at Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM). Bahaa received his BSc and MSc in Organic Chemistry from Benha University, Egypt. He received his PhD in Chemistry under Prof. Alan R. Katritzky from the University of Florida, Gainesville, FL.  After that he joined the Scripps Research Institute as a Research Associate. Prior to joining UHSP, Dr. Elgendy was an Assistant Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at Saint Louis University School of Medicine, and an Associate Professor of Bio-Organic Chemistry, Benha University, Egypt.

The main focus of Dr. Elgendy’s research group is drug design and organic synthesis. He designs and synthesize novel small organic molecules as modulators of nuclear hormone receptors for the therapeutic treatment of cancer, fatty liver diseases, Alzheimer’s Disease, and pain. Also, he synthesizes complex and diverse molecules to combat multi-drug resistant bacteria and anti-viral agents against HCV and ZIKV and other microbes. Dr. Elgendy incorporates computational methods such as quantitative structure activity relationships, pharmacophore modeling, and virtual screening in his drug discovery pipeline to accelerate the process of drug discovery and optimization. Ongoing work in Elgendy lab is funded by grants from NIH, DoD, and industry.

Dr. Elgendy is the recipient of several awards including: Certificate of Outstanding Achievement from University of Florida (2008 and 2010), Proctor & Gamble Award for Excellence in Graduate Research, University of Florida (2010), Benha University Prize for Scientific Excellence (2015 and 2016), The Best Scientific Publication Award from Benha University (2015), The Egyptian State Prize in Chemical Sciences, the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology of Egypt, 2016, and Presidential Medal of Excellence (First Class) for outstanding contribution from the President of Egypt, 2017. Dr. El-Gendy is the former Co-Chair of the Egyptian Young Academy of Sciences (EYAS) (2015-2017), Young Affiliate of the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) (2015-2019), member of the Global Young Academy (GYA) (2017-2022), and affiliate of the African Academy of Sciences (2018-2022).

Elgendy Lab

The Elgendy Lab specializes in drug discovery and medicinal chemistry, engaging in a comprehensive range of activities associated with various aspects of drug development. Their primary objective is to advance the field of medicinal chemistry by designing and synthesizing novel therapeutic agents.

The Elgendy lab has predominantly focused on (a) the design and synthesis of modulators of nuclear hormone receptors (e.g., REV-ERB, ERR, LXR, FXR, and TLX) to validate these targets for the treatment of challenging diseases such as muscle injuries, Alzheimer’s disease, atherosclerosis, cancer, Fatty liver diseases, and pain.

The recent drug discovery efforts by Elgendy lab have been concentrated on three primary areas. Firstly, they are developing Central Nervous System (CNS)-active 5-HT3 receptor antagonists to treat neuropathic pain. Secondly, they are designing and developing new inhibitors of the mitochondrial protein complex to treat type 2 diabetes and Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver (NAFL). Lastly, they are working on discovering inhibitors of Cholesterol 25-hydroxylase (CH25H) to treat Alzheimer’s disease.