Dr Arnold Forkuo Donkor is a Lecturer in the Department of Pharmacology, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi Ghana. His research interests focusses on medicinal plants - mainly on the evaluation of novel compounds from these natural products for the treatment of malaria, schistosomiasis, inflammation and the pharmacokinetics of these plant derived bioactive compounds in vivo and in vitro.  Additionally, Dr Forkuo’s research also focusses on monitoring of the adverse effects of these natural products (Pharmacovigilance) and the elucidation of their mechanism(s) of action in these adverse effects.

He holds a Bachelor of Pharmacy (First class honors) and a PhD in Pharmacology all from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi in 2011 and 2016 respectively. He also holds a University Certificate of Advanced Studies from the University of Basel and Novartis Pharma AG, Basel Switzerland as part of the Next Generation Scientist Program in 2014.

In 2018, he undertook the International Zebrafish and Medaka course (FELASA) at Karlshule Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany to equip him with the skills to use Zebrafish and Medaka as a biological, toxicological and biomedical research tool in his research.

Over the past four years, he has been involved in research to

1. investigate allergic airway hypersensitivity of two plant derived bioactive compounds (cryptolepine and stigmasterol)
2. evaluate the antimalarial and antipyretic properties of Murraya exotica
3. investigate the Ghanaian medicinal plants as potential sources of anti-schistosomal agents.
4. formulate standardized herbal antimalarial product using a Co-won KNUST Research fund (KREF).
5. evaluate the safety of natural products and pure compounds of natural origin in rodent and zebrafish models. Furthermore, He is also investigating the pharmacovigilance of formulated herbal medicines on the Ghanaian market.
6. investigate the Pharmacokinetic of cryptolepine, xylopic acid and clinically to investigate Atovaquone/Proguanil (A/P) and artemether/lumefantrine (A/L) combination in a paediatric population.

He has on-going collaborations with colleagues within and outside the college. He has co-won two (2) KNUST Research Fund (KReF) as a results of these collaboration. He is part of the KNUST researchers repurposing Cryptolepis sanguinolenta, a popular antimalarial plant, for COVID 19. He has sixteen (16) peer-reviewed articles, two (2) book chapter and two (2) peer-reviewed abstracts out of his research work. Most of these are published in open-access journals to enhance their visibility and thus promote their increased usage and impact.

His research publications are indexed in several scholarly databases including PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Thomson ISI, Google Scholar, African Journals Online (AJOL), Hinari, Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), etc. Some of his research findings have also been presented at scientific conferences both local and international.

His research work has good visibility and as such well cited by other researchers. He has an h-index and i10-index of 7 and 5 respectively for his efforts documented on his profile page in Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=qIRtHIwAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao) and h-index of 6 on Elsevier’s Scopus. He has a RG score of 16.67 and h-index of 7 on ResearchGate (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Arnold_Donkor).

In all the publications listed below, he made major contribution(s) to the conception/design of the work, the acquisition, analysis, and interpretation of data for the work. Additionally, he drafted or co-drafted the work and/or revised it critically for important intellectual content.

He is co-supervising two (2) PhD candidate and seven (7) MPhil candidates at various stages of their projects.