PROFILE OF PROFESSOR CYNTHIA AMANING DANQUAH

BPharm, MPhil (Kumasi), PhD (London), MPSGH, MRSC

Professor Cynthia Amaning Danquah, is an Associate Professor in Pharmacology and current head of the Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Health Sciences, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana. She obtained her PhD in Natural Product Drug Discovery from the School of Pharmacy, University College London, United Kingdom. Her MPhil. Pharmacology and B. Pharm degrees were obtained from KNUST, and she holds a certificate in Pharmacovigilance from the University of Groningen, Netherlands. She is a registered Pharmacist, a member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana and a Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Professor Cynthia Amaning Danquah was employed as a lecturer in the department of Pharmacology in November 2009, promoted to the rank of Senior lecturer in August 2014 and subsequently to Associate Professor in August 2021. She has since her appointment as a senior member rendered diverse service to the University, Ghana and the International Community. She has served as an external examiner for local and international universities, as a reviewer of grant applications and journals for both local and international institutions and member of editorial board of journals. She has worked as a visiting scholar/research associate to Birkbeck, University of London, University of Nottingham, Kings College London, and the University of Oxford all in the UK; as well as a Pharmacist Preceptor for the Ohio Northern University, Ohio and Roseman University of Health Sciences, Nevada, USA.

She was awarded the Africa Oxford Research Development Award (£50,000) in 2020 to collaborate with the University of Oxford, UK on natural product drug discovery to tackle antibiotic resistance and develop new antibacterial agents to fight resistance in tuberculosis (TB). She is also a recipient of the KNUST Research Fund (KREF) Interdisciplinary award and KREF Seed grant, 2019. She is an Affiliate of the African Academy of Sciences (AAS); Country Ambassador for the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) and member of the British Pharmacological Society (BPS). To mark International Women’s Day in 2022, she was awarded the Ghana Women Excellence Award in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the Social and Economic Development of Ghana in the category of Tertiary Education and Scientific Research under the auspices of the Ministry of Gender Children and Social Protection of Ghana. In 2023, she won the maiden KNUST Vice Chancellor's Award for Creativity and Innovation.

Her research area of interests include Natural Product Pharmacology and Toxicology, Natural Product Drug Discovery to tackle Antimicrobial Resistance particularly in Tuberculosis and AMR Stewardship. She has conducted extensive research with peer-reviewed publications, graduated postgraduate students, and participated in several international conferences and workshops across the globe including London, Glasgow, Birmingham, in the UK; Washington DC, San Diego California and Ohio Northern in USA; Copenhagen, Denmark; Chatenay-Malabry, France; Düsseldorf, Germany; Geneva, Switzerland in Europe; Cameroon, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Nigeria and Cote d’ivoire in Africa. She is particularly interested in mentoring young girls to take up courses and careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).