Dr. Samuel Baker Obakiro (Ph.D)
Dr. Samuel Baker Obakiro is a Pharmacologist / Medicinal chemist with BSc. Chemistry and Botany in 2010, MSc. Pharmacology in 2015 both from Makerere University Uganda and a Ph.D. (Analytical Chemistry) in 2022 from Moi University Kenya. He is currently a Lecturer and Ag. Chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics Faculty of Health Sciences, Busitema University. His areas of research interest are drug discovery and development from medicinal plants towards tuberculosis, Diabetes Mellitus and cancer, herbal medicine use and standardization, antimicrobial resistance, and toxicology. Samuel is the Principal Investigator of the Presidential Scientific Initiative on Epidemics (PRESIDE) funded project at Busitema University that is “Formulating and Evaluating Herbal Products for Management of Acute Respiratory Illnesses including COVID-19”. In 2018, he was the Principal Investigator of the VLIRUOS (Belgium) funded project that was aimed at “Tracking and Mapping Antimicrobial Resistance in Eastern Uganda ''. He is the founder and current Chair of Busitema University Natural Products and Drug Research Group (BUNaPReG) based at the Faculty of Health Sciences Busitema University that is championing the establishment of the “Natural Products Research and Innovation Centre (NAPRIC)”. Samuel has received a number of awards and scholarships from the International Foundation of Science (IFS), TWAS-ICCBS, ACEIIPTRE, RISE-AFNNET, MEPI-MESAU, and the Ugandan Government. He is a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Natural Products Research for Eastern and Central Africa (NAPRECA) and Uganda Pharmacological society (UPharS), Natural Product Industry Advancement Network Africa (NAPIANA). His career objective and goal is to build technical capacity and competence in pharmacology and toxicology research, training and mentoring of biomedical scientists, and leadership skills so as to contribute towards improved health care and community transformation. Samuel has researched and published 15 articles in several peer-reviewed journals and his work can be accessed on ORCID, google scholar, and research gate.
