The team

The people behind the platforms.

Founders, directors and the computational chemists, bioinformaticians and engineers of a Bengaluru team spanning drug design, machine learning and platform engineering.

Fifteen people: three founders and directors, and a Bengaluru team of twelve. View our current openings.

Leadership The team Careers

Leadership

Founders and directors.

Research careers built across India, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Saudi Arabia and South Korea, spanning computational drug discovery, pharmaceutical analysis and materials chemistry.

Dr. Md Ataul Islam

Co-Founder, Director and Head of Science

Ph.D., University of Calcutta

Executive Director

Computational chemist with more than 18 years in drug discovery across India, South Africa and the United Kingdom.

Dr. Islam leads SilicoScientia’s scientific strategy and its computational team, delivering client programmes in oncology, infectious disease and CNS. His expertise spans generative design, machine learning, docking, free-energy perturbation and molecular dynamics.

A former Royal Society Newton International Fellow at the University of Manchester, he has held research and faculty positions at the University of Pretoria and Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Calcutta, has published 71 peer-reviewed papers across his career (h-index 20) and received the Young Scientist Award of the Indian Chemical Society.

Experience and education

The Royal SocietyNewton Fellow
University of ManchesterNewton Fellow
University of PretoriaPostdoctoral Fellow
NRF South AfricaPostdoctoral funding
Bharati Vidyapeeth UniversityAssistant Professor
University of CalcuttaPh.D.
Aligarh Muslim UniversityB.Sc. Chemistry

Dr. Sonali Thorat

Co-Founder and Director

Ph.D. Pharmaceutical Sciences, RTM Nagpur University

Executive Director

Pharmaceutical scientist specialising in bioanalysis, analytical method development and therapeutic drug monitoring.

Dr. Thorat brings laboratory, regulatory and translational expertise to SilicoScientia’s discovery and development work. Her research covers stability-indicating HPLC and HPTLC methods, pharmacokinetic assays and collaborative computational studies.

She holds a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from RTM Nagpur University and has served as a visiting scientist at the UCL School of Pharmacy. She is currently with the School of Life Sciences, University of Bedfordshire, and is a lifetime member of the Pharmacy Council of India.

Experience and education

University of BedfordshireSchool of Life Sciences
University College LondonVisiting Scientist
RTM Nagpur UniversityPh.D., M.Pharm., B.Pharm.

Dr. Saikh Mohammad Wabaidur

Director and Scientific Advisor

Ph.D. Chemistry, Banasthali University

Advisory Director

Analytical and materials chemist at King Saud University, Riyadh, with the Advanced Materials Research Chair since 2009.

Ranked among the World’s Top 2% Scientists by Stanford University and Elsevier20222023202420252026

Dr. Wabaidur advises SilicoScientia on analytical science, materials characterisation and collaborative research. His work spans UPLC–MS/MS and GC–MS of pharmaceuticals and natural products, electrochemical sensing and energy-storage materials.

He holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Banasthali University and trained at Kyungpook National University, Republic of Korea. He has been named among the world’s top 2% most-cited scientists by Stanford University and Elsevier in five consecutive years, is a co-inventor on an Australian patent, has led projects funded by KACST and SASO, and has an extensive international publication record.

Experience and education