Dr Protus Arrey Tarkang is a Senior Research Officer at the Institute of Medical Research and Medicinal Plants Studies (IMPM), Cameroon and an African Academy of Sciences (AAS) African Research Initiative for Scientific Excellence (ARISE) Fellow, implementing a project on “Combining metabolomics profiling of polyherbals and Plasmodium falciparum asexual blood stage-specificity to improve mechanistic knowledge on malaria therapeutic lead discovery”.  This multidiscplinary project is aimed at the discovery of new anti-infective agents that target human malaria parasites by using high resolution mass spectrometry of life sciences and high and medium throughput screening techniques.

He obtained his Ph.D. in Pharmacognosy and Complementary Medicine from the University of Nairobi, Kenya in 2014 and his doctoral work focused on the evaluation of the antimalarial and safety profile of a polyherbal product (Nefang). Prior, he undertook a University of Oxford AfOx garnt and a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF)-funded Postdoctoral Fellowship in infectious diseases, during which he evaluated the in vitro antiplasmodial activities and characterized the interactions between constituent plant extracts of some polyherbals. He also holds a MSc abd BSc (Hons) in Biochemistry from the University of Lagos, Nigeria.

Dr Tarkang’s enduring focus is to continuously discover novel natural products and their derived biomolecules and to expand fundamental knowledge about their biological properties, in view of improving their medicinal use. A core research interest is in malaria phytotherapy and centred on the development and application of innovative technologies and screening methods, leading to the discovery of new therapeutic leads.