Sharan VedBrat

Dr. Sharan VedBrat, formally trained as a cell biologist, has over 30 years of combined administrative and broad basic and applied biotech research expertise. She has undertaken business development, bio-technical and management operations of research activities, clinical laboratory and product development operations of federally as well as privately funded projects in the form of grants or contracts. Dr. VedBrat technical expertise includes basic research in cell biology, carcinogenesis, retro-virology, immunology, microbiology and molecular biology. She has supervised multi-disciplinary staff, managed large-scale, multi-year national and international projects on cancer and AIDS research making significant contributions to these areas of biology. In past years, she has been successful in securing and translating two separate SBIR grants into dedicated services offered by KTI to the greater life sciences community. She has always stayed at the cutting edge of technology and successfully procured and managed large corporate accounts.

Currently she has embarked upon antibiotic drug development program through repurposing of generic antibiotics. The first one is ‘EK101’ project that repurposes an old generic anti-leprosy, anti TB antibiotic Clofazimine (CFM) to tackle the national health emergency threat of Clostridium difficile infections (CDI) and associated potentially fatal disease (CDAD). In the process, she has KamTek participate in antibiotic surveillance program by repurposing antibiotic with almost non-existent record of inducing resistance to tackle indication which is primarily a result of resistance to many antibiotics. She has continued to make significant progress in this enterprise through getting KamTek IP rights and as one of the co-inventors on the patent, the use of SBIR program and NIH program, as well as, through private funding. Taking advantage of the I-Corps program, she has established consulting expertise in each and every area of drug development ecosystem reflected in team of associates of KTI. She is intimately involved in planning strategies to commercialize CFM for CDAD and coordinates team activities and manages different functions of KTI in most judicious manner possible staying focused on the final goal and constantly moving the projects forward.