Pradeep Kumar

Pradeep Kumar is a Personal Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Wits’ Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology.

He has an experience of 14+ years in academic teaching and research in molecular pharmaceutics and bioengineering, with regenerative medicine for neurotrauma as the research focus. In addition, he performs in silico mathematical analysis and programming for performance interpretation of drug-eluting assemblies and polymer architectures.

Prof. Kumar, an active member of the Global Young Academy (GYA) and the South African Young Academy of Science (SAYAS) proudly represents South Africa on the ORCID Researcher Advisory Council; OECD Global Science Forum’s Expert Group on the Research Precariat Project; Expert Group Member for the IAP Statement on Regenerative Medicine; Young Physician Leaders Program; and Faculty for Business Case Laboratory at the Life Science Entrepreneurship Academy (LISEAD), ESMT Berlin.

In South Africa, he is a Steering Committee member of the ASSAf Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies (SAGE) and leads the Research Portfolio in the Gauteng Department of Health’s Spinal Cord Injury Work Group.

Prof. Kumar is a recipient of several prestigious awards including the VC's Innovation Award in 2021, Wits Health Consortium’s Great Leap Forward Entrepreneurial Academic Award (2021), ALBA-FKNE-YIBRO diversity grant (2020), INGSA-Africa Science Advice diploma (2020), Wits’ Friedel Sellschop Research Award (2019), ASRT Young African Researcher Award 2018 (Health and Pharmaceutical Sciences), Mail & Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans 2018 (Science and Technology), Claude Leon Foundation Merit Award (2018), and African-German Network of Excellence in Science Junior Researcher Grant (2018) funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

He has published over 300 papers in over 100 journals, reviewed over 800 manuscripts from 110 journals, and supervised 15 Ph.D. students to completion.