Prof Sarker's Profile

Prof Satya Sarker has been the Director of School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) since 2013. He is a Professor of Pharmacy and the Founding Head of the Centre for Natural Products Discovery (CNPD) at LJMU.

He has an outstanding educational background: BPharm (Hons) (1st class 1st), MPharm (1st class 1st) and PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences. He completed his PhD in Phytochemistry from Strathclyde University, Glasgow, UK, under the highly competitive Commonwealth Scholarship.

Prof Sarker served as a Guest Professor at the Wuhan Botanical Garden, awarded by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (2019-2020).

He is currently an Honorary Professor at the School of Pharmacy, University of East Anglia (2020-24) and a Visiting Professor at the School of Medicine, Taylor’s University, Malaysia (2019-21).

Prof Sarker has also been a Visiting Professor at University of Technology Malaysia, Stamford University, University of Dammam, Tripoli University, North-South University.

He is an international advisor to the State University of Bangladesh. He was the President of the Phytochemical Society of Europe (2018-2020).

Prof Sarker has been the Editor-in-Chief of Phytochemical Analysis (John Wiley & Sons) since 2010.

Prior to his current employment, he also held various posts in University of Wolverhampton, University of Ulster, The Robert Gordon University, University of Exeter and University of Dhaka. He has been a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy since 2007.

As the Director of School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciencesat Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), he provides strategic, operational, financial, academic and research leadership, and manage this large multidisciplinary School, one of the oldest providers of Pharmacy education in the UK.

In addition to chairing various committees within the School, he hold memberships of various committees at the Faculty and the University levels, e.g., Faculty Management Team, Faculty Research, Knowledge Transfer and Enterprise Committee, Faculty Professors/Readers Applications Review Panel, Life Science Building Users’ Group, University Strategy Development Forum (SDF), University Education Committee, University International Policy Committee, Equality and Diversity Steering Group, Professorial Pay Review Committee, STEM-funded Refurbishment Steering Group and South-Asian Recruitment Sub-Committee.

Prof Sarker manages the School budget, over 1500 students and around 130 members of academic and non-academic staff. He is a member of the Pharmacy Schools Council (PhSC) and he was the elected President of the Phytochemical Society of Europe (2018-2020).

Prof Sarker also has extensive experience in MPharm accreditation and reaccreditation processes (with RPSGB and GPhC) at various stages at RGU, Ulster, UoW, and currently at LJMU.

He was one of the founding members of the research-based company, MolecularNature Ltd (currently known as Phytoquest Ltd).

Prof Sarker served as an elected member of the Academic Council, the highest executive body of RGU.

His research focuses on anticancer, anti-inflammatory, antimalarial, antimicrobial, anti-obesity, chemopreventive and wound-healing properties of phytochemicals.

His new research interest is in computational phytochemistry. He is the author of well over 625 publications, and one of the most cited authors with over 18,000 citations by the Goggle Scholar, an h-index of 59 and i10-index of 392. ResearchGate score: 62.12 and over 4,500 LinkedIn Followers.

In addition to numerous plenary/invited talks at various international conferences in the areas of bioactive natural products, phytochemistry, ethnopharmacology and evidence-based phytotherapy., Prof Sarker has presented invited talks at various universities and research organisations from all over the world, which include, Bangladesh Centre for Science and Industrial Research (BCSIR), De Montfort University, East-West University, Gregory T Popa University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Jinan University, Palaćky University, Prime Asia University, Stamford University, The Robert Gordon University, The State University of Bangladesh, Tripoli University, Yunnan Agricultural University, University of Botswana, University of Dammam, University of Dhaka, University of Hong Kong, University of Keele, University of Khulna, University of Macau, University of Manchester, University of Nottingham, University of Pharmaceutical and Veterinary Sciences Brno, University of Putra Malaysia, University Technology Malaysia, University of Vienna, University of Worcester, Wuhan Botanical Garden – Chinese Academy of Sciences, and many more. His scientific profile has been in every edition of the Marquis Who’s Who in the World since 2010.

Prof Sarker co-authored the popular textbook, 'Chemistry for Pharmacy Students' published by John Wiley & Sons in 2007, which was subsequently translated in Indonesian (2009), Portuguese (2009), Japanese (2012) and Greek (2015) languages. The second edition of 'Chemistry for Pharmacy Students' was published by John Wiley & Sons in 2019.

He co-edited both the 2nd and the 3rd editions of "Natural Products Isolation" published in 2005 and 2012, respectively by Humana Press/Springer-Verlag, USA.

Prof Sarker is the co-author of the books, 'Steroid Dimers: Chemistry and Applications in Drug Design and Deliver' published by John Wiley & Sons in 2012, 'Computational Phytochemistry' published by Elsevier in 2018 and Medicinal Natural Products: A Disease Focused Approach" published by Elsevier in 2020. Currently, he has been busy co-editing two new books which will be published in 2021.

Prof Sarker contributed a total of 47 book chapters in the books, ‘Magnolia: The Genus Magnolia’, ‘Natural Products Isolation’, ‘The Genus Phyllanthus’, ‘The Genus Curcuma’, ‘Honey in Traditional and Modern Medicine’, 'Evidence-Based Validation of Herbal Medicine-Farm to Pharma' and 'Eugenol Containing Essential Oils of Cloves, Allspice, Cinnamon/Cassia and Bay Leaf', Progress in the Chemistry of Organic Natural Products' and 'Computational Phytochemistry'. He also co-authored a total of 56 reviews to date.

He was the Guest Editor for the special issue of Frontiers in Pharmacology on 'Natural Antimicrobial Peptides: Hope for New Antibiotic Lead Molecules' (2021), the special issue of Alternative Medicine on ‘Pain Management and Wound Care with Traditional Medicine’ (2017), the special issue of Medicines on ‘Essential Oils: Chemistry and Bioactivity’ (2016), the special issue of Evidence Based Complementary and the special issue of Advances in Pharmacological Sciences on ‘Anti-inflammatory, antinociceptive and antipyretic activities of medicinal plants and their constituents’ (2012) and the special issue of 'Natural Product Communications' in honour of Professor Peter G Waterman (2008).

Prof Sarker is in the Editorial Board of more than 35 international journals including Biochemical Systematics and Ecology, Current Medicinal Chemistry, Molecules, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Current Trends in Medicinal Chemistry, DARU, Pharmacognosy Magazine, Pharmacognosy Research and Scientific Reports (publish by the prestigious Nature PublishinGroup) and a reviewer for over 90 journals.

He also served in the editorial board of the journals, Phytochemical Analysis (2006-2009) and Natural Product Communications (2007-2010). Prof Sarker is the owner and moderator of the well-established on-line discussion groups in Natural Products Research, NatProDis (http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/natprodis.html), and in Pharmacy education, PharmEd (http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/ pharmed.html).