Hedmon Okella is a Doctoral student at Mbarara University of Science and Technology with more than three years of teaching and research at higher institutions of learning. He is fascinated by the versatility of peptide antibiotics in this era of antimicrobial drug resistance and as such, his PhD research bio-prospects novel antimicrobial peptides from three major lakes of Uganda for a zoo-therapeutic antimicrobial drug candidate. He holds a Master’s degree in Biotechnology (Pharmaceutical) and a Postgraduate Certificate in Bioinformatics from India where he investigated the combination therapy of Couroupita guianensis extracts and standard antibiotics against selected antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Hedmon received a number of training some of which include Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Computer-Aided Drug Discovery (CAAD) and Peptidomics at National Facility for Drug Discovery (NFDD), India. His ambitions and determinations have earned some grants and academic awards like Christ College International Symposium (Biotechnology) awards, SU Academic Rank awards, World Bank Small Research grants, Indo-Africa fellowships among others.