Festus B.C. Okoye is a Professor of Natural Product Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Discovery and the leader of the Natural Product Drug Discovery Group, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. His research work is focused on the development of ‘lead’ bioactive compounds from medicinal plants and endophytic fungi into novel anti-infective, immune-inflammatory and anticancer drugs. His lab also incorporates biotechnology approach for the modulation of endophytic fungi for improved production of novel bioactive molecules. He developed a herbal pharmaceutical currently marketed for immune boosting and is developing a unique herbal formulation against SARS Cov-2 virus. He has 95 articles in Scopus, over 174 in Google Scholar (citations, 3458; H-index, 32) and two national patents. He has received several grants including ICH-UNIDO grant, TETFund Covid-19 special grant (co-investigator), Two TETFund NRF 2021 grants (co-investigator), NAIP-Anambra State Herbal product development grant. He is also a recipient of several awards and research fellowships including STEP-B Innovators of Tomorrows Award; ARC-ESM Scholarship for Masters in SCM; African Union-TWAS National Young Scientist Award in Life and Earth Science (2014); Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellowship; Alexander von Humboldt Senior Research Fellowship. He has supervised 27 masters and 19 PhD students and mentored many to secure travel and postdoctoral fellowship grants. He was a member 7th Governing Council, Pharmacists Council of Nigeria. Currently member College of Expert Reviewers for African Research Excellence Fund, member Royal Society of Chemistry, member National Mirror Committee on Standardization of African Medicinal Plants, Fellow Nigerian Young academy. He won the maiden edition of the Pharmanews Best Pharmacist Dean in Nigeria, 2022. He has been member of several University Senate Committees and chaired many. Currently, he is the Dean, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University on the Niger, Umunya, Anambra State. He is married and blessed with 4 children.
