Assistant Professor

Dirgha Raj Joshi, B.Pharm, M.Pharm, PhD, Postdoc, is an Assistant Professor at the Karnali Academy of Health Sciences (KAHS), Nepal, and a medicinal chemist with expertise in pharmaceutical sciences and drug discovery. He completed his Postdoctoral research in antiviral drug discovery against coronaviruses from NIH USA, contributing to structure-based drug design. His PhD research focused on development of new synthetic methodologies to construct diversely substituted Indolizines and their biological evaluation. Dr. Joshi has been awarded two Korean patents and one United States patent, reflecting his contributions to novel pharmaceutical inventions and applied medicinal chemistry. His research interests include medicinal chemistry, antiviral drug discovery, pharmaceutical analysis, natural products chemistry, and phytopharmaceutical development, with a strong focus on bioactive compounds from medicinal plants. He is actively engaged in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, curriculum development, and research supervision, contributing to strengthening pharmaceutical research capacity at KAHS. He is also the author of the book “Knowledge of Medicine for Healthy Life”, aimed at promoting scientific understanding of medicines and rational drug use. His ongoing work focuses on phytochemical isolation, drug discovery from natural sources, and development of standardized phytopharmaceutical APIs from Nepal’s medicinal flora, supporting the integration of traditional knowledge with modern pharmaceutical science.