Dr Fadi Soukarieh

BSc (Hons), PhD, FHEA

School of Allied Health Professions, Nursing and Midwifery

Lecturer in Medicinal Chemistry

f.soukarieh@sheffield.ac.uk

362 Mushroom Lane

Full contact details

Dr Fadi Soukarieh
School of Allied Health Professions, Nursing and Midwifery
362 Mushroom Lane
Sheffield
S10 2TS

Profile

Fadi joined the University of Sheffield in January 2025 as a Lecturer in Medicinal Chemistry to lead the development of Medicinal Chemistry teaching in the Sheffield MPharm Programme.

Fadi obtained his BSc degree in Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences from Damascus University in 2006, and his PhD in Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Design from the University of Nottingham in 2014.

Following this, Fadi has worked as a postdoctoral research fellow on various national and multinational drug discovery projects in cancer and infections.

In 2019, Fadi joined the National Biofilm Innovation Centre NBIC as an Innovation Research Fellow where he expanded his research on the management and detection of bacterial biofilm using Medicinal Chemistry and interdisciplinary approaches.

While at the University of Nottingham, Fadi became a fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) in recognition of his teaching practices for undergraduate and postgraduate students (MSc, PhD) in the School of Pharmacy and School of Life Sciences.

Qualifications

BSc (Hons) Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Damascus University (2006)

PhD in Pharmacy, University of Nottingham (2014)

Research interests

My research vision is primarily focused on the design of novel approaches to tackle bacterial infections and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) using medicinal chemistry solutions and drug discovery tools for the development of new chemotherapy candidates against bacterial pathogens with unprecedented modes of action.

I implement a highly collaborative multidisciplinary research theme integrating not only medicinal chemistry and computational chemistry but also drug delivery, surface chemistry and artificial intelligence to accelerate the discovery of antimicrobial agents against multi-drug resistant pathogens (primarily P. aeruginosa).

Publications

Journal articles

Soukarieh F, Mashabi A, Richardson W, Oton EV, Romero M, Dubern J-F, Robertson SN, Lucanto S, Markham-Lee Z, Sou T , Kukavica-Ibrulj I et al (2024) Design, Synthesis, and Evaluation of New 1H-Benzo[d]imidazole Based PqsR Inhibitors as Adjuvant Therapy for Pseudomonas aeruginosa Infections. Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 67(2), 1008-1023.
Robertson SN, Soukarieh F, White TM, Camara M, Romero M & Griffiths RL (2023) Probing Interkingdom Signaling Molecules via Liquid Extraction Surface Analysis–Mass Spectrometry. Analytical Chemistry, 95(11), 5079-5086.
Soukarieh F, Gurnani P, Romero M, Halliday N, Stocks M, Alexander C & Cámara M (2023) Design of Quorum Sensing Inhibitor–Polymer Conjugates to Penetrate Pseudomonas aeruginosa Biofilms. ACS Macro Letters, 12(3), 314-319.
Soukarieh F, Mashabi A, Richardson W, Oton EV, Romero M, Roberston SN, Grossman S, Sou T, Liu R, Halliday N , Kukavica-Ibrulj I et al (2021) Design and Evaluation of New Quinazolin-4(3H)-one Derived PqsR Antagonists as Quorum Sensing Quenchers in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. ACS Infectious Diseases, 7(9), 2666-2685.
Lee JB, Zang X, Zgair A, Ooi TQ, Foley DW, Voronin G, Kagan L, Soukarieh F, Gao R, Shao H , Soh WT et al (2021) Administration in fed state but not controlled release in the colon increases oral bioavailability of DF030263, a promising drug candidate for chronic lymphocytic leukemia. European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics, 165, 106-112.
Sou T, Soukarieh F, Williams P, Stocks MJ, Cámara M & Bergström CAS (2020) Model-Informed Drug Discovery and Development in Pulmonary Delivery: Biopharmaceutical Pharmacometric Modeling for Formulation Evaluation of Pulmonary Suspensions. ACS Omega, 5(40), 25733-25746.
Grossman S, Soukarieh F, Richardson W, Liu R, Mashabi A, Emsley J, Williams P, Cámara M & Stocks MJ (2020) Novel quinazolinone inhibitors of the Pseudomonas aeruginosa quorum sensing transcriptional regulator PqsR. European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 208, 112778-112778.
Sou T, Kukavica-Ibrulj I, Soukarieh F, Halliday N, Levesque RC, Williams P, Stocks M, Cámara M, Friberg LE & Bergström CAS (2019) Model-Based Drug Development in Pulmonary Delivery: Pharmacokinetic Analysis of Novel Drug Candidates for Treatment of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Lung Infection. Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, 108(1), 630-640.
Lee JB, Zgair A, Malec J, Kim TH, Kim MG, Ali J, Qin C, Feng W, Chiang M, Gao X , Voronin G et al (2018) Lipophilic activated ester prodrug approach for drug delivery to the intestinal lymphatic system. Journal of Controlled Release, 286, 10-19.
Soukarieh F, Williams P, Stocks MJ & Cámara M (2018) Pseudomonas aeruginosa Quorum Sensing Systems as Drug Discovery Targets: Current Position and Future Perspectives. Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 61(23), 10385-10402.
Soukarieh F, Nowicki MW, Bastide A, Pöyry T, Jones C, Dudek K, Patwardhan G, Meullenet F, Oldham NJ, Walkinshaw MD , Willis AE et al (2016) Design of nucleotide-mimetic and non-nucleotide inhibitors of the translation initiation factor eIF4E: Synthesis, structural and functional characterisation. European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 124, 200-217. View this article in WRRO
Kasza K, Soukarieh F, Romero M, Hardie KR, Gurnani P, Cámara M & Alexander C () Triblock copolymer micelles enhance solubility, permeability and activity of a quorum sensing inhibitor against Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms. RSC Applied Polymers, 2(3), 444-455.
Highmore CJ, Melaugh G, Morris RJ, Parker J, Direito SOL, Romero M, Soukarieh F, Robertson SN & Bamford NC () Translational challenges and opportunities in biofilm science: a BRIEF for the future. npj Biofilms and Microbiomes, 8(1).
Soukarieh F, Liu R, Romero M, Roberston SN, Richardson W, Lucanto S, Oton EV, Qudus NR, Mashabi A, Grossman S , Ali S et al () Hit Identification of New Potent PqsR Antagonists as Inhibitors of Quorum Sensing in Planktonic and Biofilm Grown Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Frontiers in Chemistry, 8.
Soukarieh F, Vico Oton E, Dubern J-F, Gomes J, Halliday N, De Pilar Crespo M, Ramírez-Prada J, Insuasty B, Abonia R, Quiroga J , Heeb S et al () In Silico and in Vitro-Guided Identification of Inhibitors of Alkylquinolone-Dependent Quorum Sensing in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Molecules, 23(2), 257-257.

Professional activities and memberships: Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).