Panayides holds a PhD in the fields of synthetic organic chemistry and microbiology from the University of the Witwatersrand. She joined the CSIR in 2012 and has acted as principal investigator for projects investigating synthetic libraries for activity against various strains of Plasmodium falciparum in order to identify novel chemical entities that are active against multiple strains of drug-resistant malaria; and investigating the preparation of microsphere-supported catalysts and their application to both batch and flow syntheses for use in local active pharmaceutical ingredient manufacturing.

She is currently part of a local consortium that is focused on the structure-aided discovery of novel treatments for Alzheimer’s disease. She has assisted on international projects focused on using intra-erythrocytic stage gametocyte assays for the screening of a library of 250 000 compounds for inhibitory activity against Plasmodium falciparum, the development of a single-dose cure for the treatment of malaria and investigating inhibitors as targeted therapeutic agents for breast cancer.

Expertise: Synthetic organic chemistry; Microbiology