Founder, Alpha Knight · Computational chemist
Ashwath Kumar
Ashwath leads drug discovery programmes as a computational chemist in Japan. His work sits where simulation meets software: automating pipelines, optimising the tools scientists rely on, and pairing biomolecular dynamics with machine-learning clustering to find the protein conformations that matter.
- Drug discovery
- Structure-based design
- Molecular dynamics
- Machine learning
- Pipeline automation
- Software optimisation
Why conformations.
Finding the conformations of a protein is one of drug discovery's most tedious problems. A protein isn't one shape; it's an ensemble, and the shape a drug binds may be a rare one. Solve that well and many other problems get easier.
The path.
PSG Tech
Where the science started.
IIT Hyderabad
Graduate study, and the turn towards computation.
Japan
Straight from his master's into a core industry role as a computational chemist, now leading drug discovery programmes.
Alpha Knight
A venture studio to build companies with founders, the way he wished someone had built with him.
Alpha Knight Academy
The studio's first venture: a research institute that makes his path learnable for others. First batch in January.
Research, alongside.
Outside his industry role, he works as an independent researcher with collaborators at Kyoto University, IIT Hyderabad and CSIR–CFTRI, among others.
Protein conformations
Dynamics plus machine-learning clustering to find the states that matter for binding.
Extracellular vesicles
Vesicles in body fluids as a source of biomarkers.
DNA secondary structure
How non-canonical DNA structures form and move.
Chromosome maintenance
The protein machines that keep chromosomes in shape.
In his words.
I'm grateful for where this road has taken me. I landed one of the best packages for a core role in my field and moved abroad straight after my master's. Some days it still feels surreal. I'm not telling you this to impress you. I'm telling you because the path was learnable, and that's why the Academy exists.Ashwath Kumar
What he's building now.
Alpha Knight, a studio for founders, and Alpha Knight Academy, where life-science graduates learn the work he does every day.