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Narayan Lab is actively looking to admit new PhD students in July 2026 semester. Eligible candidates (with GATE, NET-JRF etc.) are encouraged to apply through IIT Goa PhD Admission portal. The last date of application is Wed, 3rd May 2026. Selected candidates will work in the frontier area of sustainable catalysis and oxidative coupling of heterocycles for the discovery of novel bioactive compounds, especially in the domain of Anti-microbial Resistance. Please check out our recent publications.
Narayan lab at IIT Goa possesses the core expertise in the domain of organic synthesis and its application in biology through medicinal chemistry and chemical biology. In the humble surroundings of a budding institute, we are committed to giving shape to our ideas. Besides our broad interest in deciphering sustainable solutions to chemical problems of synthetic origin, the group has expertise in ideating as well as providing organic synthesis support to answer fundamental questions of biological interest. We would be happy to hear from potential collaborators at any time.
Prinicipal Investigator
Associate Professor, Chemistry
School of Chemical & Materials Sciences (SCMS)
IIT Goa
News and Updates:
News and Updates:
March 2026: Student Achievement: Congratulations to Deepak Datta Gaonkar for receiving "Best Flash Presentation Award" along with two other speakers (from France and South Korea) in "ACS Spring-2026 Global Virtual Symposia" organized by American Chemical Society from 22-25th March.
March 2026: Conference Participation: Rishi was invited as a speaker in "ACS Spring-2026 Global Virtual Symposia". He presented group's research in the domain of "Sustainable Oxidative Cross-Coupling" during the conference.
March 2026: Alumni Achievement: Two group alumni (summer interns), Pempa T. Bhutia and Anand C. P. have recently completed their PhDs from France and Finland, respectively. Congratulations to both of them!!
March 2026: Educational Outreach: Rishi was invited as a resource person/subject expert to deliver two sessions in the "Refresher Course in Chemical Sciences" organized by Goa University under MMTTP, Govt. of India .
March 2026: Student Achievement: Deepak Datta Gaonkar and Dipti Naik participated in Rasayan Sangoshthi-2026, a national conference organized by Dept. of Chemistry, IIT Dharwad from 13-14th March and presented group's research. Gratifyingly, Deepak received the "Best Oral Presentation Award" whereas Dipti received the "Best Poster Presentation Award". Congratulations to both of them!!
March 2026: Student Achievement: Dhiraj Desai, MSc. thesis student from our lab was awarded the best poster award for his dissertation work at two separate events. First, at KALPAK 2026-Research poster presentation competition organized as part of Vidnyan Dhara by Dept. of Higher Education, Govt. of Goa and second, at 3rd Annual Chemistry Symposium at PES's R.S.N College, Farmagudi, Goa. Heartiest congratulations to Dhiraj for these remarkable achievements.
Jan 2026: Conference Participation: Rishi was also invited as a speaker in "SPECTROMICS-2026" organized by Dept. of Biosciences and Bioengineering, IIT Dharwad from 16-17th Jan, 2026.
Jan 2026: Conference Participation: Rishi was invited as a speaker to participate in "Transformative Synthetic Organic Chemistry in Biology and Materials Science" conference organized by Dept. of Chemistry, IIT Madras. The conference was held from 9-11th Jan, 2026 in the honour of Prof. Inderpal Singh Aidhen's 65th Birthday. Rishi presented group's research at the interface of chemistry and biology. Here are a few pictures.
Jan. 2026: Narayan Lab wishes everyone a very happy new year 2026! In 2025, we were successful in publishing three articles in good quality journals (one each in Org. Chem. Front., Eur. J. Med. Chem. and Org. Lett.) in three major research themes of the group.
Besides that, Dr. Shon Gangai became the second PhD student to graduate from the group. We also welcomed Mr. Dhiraj Desai, a 2nd Yr MSc. student from D. M College, Assagao for his MSc. dissertation research.
We look forward to reporting more exciting research from our lab in all the research domains of our interest in the year 2026.
Dec. 2025: Publication: Continuing our efforts in the area of oxidative cross-coupling of electron-rich aromatics, we report the first ever oxidative coupling of 2-naphthols with furans in Org. Lett. Congratulations to Shon, Dipti and Deepak for their fantastic efforts. Please take a look here.
Oct. 2025: Conference Participation: Rishi was invited as a speaker at the Global Scientific Conference being organized by American Chemical Society (ACS) in collaboration with IIT Bombay. He presented our group's research in the domain of Pseudo-Natural Products for the discovery of novel chemical probes and anti-bacterial agents.
July 2025: Event Participation: Rishi was invited as a resource person and the chief guest for the inauguration of PIANO, the chemistry society of PES's Ravi. S. Naik College of Arts and Science, Farmagudi, Goa. He talked about the "Role of Chemistry as the Central Science" during the event.
June 2025: Thesis Defense: Mr. Shon Gangai completed his thesis defense and became the second student to graduate from the lab. Congratulations and best wishes to him for his future endeavours as Dr. Shon Gangai!! Some pictures from the day.
May 2025: Publication: In an effort to tackle the AMR crisis, we have disclosed Indotropane as a structurally novel class of antibiotic with potent and selective activity against MRSA and VRSA in Eur. J. Med. Chem. Congratulations to all the authors! Special thanks to Dr. Sidharth Chopra's group at CSIR-CDRI Lucknow and Prof. Shobhna Kapoor's Lab at IIT Bombay for excellent collaboration. Here is the link to the paper!
May 2025: Ms. Vaishnavi Tripathi (BS-MS, IISER Bhopal) and Ms. Aneesha Nagarsekar (SCS, Goa Uni.) have joined the lab as summer interns.
Apr 2025: Publication: A new paper from the group detailing a novel structural framework for combining Aza-Nazarov cyclization with 1,2-Wagner Meerwein Shift in a Bi(III)-catalyzed domino sequence has been accepted for publication in Org. Chem. Front as an open access article. Congratulations to Deepak, Shon and Krishna!! Please take a look here.
Mar 2025: Student Achievement: Congratulations to Deepak for being adjudged as "one of the three best posters" in Goa Research Scholars Meeting organized by Dept. of Higher Education, Govt. of Goa.
Jan 2025: Rishi received a "Letter of Commendation" from Director, IIT Goa for excellent teaching performance in Sem-I, AY 24-25.
News Archive
News Archive
Nov. 2024: Rishi was invited as the Chief Guest for 1-day RSC Workshop on "Sustainable Chemistry for Innovations in Clean Air, Energy and Water" at his alma mater, Hindu College, University of Delhi. He discussed group's research in the domain of sustainable catalysis leading to the discovery of novel fluorophores and has an opportunity to meet faculty members and students of the dept. Some snippets from the day can be found here.
Sept. 2024: In line with Target 2035 - Towards Medicine for All, our disclosure of a newer, more potent and more selective inhibitor of MLCK-1, a crucial kinase implicated in multiple diseases including inflammatory-bowel diseases, cancer etc., is accepted for publication in ACS Chemical Biology. This was a real collaborative effort across organic synthesis, cell biology, biophysics, biomechanics and bioinformatics. Take a look here. Here is the preprint version.
Sept 2024: Our next contribution in the area of oxidative coupling of electron-rich heterocycles has been accepted for publication in Chem. Eur. J.. Herein, we describe an Fe(III)-mediated synthesis of 'extremely congested' tetra(hetero)arylated furans, which demonstrate aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ) properties with novel mechanistic underpinnings for this effect. Please read here.
Sept 2024: On the occasion of the Teacher's Day (5th Sept.), Rishi along with five other faculty members, were recognized with "Excellence in Teaching Award" by IIT Goa for the period of 2019-24. Congratulations to the fellow awardees and gratitude to IIT Goa for the recognition!
Aug 2024: Narayan lab organized the IGSTC-funded Indo-German bilateral workshop from 21-23rd Sept, 2024 at Hotel Beleza, BetalBatim, Goa. More information can be found here. A few snapshots from the event can be found here.
June 2024: Rishi has received a grant from Indo-German Science and Technology Centre (IGSTC), New Delhi to organize a 3-day Indo-German workshop on "Catalytic Chemical Processes for Tomorrow (CatChemPro)" in collaboration with Helmholtz-Zentrum, Berlin. Aligned with our group's research theme of 'sustainable catalytic processes', we look forward to taking the 'sustainability in chemistry' dialogue forward during this workshop.
May 2024: Our next contribution in the area of oxidative coupling of electron-rich heterocycles is available on ChemRxiv.
May 2024: Ms. Manisha Kamble (SCS, Goa Uni) and Mr. Darren Pinto (DM College, Assagao, Goa) successfully completed and defended their M.Sc. dissertation thesis work in our lab. With that, they have also secured their first jobs at Deccan Fine chemicals and Unichem Laboratories respectively, Congratulations to them and best wishes for their successful professional career!!
Apr 2024: Landmark moment for Narayan Lab at IIT Goa!! The first student to join the lab defended his thesis and is now Dr. Krishna Mhaske!! Congratulations to him for his stupendous efforts in securing one of the highest academic distinctions!! A few clicks from the defense are here.
Mar 2024: Heartiest congratulations to Mr. Krishna Mhaske for securing 2nd prize in 'Oral presentation' category at the 2-day international conference on "Green Chemistry and Intellectual Property for United National Sustainable Development Goals" organized by DM College and Research Centre, Assagao, Goa.
Mar 2024: Rishi was invited as the Chief Guest for the inaugural ceremony of "CHEMTALSEA" - State level chemistry event organized by DM College, Bardez, Goa.
Jan 2024: The first PhD student from the research group, Mr. Krishna Mhaske has submitted his PhD thesis. This is a landmark moment for the group. Best wishes to him for the review process and defense!!
Jan 2024: Ms. Manisha Kamble (SCS, Goa Uni) and Mr. Darren Pinto (DM College, Assagao, Goa) have started their M.Sc. dissertation work in our lab. Best wishes to them for a successful project!!
Dec 2023: Another paper from the group describing the expedient synthesis of indolyl-furans with deep blue fluorescence is accepted for publication in RSc. Advances! Congratulations to Shon, Rushil and Krishna!! Take a look here.
Nov 2023: Rishi has been promoted to the post of Associate Professor in the School of Chemical and Materials Sciences at IIT Goa.
Nov 2023: The next paper from the group in the area of catalytic oxidative coupling has been accepted for publication in Chem. Eur. J.! Congratulation to the authors!! Thanks to Prof. Anindya Datta (IIT Bombay) for access to Time Resolved Fluorescence Spectroscopy and Microscopy measurements at Central Facility, IIT Bombay. You can take a look here!
Oct 2023: Rishi presented group's research in the area of oxidative coupling through a flash talk and a poster at International Conference on Organometallics and Catalysis (ICOC-2023), Goa.
Oct 2023: A review article in the area of COVID-19 written in collaboration with Dr. Shobhna Kapoor's lab at IIT Bombay, describing the importance of targeting lipids in COVID has been accepted for publication in J. Med. Chem. You can take a look here.
Sep. 2023: Shon received the second prize in the poster presentation competition in the Research Scholar's Confluence -2023 at IIT Goa. This makes it 3 prizes for the group in last 3 years! Congratulation, Shon!
Aug 2023: Rishi delivered a lecture on the topic "Pharmaceutical Chemistry: Perspectives on API Process" at DM College and Research Center, Assagao, Goa.
Jul-Aug 2023: Ms. Manisha Kamble (Goa Uni.) spent one month in our lab as a summer intern working on the chemistry of Indoles.
May 2023: Ms. Dipti Naik (M.Sc., Goa Uni.) has joined the group as a JRF in the CRG project.
Jan 2023: The new year started on a good note for the group with the grant approval by CEFIPRA. Under this project we plan to synthesize and explore the potential of next generation spirocyclic nitroxide spin labels for distance measurement in proteins in collaboration with Dr. Velavan Kathirvelu's group at NIT Goa and Prof. Serge Gambarelli's group at SyMMES Grenoble, France.
Nov. 2022: Rishi was invited to present a lecture in the one-day national seminar on "Recent Trends in Applied Organic Synthesis" organized by School of Chemical Sciences, Goa Uni.
Nov. 2022: We have been awarded the Core Research Grant (CRG-2022) by SERB to further explore the oxidative coupling of electron-rich heterocycles using earth-abundant catalysts under sustainable conditions! Gratitude to SERB and Congratulations to all the group members for their efforts in secuding the grant!
Oct. 2022: Our recently reported bromoenolphosphate-based furan synthesis has been highlighted on the Org. Chem. Portal as heteroaromatic synthesis highlights. Take a look here.
Sept. 2022: A new paper from the group in collaboration with Prof. Ritu Aneja's group (Uni of Alabama, Birmingham, USA) describing the first-of-its-kind computational benchmarking of putative KIFC1 inhibitors has been accepted for publication in Medicinal Research Reviews. Take a look here.
Aug 2022: Deepak Datta Gaonkar (MSc, Goa University) has joined the group as a PhD student with CSIR Junior Research Fellowship.
July 2022: Rishi received a letter of commendation from the Director (IIT Goa) for excellent teaching performance for CH-102 course (Organic and Inorganic Chemistry) in the semester-I, AY 2021-22.
June 2022: Mrs. Siddhali Girkar received the third prize in the poster presentation competition in the Research Scholar's Confluence -2022 at IIT Goa.
Feb. 2022: A new paper with Rishi as one of the coauthors is accepted for publication in Angew. Chem. Intl. Ed. It describes the discovery of Rhonin as the first small-molecule ligand of the RHO GDP-dissociation inhibitor 1 (RHOGDI1). Take a look here (open access!).
Feb. 2022: A new paper from the group describing the first cross-dehydrogenative coupling between furans and indoles has been accepted for publication in Chem. Asian J. Congrats, Rushil and Krishna! Thanks to Dr. Garima Jindal's group (IISc Bangalore) for the fruitful collaboration.
Jan. 2022: The second review article in the area of Mycobacterium tuberculosis written in collaboration with Dr. Shobhna Kapoor's lab at IIT Bombay, this time describing the importance of membranes as actionable targets in Mtb has been accepted for publication in J. Med. Chem. You can take a look here.
Dec. 2021: Rishi's proposal in collaboration with Prof. Nida Sajid (College of Liberal Arts, Uni. of Minnesota, USA) has been selected for the prestigious "Global Engagement Award" by the Center for Global Health and Social Responsibility, Uni. of Minnesota.
Nov. 2021: The first paper from the lab comprising experimental work, conceptualized and developed completely at IIT Goa, was published in Tetrahedron. Congratulations to Rushil and Krishna!
Sept 2021: Rishikesh Narayan was invited as a Plenary speaker for the Jyothi Summit-2021 organized by Jyothi Nivas Autonomous Postgraduate Centre, Bangalore from 23-24th Sept 2021. He spoke on the role of 'Chemistry as the Central Science'.
July 2021: Deepti Nehra (St. Stephens College, Delhi) spent the summer in our work group researching the diverse chemical space occupied by medicinally relevant plants found on the Western Ghats of India.
Jun 2021: Shon Gangai's poster describing our Cross-Dehydrogenative Coupling between Indole and Furan in the inaugural Virtual Research Scholar's Conclave (at IIT Goa) was awarded the 3rd prize. Congratulations to him as well as Krishna and Rushil for developing the project.
Dec. 2020: A review article describing the chemical tools for illumination of Mtb biology, virulence mechanisms, and diagnosis written in collaboration with Dr. Shobhna Kapoor's lab at IIT Bombay has been accepted for publication in J. Med. Chem. You can have a look here.
Dec. 2020: Mr. Deepak Gaonkar has joined the group as a project assistant for the DST-SERB funded project.
Sept. 2020: Mr. Angulimal Kamble has joined the group as a PhD student. He holds a CSIR-JRF. Welcome, Angulimal to the group.
Aug 2020: Dr. Rushil Fernandes has left the lab to join Syngene International Ltd. as a research investigator. Thank you, Rushil for getting us going in the lab and good luck for your professional endeavors!
June 2020: Lab has secured an institute research grant to work on novel inhibitors for targeting SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19.
May 2020: The lab's research in the area of COVID-19 therapeutics development was covered by Vigyan Prasar, an autonomous organization under DST, Govt. of India. You can refer here for the video in English and here in Hindi.
Jan. 2020: Siddhali Girkar joins our lab as a part-time PhD student. She is an asst. prof. in the School of Chemical Sciences at Goa University. Welcome, Siddhali and best of luck for your research!
Sept. 2019: The lab has secured it's first external research grant from DST-SERB through its Startup Research Grant (SRG) scheme. The project is for two years duration. We will be exploring some new cyclization modes to synthesize partially saturated heterocycles.
Aug. 2019: Shon Gangai joined the lab as the 2nd PhD student. Welcome, Shon and good luck for your tenure!
June 2019: Rishi received a letter of commendation along with four other colleagues from the Director for excellent teaching performance for BIO-101 course in the semester-II, AY 2018-19. Congrats everyone!!
May 2019: Kalyan Sundar Naskar (IIT Kharagpur), Vadisha Chopra (LPU Ludhiana), Pempa Tshering Bhutia (St. Stephens College, Delhi Uni.) joined our lab for 8-10 weeks for summer internship.
Feb. 2019: A part of our research interests was recently covered in BioVoice News. More about it here.
Feb. 2019: A new paper describing the phenotypic discovery of Myokinasib, a kinase inhibitor with unprecedented chemotype targeting MLCK-1 was accepted for publication in Cell Chem. Biol. Rishi is one of the coauthors. You can read the paper here.
Feb. 2019: Rushil Fernandes has joined our lab after completing his PhD. Welcome Rushil and good luck with your efforts!
Dec. 2018: Rishi received a letter of commendation along with four other colleagues from the Director for excellent teaching performance for CH-105 course in the semester-II, AY 2018-19. Congrats everyone!!
Aug. 2018: Krishna Mhaske joined as the 1st PhD student of the group. Welcome Krishna!
May 2018: Pranav Sreekumar (IISER Bhopal) and Anand C. P. (Madras Christian College) spent the summer of '18 in the group working on a review article. They were ably helped by Chiluveru Krishna, an IIT Goa B. Tech student. Thank you guys!!
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