About

Robin Taleb

Associate Professor of Chemistry

Dr. Taleb studied Medical Science at the University of Western Sydney, Australia, from which he graduated with High Distinction (30th April, 2004). He received his Honors degree in Medicinal Chemistry working under the supervision of Professor Janice Aldrich-Wright at UWS (29th September, 2005). He obtained his PhD in Medicinal Chemistry on the 22nd of April, 2009 from UWS. His honors and PhD thesis focused on the design and synthesis of platinum complexes with specificity for certain DNA sequences. Dr. Taleb also has practical and theoretical experience in instrumental analysis and that includes NMR, LCMSMS, ICPMS, GCMSMS, HPLC, GC, Elemental Analysis, Mass-Spec, IR, UV, Protein Synthesizer and Circular Dichroism (CD). Dr. Taleb is a Member of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (MRACI) and a member of the American Chemical Society (ACS). Dr. Taleb was also awarded the Commercialization Training Postgraduate Research Award from University of Technology, Sydney on the 15th of August, 2008. Dr. Taleb joined LAU as a tenured faculty on October 2011.

Dr. Taleb is currently interested in three different aspects in chemical research: Medicinal Chemistry, Toxicology and Natural Products. In the medicinal chemistry field, Dr. Taleb focuses on the design, synthesis, optimization and characterization of organometallic platinum and ruthenium complexes. The complexes designed are expected to exhibit cytotoxicity in addition to selectivity for cancer cells. In the field of Toxicology, Dr. Taleb investigates the carcinogenic and neurotoxic risks of acrylamide resulting from the consumption of various food products among the Lebanese community. When it comes to Natural Products, Dr. Taleb is part of a highly decorated and well established group that works on extracting aqueous and oily extracts from natural products whose components are analyzed before being tested for anticancer and antioxidant activities.