Scientific Advisors

1. Dr. Muhammed Majeed
2. Dr. Reza Kamarei, Chief Scientific Advisor
3. Dr. N. Kalyanam
4. Dr. S Natarajan
5. Dr. Beena Bhat
6. Dr. Sarang Bani

Dr. Muhammed Majeed

Dr. M.Majeed, M.S, Ph.D is the visionary behind Sami Direct. After obtaining B.Pharm from College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Trivandrum Medical College, Dr. Majeed went to US in 1975 to pursue MS in Pharmacy and Ph.D in Industrial Pharmacy. He worked with some of the major pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and Carter Wallace. As a young student Dr. Majeed yearned not only to pursue research in science, but also to give a meaningful face to the results of such research through his entrepreneurial spirit.

Dr. M.Majeed was one of the pioneering Indians who introduced the concept of Ayurveda to the west. As a consequence of his relentless efforts the group boasts of over 69 US & International patents as on December 2011. He has won numerous awards and recognitions world-wide; some of them are: -

• Daniel B. Stateman Award for Distinguished Alumni from Long Island University in 2010
• Distinguished Alumni Award of Trivandrum Medical College from Hon. Vayalar Ravi, Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs in 2010
• Certificate of Excellence for Exports from the Union Minister of Textiles Mr. Shankar Singh Vaghela in the presence of Smt. Pratibha Patil, The President of India
• Prestigious Ellis Island Medal of Honor in 2004 to Americans of diverse origins to recognize their leadership, commitment and service to their own ethnic group and to American society
• Lifetime Achievement Award from Kerala Association of New Jersey
• Certificate of Honour for Export Achievement from Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma, The President of India in 1997
• National Award for Quality Products from Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma, The President of India in 1994

Dr. Reza Kamarei, Chief Scientific Advisor

Dr. Reza Kamarei received his Ph.D. in food science and technology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1982. He has worked at companies such as Angio-Medical Corp (VP of Bio-processing Operations); Clintec Nutrition USA, JV between Nestle & Baxter (Leader of R&D Department); National Starch (Director of Nutritional and Medical Food Ingredients); Princeton Nutrition (President); Oceanic Institute (Director, Nutrition Department); and Coca-Cola North America (Senior Manager - Nutritional Juices, Products and Ingredient Sciences). Dr. Kamarei is currently VP of Science and Technology at Sabinsa Corporation and Chief Scientific Advisor at Sami Direct. He is inventor or co-inventor of more than twenty patents and author of numerous peer-reviewed papers.

Dr. N. Kalyanam

Dr. N. Kalyanam is the President of Sabinsa's New Jersey R&D. His research interests are synthetic methodology and chiral chemistry. He obtained his M.Sc. in Chemistry at the University of Madras and Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Baylor University (Texas). Upon completing his Ph.D., Dr. Kalyanam completed 2 years of postdoctoral studies focusing on organic synthesis procedures before returning to India. In India he worked for a number of reputable companies, IPCL, Ciba Geigy, and SPIC Pharma, to which he made major scientific contributions.

Dr. Kalyanam's primary responsibilities at Sabinsa include the development of efficient and novel scientific routes for xenobiotics and intermediates as well as the exploration of new business areas.

Dr. S Natarajan

Dr. S Natarajan has a Ph.D. from the University of Madras, India. After getting his Ph.D, he spent over five years in USA as a Research Associate in the University of North Carolina (USA), Duke University (USA) and Standford University in California. He has to his credit more than 30 publications in national and international journals.

He started his career as a Senior R&D Scientist in Amrutanjan Limited, and later to become its Director. He was also one of the founding directors of Amrutanjan Fine Chemicals Limited and served the company for more than 20 years.

Dr. Natarajan, besides heading the R&D Department of Sami Labs for the past five years, he was also in the Board of Directors.

His expertise includes Synthetic & Organic Chemistry, Natural Products' Isolation & Characterization, Development of Analytical Methods and scaling up of products from the lab to the industrial level.