Research

Despite years of basic and translational research on the virus and its infectivity, dengue remains one of the most life-threatening viral infections to mankind. The number stands at 400 million infections and 40,000 people deaths annually. With no effcient therapeutic agent discovered so far to curb the virus, and the only available vaccine Dengvaxia, been shown to have poor efficacy in controlling the disease, the current project was designed to find effective inhibitors against the crucial non-structural DENV proteins by a drug repurposing approach.

Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) is a long-term metabolic disorder primarily characterized by impaired insulin resistance and the people suffering from T2DM have been shown to possess a higher risk of developing various other diseases, with some diabetic drugs suspected of increasing the risk in some cases. Aldose reductase is a key target enzyme that catalyze the reduction of glucose to sorbitol and does not readily diffuse across cell membranes causing retinopathy and neuropathy. The current project deals with the discovery of natural bioactives from Abutilon indicum plant and their characterization as aldose reductase inhibitors, using various in vitro and in silico analysis.   

• Chickenpox causing Varicella zoster Virus

• Mucomycosis causing Rhizopus species

• Substituted Chalcone derived pyrazoline compounds

With an increased awareness on multidrug resistance, current research in synthetic and medicinal chemistry has been shifting toward studies on natural product-based compounds with active pharmacophores. Heterocyclic compounds dominate this area with a major proportion of research, owing to their significant therapeutic value and wide range of biological activities. The current project discusses an efficient method for the synthesis of biologically relevant novel pyrazoline derivatives, their structural and computational analysis, antimicrobial activities followed by molecular docking studies.

• Coumarin-coupled Benzothiazole Hydrazone Chromophores

Coumarin and its heterocyclic derivatives have been receiving tremendous attention from synthetic and medicinal chemists owing to their remarkable application in material science as well as pharmacological applications. The current project discusses the synthesis of a series of coumarin-coupled benzothiazole hydrazone compounds their Solvatochromism, followed by computational and biological evaluations.

• Schiff base Scaffolds

Considering the recent advancements in the applicative knowledge pertaining to quinoline derivatives, the current project discusses has been carried out to design an efficient method for the synthesis of a series of Schiff base oxime derivatives, their structural and computational analysis, followed by their anti-bacterial, antifungal and antimycobacterial activites.

Processing studies involving intense computing and programming based skills has always been hard for experimental biologists who have least knowledge from purely wet lab setups. Keeping that in mind, the current project was conceived for the creation of PyVelvet, a fully automated GUI based standalone aplication for running the VELVET pipeline, a tool widely used for genome assembly using small reads. Python language and Tkinter package of the language have been used for this.