Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Discovery Laboratory

Antimicrobial resistance is an escalating global health concern, and the discovery of antibiotics is in crisis. Our group applies various complementary research strategies to address the problem of antibiotic resistance. The first is the rational chemical modification of existing, obsolete antibiotics to impart additional modes of action thereby enhancing their bioactivities. We are also interested in developing novel small molecular therapeutics, and antibiotic adjuvants which target bacterial resistance mechanisms, bacterial virulence, and host-cell factors that are required for pathogen infectivity. 

Natural product antibiotic discovery is another area of our interest. Microbial natural products have long been the foundation of our antibiotic arsenal. Microbes and their secondary metabolite natural products have evolved over the years and their diversity depends on various factors including the microbial environment, ecological/geographical aspects, environmental factors, and others. India has been home to various natural resources for traditional medicine but most of them have not been characterized for their source of bioactivity. We are interested in exploiting untapped microbes of Indian origin that are associated with ayurvedic medicinal plants (plant microbiome), medicinal soils; soils of remote areas, marine samples, and insects (insect microbiome) as a source of novel natural product antibiotics.

Our natural product drug discovery efforts also extend to the discovery of bioactive natural products from Ayurvedic medicinal plants. Ayurveda is a centuries-old medical science that has been practiced in India for several thousand years; however, the chemical constituents of many Ayurvedic plants remain largely unknown. We have been actively working on the bioactivity-guided purification and characterization of Ayurvedic medicinal plants, with a particular focus on the discovery of anti-infective compounds. 

Additionally, our research spans to other infectious disease drug discovery areas including antifungals, antimalarials, antihelminthics and antivirals. Moreover, we are interested in understanding cross talks between microbial infections and other important diseases like Alzheimer’s and cancer, etc. whether antimicrobial drugs can help cure such diseases.

Our team's research expertise ranges from organic chemistry to allied biosciences such as antibiotic synthetic biology, microbiology, molecular biology, biochemistry, and pharmacology.

Research areas:

• Infectious diseases, antimicrobial resistance, antimicrobial drugs

• Medicinal chemistry, drug design, and development

• Natural product drug discovery and their biosynthesis

• Mechanistic investigation of antibacterials

• Bioactivity-guided natural product purification and characterization

• Genome mining and genome engineering

Teaching:

• CH117 - Undergraduate (B. Tech) laboratory course (Autumn semester, 2022)

• CH540 - Drugs and biologically active compounds (Spring semester, 2023 and 2024) 

• CH209 - Basic Organic Chemistry (Autumn semester, 2023, 2024, 2025)

• CH231 - Organic chemistry laboratory course (Autumn semester 2023)

• CH228 - Organic chemistry laboratory course (Spring semester 2024, 2025, 2026)

• CH305 - Chemistry of Functional Groups (Spring semester, 2024) 

• CH304 - Chemistry of Biomolecules (Spring semester 2025, 2026)

• CH 313 - Organic chemistry laboratory course (Autumn semester 2025)