Title: Drug Discovery

Abstract:

Drug discovery is a method which aims at identifying a therapeutically essential compound or chemical, in curing and treating of diseases. In the earlier periods, this concept focused on identifying the main ingredient from the traditional remedies. But, in the modern drug discovery involves the identification of screening hits, medicinal chemistry and optimization of those hits to increase the affinity, selectivity (to reduce the potential of side effects), efficacy/potency, metabolic stability (to increase the half-life), and oral bioavailability. A “target” is a molecular structure on which the drug that has been discovered is made to act. Proteins such as G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) and Protein Kinases are some of the protein targets in drug discovery. Many drugs and chemicals with biological activity have come into light and these natural products can be a source of novel chemical structures for modern techniques. Plant derived metabolites have the potency for medicinal properties due to the plant derived proteins in acting as receptors, enzymes, etc. Jasmonic acid/ jasmonates, Salicylic acids/salicylates are some of the plant derived compounds can be used as an application in the field of therapeutic purposes and hence drug discovery. Jasmonates induce programmed cell death of cells and protein cascades in response to various biotic and abiotic stresssors. Jamonate derivatives (JAD) have important would healing, tissue repairing and regeneration properties. It is hypothesized that JAD interact with proteoglycans and GAG polysaccharides which are vital ECM components. Salicylc acid is a phytohormone that serves as the major player in plant immunity. These compounds have active roles in pain and fever management, cell proliferation suppression. They can also induce apoptosis in lymphoblastic leukemia. Clinical plant based studies have made progresses in the field of anticancer and antimalarial compounds. Taxoids, camptothecins, astesemisinin compounds are derived from plants that are used in anticancer and antimalarial treatments. Paclitaxel, isolated from Taxus brevifolia is the most recent example which being derived from plants has been prominent in therapeutic usages. Hypercin and pseudohypercin are two compounds derived from Hypericum perforatum that can act against the various retroviruses, including HIV. Research in the field f drug discovery requires the usage of GCMS, NMR, IR, HPLC, HPTLC etc, so that the targeted molecules can be screened and identified through their structure, precisely. Employing these technologies will give us innumerable opportunity to screen different therapeutic molecules and develop softwares and databases to establish natural drugs and finally lead to drug discovery.

Biography:

Rajnandini Bhadra is from SRMIST India. Her research goal are directed towards the development and utilisation of plants and microbes in the developing a sustainable planet. My current research articles includesusage of microbes in biodegradation of plastics in the marine environment, phytoproteins in suppression of breast cancer metastasis, green synthesis of nanoparticles.