Current Research Interests

Our mission is to utilize the novelty of organic synthesis and noncovalent interactions in the creation of novel structures for molecular recognition. Our research is branched into two diverse areas of medicinal chemistry and supramolecular chemistry.

1. Medicinal Chemistry

The major interest of the medicinal chemistry discipline is in the design, synthesis and evaluation of novel compounds of biological and therapeutic interest as a means to new drug discovery and development. Our aim is to synthesize small molecules constructing the natural entities. We are planning to synthesize new structural entities which are either natural products or synthetic isomers or functionally enriched/modified analogues.

Our focus is also in the targeted synthesis of small and medium sized organic compounds for drug development. Some specific areas of interest include the drug design against HIV, Hepatitis, cancer, diabetes. In order to deal with these problems we are focusing on developing HIV-1integrage, protease inhibitors. We are also targeting sirtuins for dealing with developing drungs against cancer and diabetes.

Presently, our approach is either to employ medicinal chemistry modification of existing drugs or design and synthesis of new molecules.

2. Supramolecular Chemistry

Motivated by understanding of non-covalent interactions, we are extending our research to understand the cell membrane properties. Our plan is to design new synthetic lipids to understand the biophysical behavior of the lipid membranes. Also, we are working on design of synthetic lipids which can help small molecules (which are either covalently or non-covalently linked to the synthetic lipid) to cross the membrane barrier. The long term aim of this project is to develop novel drug delivery systems.

We are also working on design of novel molecular structures derived from simple chemical reactions.