Development of novel therapeutics for a malignant brain tumour and dementia patients using a multidisciplinary approach. Neurobiotechnology laboratory has state of art infrastructural set up to carry out research to develop novel peptide-based therapeutics against cancer metastasis and amyloid based diseases. Using bioinformatics tools and techniques, imaging and mathematical modelling as well as wet-lab experiments we are trying to decipher the mechanism of some lead compounds to treat brain disorders. We work together with Dept of chemistry, computer sc, mathematics at IIESTS and with premiere Institutes like CGCRI, Kolkata, JU, CU, IISER, Kolkata, IIT Kharagpur, IICB, Kolkata as well as with well known clinicians at IPGMER and RG Kar Hospital at Kolkata to solve the problem in a multidisciplinary manner. MTech students at this lab have developed electromagnetic devices to treat the above glioblastoma by creating gentle and focused hyperthermia and to treat Alzheimers’ disease by re-establishing Ca homeostasis.
The availability of the 3D – structural information of a drug target from many pathogenic organisms as well as cancer cell surface enables the possibility of rational structure-based synthetic drug design. Rapid detection of multidrug-resistant strains of pathogenic microorganisms is also going on.
Gene regulatory elements like MicroRNAs (miRNAs) and transcription factors are researched extensively to understand the gene regulation and RNA interference to identify novel therapeutics.
Data mining & pattern recognition, machine learning systems, and the development of sophisticated tools and pipelines to solve problems relevant to cancer biology.
Another major area of focus is to understand the role of natural compounds in combating them cancer, metabolic, neurological disorders. Besides the extensive use of these medicines, they lack rigorous scientific assessment at their molecular, biochemical and toxicological levels. Our ongoing research aims to identify the right biomolecules in appropriate doses which are non-toxic, least interactive with other drugs and disease preventive in nature.