IIT Delhi designs new drug development strategy to treat diseases

Researchers developed the strategy to design drug molecules that could help treat Japanese Encephalitis Virus, main cause for viral encephalitis in Southeast Asian countries, and protein aggregation diseases such as Alzheimer’s. 

 An interdisciplinary research group led by V Haridas from the Chemistry Department of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi has designed and demonstrated a new strategy for developing potential drug molecules for treating various diseases.  

Haridas collaborated with virologist Guruprasad Medigeshi from the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI) and biochemist Bishwajit Kundu from the Kusuma School of Biological Sciences, IIT Delhi, for the research work.  Drugs are mostly organic molecules that interact with molecules present in the human body. The molecules in the body are bigger in size and are typically called macromolecules. These molecules are either proteins or nucleic acids. 

The researchers have come up with a chemical strategy based on the macromolecular mimicry. Molecules have shapes just like objects. Mimicking (copying) the macromolecular interface by uniquely shaped small molecules is an approach adopted by the research group. 

The researchers utilised the tools of organic chemistry and biophysics to design molecules that target protein interface. They developed a universal privileged scaffold approach for the design of a variety of inhibitors. The universal scaffold could be converted to specific inhibitor for a given Protein-Protein Interaction (PPI), which makes the drug design approach relatively easier.

New drug designing strategy can also treat retroviral infections: IITD researchers

“We used this strategy to design drug molecules, which could be useful for treatment of Japanese Encephalitis Virus (JEV), the main cause for viral encephalitis in Southeast Asian countries, and protein aggregation diseases such as Alzheimer’s and other related diseases. We have also patented the JEV inhibitor drug molecule,” Haridas said.  The researchers said the new drug designing strategy demonstrated by them could also be adopted to treat retroviral infections. 

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