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  Major Research Areas:

•  Medicinal Chemistry

•  Peptides & Peptidomimetics 

•  Molecular Recognition & Self-Assembly

•  Synthetic Methodology & Process Development

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     Medicinal chemistry

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• COVID Drug Discovery: Discovered in December 2019, SARS-CoV-2 has rapidly infected billions of people across the globe. Currently, chemists worldwide are fighting to develop diverse classes of mechanism-based therapeutics. In this context, inhibition of proteases essential for proteolytic processing of viral polyproteins has been identified as an effective therapeutic strategy. In order to find novel protease inhibitors, we have started a program to develop diverse classes of peptidomimetic-based molecules which may show promise in developing drug candidates against SARS-CoV-2. We have discovered a novel class of an irreversible, covalent inactivator of cysteine proteases.

     

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• Anticancer Drug Discovery: Over the years, we have been making substantial efforts in discovering novel classes of anticancer agents. Recently, we reported a series of novel class of RGD-containing cyclic peptides as potent inhibitors to αvβ3 integrin protein. These challenging cyclic peptides, synthesized in excellent yields following solution-phase coupling strategy, were evaluated in vitro solid-phase binding assay and investigated for their binding behavior towards integrin subtypes. Some of the cyclic RGD peptides exhibited excellent activity towards αvβ3 integrin protein. This finding offers further opportunities for the development of RGD-based anticancer agents. We have also reported synthesis and anticancer activity of conformationally constrained Smac mimetics, nocadazole and combretastatin analogs.

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   Peptides & Peptidomimetics:

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• Peptide chemistry is a major area of interest in our lab. We have more than two decades of extensive experience in developing synthetic amino acids, peptides and their mimetics and their incorporation into bioactive peptides in order to modulate bioactivity. Structural mimicry of peptides has witnessed perceptible progress in recent years. The practice of mimicking peptides, without altering the backbone conformation, ranges from conformational locking of the basic skeleton to total replacement of structural architecture using synthetic analogues. Peptide mimicking (peptidomimetics) offers improved pharmacokinetic properties compared to their peptide counterparts, and thus have valuable utility in drug discovery. We have reported diverse classes of synthetic amino acids, peptidomimetics / secondary structure mimics and foldamers (conformationally stable synthetic molecules) over the last two decades.

 

      Selected synthetic peptide structures (secondary structure mimics) developed in our lab recently: 

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    Molecular Recognition & Self-Assembly [Supramolecular Chemistry]

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• Molecular recognition forces, particularly hydrogen bonding interactions, are not only central to the hierarchical structure formation of biopolymers such as proteins, but also play pivotal role in the structural and functional property of materials. Multiple hydrogen bonded arrays have received an increasing attention from the last two decades owing to their specificity, strength and directionality. These systems have been used to develop different non-covalent supramolecular architectures that have potential applications in supramolecular polymers, molecular recognition and supramolecular electronics. Construction of these supramolecular assemblies is also of fundamental importance for mimicking bimolecular structures. Due to their significance in supramolecular chemistry and utility in material science, different types of H-bonding arrays / motifs have been developed and studied extensively in our lab.

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      Selected examples of self-assembling systems developed in our lab recently:

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 Triazine-based "molecular glues" with potential application in polymer / material / biomedical sciences:

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Related publications in this area: J. Org. Chem., 2021, 86, 3186.; J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2022, 144, 845 (collaboration with Sumerlin       group).; J. Org. Chem., 2021, 86, 15689.; Chem. Commun., 2018, 54, 212.; Chem. Commun., 2017, 53, 2689.; Chem. Eur. J., 2017, 23,   783.; J. Org. Chem., 2017, 82, 6403.; Chem. Commun., 2016 ,52, 10771.

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    Synthetic Methodology / Process Development:​

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• We also work on synthetic methodology and process development. For instance, an ultra-easy and an efficient process has been developed in our group recently for the large scale synthesis of pillarquinone using readily available starting materials. Pillarquinone is a pillar-shaped cyclic pentaquinone with exciting electronic and molecular properties and promising applications in sensors and Li-ion batteries. Flyer seeking technology licensing is available here - ncl@innovations. Link: Synthesis, 2013, 45, 896.; US Patent, US9000224B1, 2015.

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         Process for Pillarquinone synthesis is available for licensing / technology transfer / spin-off.

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