Medicinal Chemistry

Medicinal and Synthetic Chemistry

The Medicinal Chemistry Department is engaged in the discovery of NCEs in the areas of cancer, inflammation and diabetes. Medicinal chemists conceptualize, design and synthesize NCEs using their expertise in organic chemistry, biochemistry, and computational chemistry. Active compounds (hits) are also obtained by screening our compound libraries and natural product libraries.

Natural Products Chemistry

Extracts from the natural biodiversity are obtained from a wide variety of sources, in the form of existing libraries as well as extensive country-wide collaborative effort with various research centers. The Natural products chemistry lab is equipped with HPLC-PDA, MPLCs, and preparative HPLCs to identify novel bioactive chemical entities quickly and efficiently. The high throughput fractionation / isolation Sepbox® facility is also available in the lab. The plants and microbes are identified using taxonomy & biotechnological tools respectively.

Selected publications:

1. Vijaykumar Deore, ManojKumar Lohar, Ramswaroop Mundada, Abhijt Roychowdhury, Ram A. Vishwakarma, Sanjay Kumar. An efficient synthesis of key intermediate towards Liphagal synthesis.  Synth. Comm. 2011, 41, 177-183.
2. Motiwala, H.; Kandre, S.; Birar, V.; Kadam, K. S.; Rodge, A.; Jadhav, R. D.; Reddy, M. M. K.; Brahma, M. K.; Deshmukh, N. J.; Dixit, A.; Doshi, L.; Gupte, A.; Gangopadhyay, A. K.; Vishwakarma, R. A.; Srinivasan, S.; Sharma, M.; Nemmani, K. V. S.; Sharma, R. Exploration of Pyridine Containing Heteroaryl Analogs of Biaryl Ureas as DGAT1 Inhibitors. Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett. 2011, 21 (19), 5812.
3. Samir Kher, Kamlesh Chavan, Santanu Medhi, Rajiv Sharma, and Nabajyoti Deka,Microwave mediated dearylation of 2-aryloxy-5-nitropyridine. Research Journal of Chemical Sciences, 2011, 1 (6), 84–87.
4. Saklani Arvind, Manas Ranjan Sahoo, Prabhu Datt Mishra, and Ram A. Vishwakarma. 2011. Saussurea heteromalla (D. Don) Hand.-Mazz.: A new source of  arctiin, arctigenin and chlorojanerin. Indian Journal of Chemistry, 2011, 50B, 624 – 626.
5. Nilambari Yewalkar, Vijaykumar Deore, Amol Padgaonkar, Sonal Manohar, Bichismita Sahu, Pramod Kumar, Archana Jalota-Badhwar, Kalpana S. Joshi, Somesh Sharma, Sanjay Kumar. Development of novel inhibitors targeting HIF-1a towards anticancer drug discovery. Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett. 2010, 20, 6426-6429.
6. Abhijit Roychowdhury, Rajiv Sharma & Sanjay Kumar. Recent advances in the discovery of small molecule mTOR inhibitors. Future Medicinal Chemistry 2010, 2 (10), 1577-1589 (review article).
7. Mohana Kumara P, Sreejayan , Priti Vaidyanathan, Ramesha, B. T., Ravikanth G., Ganeshaiah, K. N., Mishra P. D., Ram Viswakarma, Uma Shaanker, R. Dysoxylum binectariferum Hook.f a rich source of rohitukine. Fitoterapia 81, 2010, 145-148. 
8. Usha Ghosh, Rituparna Bhattacharyya and Ashish Keche; Mild and efficient syntheses of diverse isoindolinones from ortho-phthaldehydic acid methylthiomethyl ester Tetrahedron 2010, 66, 2148–2155.