Arunava Dasgupta, Ph.D.
Sr. Principal Scientist,Division Of Microbiology
Screening for potent anti-tubercular compounds and evaluating
their in-vivo efficacy
➤ Screening for potent anti-tubercular compounds and evaluating their in-vivo
efficacy:
Drug resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a threat of concern. Increased knowledge about the molecular biology, genome sequences and even advent of novel research methodologies could not eradicate the pathogen. One of our main objectives is to screen potent anti-tubercular compounds and evaluate their in-vivo efficacy in established animal model.
➤
Primary screening of compounds against Non-tuberculous Mycobacteria (NTM) and revealing their pathology in established animal models:
Increasing incidences of NTM infection, unavailability of drugs against them,
resistance to anti-TB drugs are few of the primary challenges for NTMs which prompt us to screen and identify hit compounds against NTMs.
We use M. abscessus, M. fortuitum, M. chelonae and M. avium as model organisms.
We currently focus on understanding the basic biology of these pathogens, developing in vivo models of infection of these organisms and
screening of compounds against them
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Molecular approaches to unreveal novel mycobacterial drug targets :
During mycobacterial infection to human host, the bug experiences a nutrient limited environment inside macrophages. Many adaptive responses are hence upregulated and one interesting response is switch to lipids as carbon source. We focus on identifying fatty acid metabolizing genes, revealing the mechanism and their role in pathogenesis of Mtb.