Talk on "The rise and fall of antibiotics: Our future against the drug-resistant superbugs"
Speaker: Nilkamal Mahanta, Department of Chemistry, IIT Dharwad
Title: The rise and fall of antibiotics: Our future against the drug-resistant superbugs
Abstract: Antibiotics, from its inception with penicillin to the recent FDA approved drug plazomicin, have played a very important role in curing deadly infectious diseases and maintaining health over the years. However, with time, the emergence of antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria (so-called superbugs) is currently proving to be a serious and increasing threat to human health and medicine. Therefore, discovery of new structural motifs with novel antibacterial targets exhibiting activity against multi-drug resistant pathogens is urgently required. Mother nature provides untapped potential for discovering novel antibiotics and in this need of the hour, scientists from different disciplines can join efforts in exploring such bioactive natural products and their derivatives to bring out the best weapons to continue our fight against the superbugs. This talk will cover a brief overview of antibiotics and current strategies that can be employed to create new drug like molecules from bacteria using a combination of chemistry and biology.
Speaker Bio: Nilkamal Mahanta, currently an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry, IIT Dharwad, obtained his Ph.D. in Chemistry (with Prof. Tadhg Begley in Bioorganic Chemistry and Enzymology) from Texas A& M University, Texas, USA. He continued his post-doctoral studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA (with Prof. Douglas Mitchell) in Chemistry and Chemical Biology of antibiotic ribosomal natural products. His research interests are in the interface of chemistry and biology and wants to study bioactive natural products, organic chemistry of enzymes, and medicinal chemistry.
Event Date: 13th March, 2019(Wednesday)
Event Time: 4:30 PM
Venue: Room No. 23
IIT Dharwad, Karnataka