The School of Life Sciences, University of Hyderabad is organizing a 10-day international workshop on ‘Protein Structure and Drug Discovery’ starting from August 27 – September 05, 2017. The theme of the workshop is to trace developments in the areas of protein structures determination and computational method for structure based drug design to develop potential therapeutic agents and drugs.
Dr. M. Rami Reddy, Co-founder and Chairman of Rational Labs Inc., San Diego, CA, USA, who also played a major role in organizing the workshop, in his inaugural lecture welcomed all the dignitaries and participants. Speaking on the workshop theme, he said, “We chose crystallography and computational chemistry as the topics for this workshop to make sure that the participants are able to learn both, gaining the knowledge of both fields will eventually lead in speeding up the drug discovery process by reducing the time and money.” He also spoke about the contribution of Indian Pharma industry in global Health care and generic drug production process.
Showing his gratitude towards the organizers, the workshop’s Guest of Honor Prof. Sir Tom Blundell, Director of Research and Professor Emeritus in Biochemistry, University of Cambridge, UK, said, “It’s a pleasure to be once again in Hyderabad. My main achievements in India have been through the people who work with me in my laboratory. It’s an honour to be here.”
Prof. P. Prakash Babu, Pro Vice-chancellor, UoH, welcomed the speakers and participants to the university. He advised the participants to listen, interact and share their ideas with renowned speakers and implement what they learn during the workshop in their laboratories.
Several other dignitaries including Prof. Eddy Arnold, Professor at Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Rutgers University, USA, Dr. Shekhar C. Mande, Director of National Centre for Cell Science, Pune, Prof. Dhananjay Pandey from Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi etc. also graced the event with their presence and shared their views.
Renowned structural and computational biologists from India and abroad with associations from several organizations such as University of Cambridge, Rutgers University, EMBL, ILS Bhubaneshwar, IISER Trivandrum, NIPER Mohali etc. will be speaking at the workshop to cover various aspects of protein crystallography as well as structure-based drug designing.
The workshop has two modules, first five days will have lectures on the protein structures solved by different experimental techniques such as X-ray structures crystallography, NMR, Data processing, etc. Last five days will be second module focusing on the development and use of computational tools to address the structure based drug design.
The event is supported by Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN), Ministry of Human and Resource Development, Government of India, Douglas Instruments, Rational Labs Inc. and GenScript Biotech.
– Monika Tiwari, MA Communication