Prof. M. Vijjulatha, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Prof. M. Vijjulatha (born 1970) did her M.Sc (1992) and Ph.D (1998) in Chemistry from University of Hyderabad as Junior Research Fellow and Senior Research Fellow (CSIR, New Delhi, India). She joined as faculty in Department of Chemistry, University college of Science, Osmania University in December 1999 and has 29 years of research and 21 years of teaching experience. So far, she has supervised 13 PhD’s and presently guiding 8 students for their doctoral degree. Her area of Specialization is organic chemistry and research area is Molecular modeling and medicinal chemistry a sandwich of computational and synthetic organic chemistry. Thrust area of interest is computational design and synthesis of novel drug like molecules having high potency towards inhibition of HIV-1 with a special focus on non-trivial proteins and inhibition of proteins involved in signaling and transduction, DNA synthesis, angiogenesis, antiviral, antibacterial and antimalarial. She has 104scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals with 734 citations to her credit. She is the sectional president for Organic Chemistry of Indian Council of Chemists. She is conferred with State award for meritorious Teachers-2019 by Government of Telangana. She is Fellow of Telangana academy of Sciences, member of American Chemical Society and Life Member of Indian Science Congress. She has reviewed several research articles of reputed international Journals, in the field of Molecular modeling and Medicinal chemistry like Medicinal Chemistry Research, Royal Society of Chemistry advances, Bioorganic and medicinal chemistry, Bioorganic and medicinal chemistry letters, Computer aided drug design, computational biology and chemistry, journal of biological structure and dynamics, Indian journal of chemistry Sec-B etc. She is a Resource person for many Institutes like NIPER Hyderabad, JNTU Hyderabad, several post graduate colleges, pharmacy colleges and an invited speaker for national and international conferences. She is a recipient of major research grants from - UGC (2008-2011 and 2013 - 2017); DST“Young Scientist Scheme” (Chemical Science), CSIR (2011-2014), DST-SERB: (2013-2017); Mentor for DST Women Scientist Scheme A (2013-2016), UGC UPE FAR OU (2014 and 2017),DST-PURSE Programme - (2017- 2021), DST-SERB (2019- 2022),CSIR (2019-2022)DBT-BIRAC COVID-19 (2020-2022). She has successfully completed seven research projects and has three ongoing projects. Her research group has presented 70 papers in national and international conferences and they have won best paper awards. The topics of her interest for teaching are Asymmetric synthesis, Supramolecular Chemistry, Principles of Drug design and drug discovery, Lead modification and SAR Studies, QSAR studies and computer aided drug design.She is actively involved for over a decade in developing structure-based molecules as inhibitors of wide-ranging therapeutic targets using Computer aided drug design (CADD) methodologies like docking, MM-GBSA and Molecular Dynamics simulations. These studies have helped to analyze the protein ligand interactions and in developing new analogs with better binding affinities spanning from HIV-1, HCV, antimalarial, DNA modifying enzymes (PARP), Dihydrofolate reductase, involved in nucleotide biosynthesis, and of signal pathways encompassing, MAP kinases (P38 MAP kinase), JAK-STAT pathway, 5HT7, receptor tyrosine kinases like EGFR and VEGFR, and antiproliferation agents like DNA intercalators and Tubulin polymerase. Her group is expertise in synthesis and development of new antiviral, anti-cancer and anti-plasmodial agents using CADD methodology. Recently her group has achieved new antiviral agents in nano molar range activity against HIV-1 gp120 (a non-trivial protein). At present new nucleoside analogs and 1, 3, 4-oxadiazole based cyclic peptides are being developed in their laboratory, their antiviral and anticancer activity is under progress. Further, extensive pharmacological activities are being carried out in collaboration with CCMB and IICT, Hyderabad. By employing computational protocols their group has developed new nucleoside analogs which can act as potent 2019-nCoV inhibitors. At present the synthesis of new nucleoside-based analogs is under execution.