CSIR joins hands with RSC for finding more effective regimens for tuberculosis and malaria

Updated on: Wednesday, January 30, 2013

CSIR has joined hands with a prominent European organisation for finding novel, faster-acting, and more effective regimens for tuberculosis and alaria by advancing the discipline of cheminformatics.

The agreement signed today by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research between its Open Source Drug Discovery (OSDD) initiative and the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) envisions conducting workshops and conferences to build links between experts and leaders in the coming years.

The partnership will focus on jointly building an online repository of real and virtual molecular structures along with developing free-to-use software tools for drug discovery and development, a government release said.

It also aims at exploring the possibility of advancing OSDD's e-learning program for students, the release said.

On the occasion, Science and Technology Minister S Jaipal Reddy, said, "The Royal Society of Chemistry has undoubted strength in the field of chemistry. This strength will now be coupled with the strengths of the OSDD programme, deployed to improve the innovation for neglected diseases."

Reddy stressed on the importance of scientific institutions to work towards finding solutions for problems that predominantly affect the poorer sections of the society, like the need for new drugs for tuberculosis, malaria and kala-azar (leishmaniasis).

Samir K Brahmachari, Director General CSIR and Chief Mentor OSDD, underlined the importance of this collaboration for finding new drugs for neglected diseases like TB.

David Phillips, the RSC Immediate Past President, said, "Through this agreement, the CSIR and RSC are responding to the challenge of 'lost data' â€“ that is the 90 per cent of research output that never gets published".

"That data, that information, that knowledge, is lost to society. But it has enormous value to the chemical science research community and by using new tools and new disciplines, like cheminformatics or e-science, we can recapture that lost information. The importance of cheminformatics in addressing this challenge cannot be underestimated," he said.

CSIR joins hands with RSC for finding more effective regimens for tuberculosis and malaria

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