8-10 January, 2009
Over the years discovery of new drugs has become a very time consuming (10-12 years) and expensive (need around700 million US$). Added to this is fierce competition amongst drug companies and failure of many drugs due to toxic side effects and different genetic makeup of individuals. Computational tools have become increasingly important in the drug discovery and design processes. Methods from computational chemistry are used now routinely to study drug-receptor complexes in atomic detail and to calculate properties of small molecule drug candidates. Tools from information sciences and statistics are increasingly essential to help organize and manage the huge chemical and biological activity databases used by pharmaceutical companies. Computer aided drug designing (CADD) can not only reduce cost and time for discovery of new drug entities but also enhance effectiveness of the drugs by reducing critical dose and toxic side effects by attacking disease specific enzyme. The fast developments in the silicon world in terms of memory and speed had made the field more attractive. It has taken laboratory level research to pharmaceutical and chemical companies. India’s Bioinformatics market is currently over 200 million US$ and growing very fast. Many companies are entering into market with their R & D and other business ventures.Dr. D. Y. Patil Biotechnology & Bioinformatics Institute, Akurdi, is located in sprawling Dr. D. Y. Patil complex in scenic Nigdi pradhikaran area. It is led by eminent Bioinformaticians, Biotechnologists, Molecular Biologists, Biochemists, Industrial Microbiologists, Plant & Animal Biotechnologists etc. The institute has state of art infra structure with well equipped laboratories, lecture theaters with LCD, overhead projectors, and Public address (PA) system. It has well equipped library and laboratories. The computer laboratory has sixty five personal computers with LAN connection and internet facilities. It has well equipped computer laboratory with ninety five personal computers with LAN connection and internet facilities through which students can access scientific literature, lectures by faculty, industry news which would help them to create general awareness in the discipline. It is also possible to access Bioinformatics databases and software, public domain software for molecular graphics and informatics in addition to in house software and application software from commercial vendors (e.g. Molecular Modeling packages:-MOE, Schrödinger, SYSTAT and HYPERCHEM).
The three days workshop on “Essentials of Computer Aided Drug Design” is aimed at providing an overview of several computational tools and their importance in contemporary drug design programs.
The workshop consists of lectures by eminent scientists in the field, demonstrations and hands on various computational tools such: Hyperchem, MOE and Schrödinger.
Dr. D Y Patil Biotechnology & Bioinformatics Institute
