The research in my group can be summarized as investigations of the molecular mechanisms of action, rational design, and syntheses of potential medicinal agents, particularly for infectious diseases caused by viruses, bacteria and mycobacteria. Numerous drugs are known to function as specific inhibitors of particular enzymes. When there is knowledge about the enzyme’s 3D structure and molecular mechanism of action, molecular modeling studies can be performed to determine reasonable binding mode of the potential ligands to the target enzyme. On the basis of the proposed mechanism of enzyme action, inhibitors are designed and synthesized. Organic synthesis is a primary tool for this work. The enzymes are isolated from either mammalian tissue or from overexpressed cells containing recombinant enzymes.
