M. Iqbal chaudhary
International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences (H. E. J. Research Institute of Chemistry and Dr. Panjwani Center for Molecular Medicine and Drug Research), University of Karachi , Karachi-75270, Pakistan

Abstract:

Modern drug development is an expensive and lengthy process, which requires over $ 10 billion investments, and focused work of a large interdisciplinary team of scientists involving years of work and screening of thousands of compounds. This level of investment, and human resources are only available with the large multinational conglomerates (MNC). Unfortunately this situation has outnumbered, and outresourced the academic institutions and pharmaceutical R & D of developing nations. The role of academic institutions in drug development, particularly in developing countries, is gradually diminishing. Ironically, the decision of developing a drug by multinational companies is largely commercial, rather then human-need based. As a result, a large number of diseases, affecting the lives of poor population of the South, remain untreated. This situation demands a major re-thinking by pharmaceutical scientists who wish to serve the humanity through the skill they posses. This process of changing the attitude requires an overall change in paradigm in drug development, which creates space for academic researchers, and R & D workers of developing nations to contribute in the discovery and development of drugs against diseases affecting their regions. This change in paradigm, in my opinions, must involve the effective use of indigenous knowledge and resources, cost effective pre-clinical and clinical studies, rapid and free-of-cost regulatory approval, etc. Natural products and their traditional uses can play a very important role in drug development for poor by researchers of developing world. A mission-based approach is required to increase the access to drugs and drug development process, parallel to MIT’s $ 100 laptop. Perhaps a new mission is waiting to be initiated, so called $ 100,000 drug development. During this presentation some examples of cost-effective discovery of lead molecules, based on indigenous resources, and knowledge will be discussed.

Epilepsy is among the leading neurological disorders in the world. Antiepileptic medicines currently used suffered from several problems. The prolong use of synthetic epileptic drugs cause neurotoxicity and other side effects. Thus the ultimate goal is to develop ideal antiepileptic agents those are safe, specific, effective, orally bioavailable, and address the underlying problem. Based on this need, we screened a large number of medicinal plants used for the treatment of epilepsy in folk medicines. As a result of this systematic search, two potent antiepileptic constituents, isoxylitones A and B, along with their precursors, were isolated from the plants of Delphenium and Aconitum genera, which were than used to built libraries of analogues to study their SAR.

Diabetes is an old disease which poses a new challenge to the human well being. It is characterized by hyperglycemia, and associated complications. It is the third major cause of death, after cancers and heart diseases. Among different therapeutic interventions, the discovery of effective a-glucosidase inhibitors, and antiglycating agents are considered to be the most important one. Primary focus of our studies has been to discover lead bioactive molecules by using appropriate conventional and mechanism-based biological screening techniques from plants used as antidiabetic agent in folk culture. As a result, a large number of potent antiglycation agents of natural origin were discovered and SAR were conducted. Many of these compounds represent new examples of inhibitors a-glucosidase, and glycation .