Vadodara: A team of MSU researchers has secured an Indian patent for a new class of chemical compounds that could potentially tackle malaria as well as bacterial and fungal infections, opening up the possibility of developing multi-target anti-infective drugs.The work, carried out at the Department of Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Technology and Engineering, claims to have produced a molecular framework that takes a different route from conventional antimalarial drugs. The patented compounds combine three chemical building blocks — coumarin, sulfonamide and piperazine — into a single hybrid framework.The researchers are Jaydev Rameshchandra Vaghela and Nidhi Ghanshyam Kahar, who carried out the work under the guidance of Prof Pradeep T. Deota. The patent was secured in seven months.Researchers say the innovation is significant because established antimalarial drugs such as quinine, quinidine and chloroquine typically rely on nitrogen-containing heterocyclic structures and other common structural features. The MSU researchers instead developed a structurally distinct scaffold by combining the oxygen-containing chremen-2-one (coumarin) framework with a sulfonamide group and a piperazine linker. The combination was designed to improve biological interactions and solubility while creating a new chemical class.Laboratory studies of the synthesized compounds showed activity against a range of pathogens, including Plasmodium falciparum (3D7 strain), the malaria parasite, as well as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Candida albicans and Aspergillus niger. The patent document states that the antimalarial activity of the compounds was comparable with chloroquine.The compounds are also proposed to act on dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR), an enzyme involved in folate metabolism and an important target in infectious diseases. This multi-pathogen activity is what gives the compounds their potential as broad-spectrum anti-infective agents.While the findings point to potential applications against multiple infectious agents, the researchers have cautioned that detailed studies of side effects are still underway, meaning the compounds remain at the research and development stage rather than being established medicines.
