Prof. M. Vijjulatha (born 1970) did her M.Sc (1992) and Ph.D (1998) in Chemistry from University of Hyderabad as Junior Research Fellow and Senior Research Fellow University college of Science (CSIR, New Delhi, India). She joined as faculty in Department of Chemistry, University college of Science, Osmania University in December 1999 and has 25 years of research and 19 years of teaching experience. So far, she has supervised 9 PhD’s and presently guiding 10 students for their doctoral degree. Her area of Specialization is organic chemistry and research area is Molecular modeling and medicinal chemistry a sandwich of computational and synthetic organic chemistry. Thrust area of interest is computational design and synthesis of novel drug like molecules having high potency towards inhibition of HIV-1 with a special focus on non-trivial proteins and inhibition of proteins involved in signaling and transduction, DNA synthesis, angiogenesis, antiviral, antibacterial and antimalarial.  She has 83 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals with 418 citations to her credit. She is Fellow of Telangana academy of Sciences, member of American Chemical Society and Life Member of Indian Science Congress. She is a recipient of major research grants from - UGC (2008-2011 and 2013 - 2017); DST “Young Scientist Scheme” (Chemical Science), CSIR (2011-2014), DST-SERB: (2013-2017); Mentor for DST Women Scientist Scheme A (2013-2016), UGC UPE FAR OU (2014 and 2017),DST-PURSE Program (2017- 2021) and DST-SERB (2019- 2022). She has successfully completed seven research projects and has three ongoing projects. Her research group has presented 63 papers in national and international conferences and they have won best paper awards. The topics of her interest for teaching are Asymmetric synthesis, conformational analysis, Principles of Drug design and drug discovery, Lead modification and SAR Studies, QSAR studies and computer-aided drug design. 

Abstract OpenTox Asia 2019 

Computational analysis of mutations allows predicting drug resistance/sensitivity against inhibitors

Mutations play a vital role in enhancing the resistance/sensitivity towards the drug/inhibitor. Point mutations and compound mutations that span entire receptor can be computationally analyzed to predict drug sensitivity profile. Functional characterization and drug sensitivity profiling of mutations aids in stratification of patients with appropriate inhibitor/drug for treatment. A large scale computational analysis of clinically reported point mutations have been performed, and drug sensitivity profiles for each mutation towards inhibitors has been determined by molecular docking studies. This approach was employed to predict drug sensitivity of  234 point mutations reported in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) patients, 298 mutations in Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) Kinase domain and 72 mutations in Human Immunodeficiency Virus, HIV-1 Protease. The computational data generated in these studies correlated well with the published experimental/clinical data. In addition the drug sensitivity profile was analyzed for the mutations by docking Imatinib, used as front-line therapy for Philadelphia-positive chronic myeloid leukemia as well as next generation ABL inhibitors Nilotinib, Dasatinib, Bosotinib, Axitinib and Ponatinib. EGFR Kinase domain drug sensitivity profile was checked using seven kinase inhibitors Gefitinib, Erlotinib, Lapatinib, Docotinib, Afatinib, Vandetinib and Neratinib. The drug sensitivity of eight inhibitors of HIV-1 Protease - Tipranavir, Amprenavir, Atazanavir, Squainavir, Darunavir, Indinavir, Lopinavir, Nefinavir was patterned. A large scale computational study provides comprehensive sensitivity/resistance profile towards specific inhibitors which may help clinicians in deciding mutant-specific treatment strategies.