Current Research interest
- Design, synthesis of Cu(II) /Zn(II) complexes with hard-soft donor ligands with incorporation of additional heterocyclic-N donor adducts to enhance their biological properties.
- DNA binding studies with the synthesized metal complexes to determine their binding mode and propensity.
- DNA cleavage activity under hydrolytic and oxidative conditions to ascertain the cleavage pathway.
- Protein binding studies to gain insight of the interaction between the metal complexes and human serum albumin (HSA).
- Molecular docking studies to investigate the interaction of ligand with protein and find the preferential binding site.
- To conduct cytotoxicity studies to determine the antiproliferative effect of the synthesized metal complexes on cancerous and noncancerous cells.
- To analyze the apoptotic potential of the complexes using nuclear staining assays and study the cell cycle analysis by flow cytometry.
- ROS mediated cytotoxicty studies
Collaborations outside BITS
IIT Madras: for characterization studies like EPR, X-Ray cyrstallography
NCCS (Pune) : for anticancer studies
CLRI (Chennai) : for anticancer studies
CDRI (Lucknow): for cytotoxicity studies
Research
Project completed
1. SERB DST Extra Mural Research
Funding Individual Centric (EMR/2017/001562) as PI
Start date: 06-11-2018
Date of completion: 05-05-2022
Title: Synthesis
of mononuclear as well as homo and hetero dinuclear complexes of Cu(II) and
Zn(II) with hard-soft donor ligands and evaluation of their anticancer
activities.
Project proposals submitted
1. SERB POWER as PI
Title: DNA, HSA, Graphene Quantum Dot interaction
studies with Cu(II) complexes of N,O/S donor Schiff base having the
potential to serve as anticancer agents
Date of submission: 19-01-2024
2. ICMR Investigator-Initiated
Research Proposals for Small Extramural Grants as PI
Title:
Novel metal complexes of Schiff bases as
alternative therapeutics against major global threats: Cancer and Antibacterial
resistance
Date of submission: 11-03-2024
3. CDRF as
PI
Title: Harnessing
metal complexes with versatile ligands to develop novel antibacterial and
anticancer agents
Date of submission: 19-03-2024
Research Guidance
1. Ms.
Sidhali Uday Parsekar joined on 20-1-2017 as PhD student under Institute
fellowship and she has successfully completed her PhD in March 2022. Thesis
title: “Synthesis, DNA/HSA interactions, cytotoxicity and anticancer
activity of some Cu(II)/Zn(II) complexes with chelating ligands”
2. Ms Priyanka Velankanni joined as junior research fellow in SERB DST-EMR funded project and worked from 31-12-2018 to 7-3-2020. Project title: “Synthesis of mononuclear as well as homo and hetero dinuclear complexes of Cu(II) and Zn(II) with hard-soft donor ligands and evaluation of their anticancer activities”.
3. Ms. Kumudini Paliwal. joined as junior project fellow in SERB DST-EMR funded project on 1st Oct 2020, and she is currently doing PhD. (Proposed Thesis title: “Studies on DNA/Protein interactions and antiproliferative activity of some Cu (II) complexes containing hard-soft donor ligands”)