As a chemical neuroscience researcher, my primary interest is to determine the mechanistic pathways involved in various neurodegenerative diseases and develop therapeutic agents. My focus has been mainly on the development of peptide and peptoid-based agents to inhibit the degeneration of neurons in neurodegenerative diseases, particularly Alzheimer's disease (AD). Neurodegenerative diseases have several pathways and aspects involved in their initiation and propagation. In the future, I would love to delve into this area more deeply and explore the following topics:

The brain consists of a vast number of neurons and glia. Although the number of glial cells is approximately ten times higher than that of neurons, they have not been studied in great detail. Recently, glial cells have gained more attention due to their crucial role in brain development and multiple functions in neural circuitry. In principle, neurons cannot function without glial cells. The question is how glial cells maintain the neural circuit and what their role is in brain development. Understanding the pathophysiological route of glial function is essential to prevent neuron degeneration in various brain diseases. Synapses also play a critical role in signal transduction in the central nervous system (CNS). Research on how synapses form in the brain, how signals efficiently transfer in this region, and the fate of these synaptic connections in disease conditions is a major area of interest.

One of the most vital components in the vertebrate nervous system is the myelin sheath. Glial cells, oligodendrocytes in the CNS and Schwann cells in the PNS, produce these insulating sheaths over axons to facilitate neural signal processing speed and efficiency, regulate axonal transport, and protect against axonal degeneration. Various factors maintain the speed of signal propagation. Any modification of myelin distribution significantly impacts neural circuit function. Also, the nature of myelin distribution is not fixed. In Alzheimer's disease, rapid myelin sheath degeneration occurs, which leads to a slowdown in neural signal propagation. Understanding why and how this myelin plasticity and degeneration occur and designing molecules to reduce or stop degeneration effectively is an essential research topic.

Besides this, I am interested in organic chemistry, synthesis, and characterization of new peptide and peptoid-based molecules for neurodegenerative diseases. Developing new platforms and strategies for the reconstitution of known biological events, receptor-based designing of new peptides and small molecule-based therapeutics, molecular docking, pharmacophore modeling, and SAR analysis for evaluating novel neuroprotective drugs are also areas of interest. Additionally, designing and developing various peptide or small molecule-based chemical tools/biomarkers that can efficiently label and differentiate the diseased brain from a healthy brain, and application of new sensor technologies for the detection of Alzheimer’s disease are other research interests of mine.