N R Jena

Indian Institute of Information Technology, India

Title: Peptide and Non-peptide Therapeutics for the Inhibition of the Replication of SARS-CoV-2

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Biography

N.R. Jena is currently working as a permanent faculty at IIITDM Jabalpur. He has almost 15 years of research and teaching experience. He was a postdoctoral at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel and the National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan. He was a guest scientist at the German Cancer Research Centre, Germany and a visiting academic at the University of Queensland, Australia. For his excellent research works, he was conferred by several awards and research projects.

Abstract

COVID-19, originated in China, has severely affected lives and life-styles of humans. It has now affected domestic and other animals. Although emergency uses of vaccines have been permitted in several countries, their long term effects and efficacy are not yet fully known. It is also not known if these vaccines are effective on the new strains of SARS-CoV2 that causes COVID-19. Hence, it is necessary to design new drugs or repurpose approved drugs for the treatment of COVID-19. To design potent drugs, it is desirable to understand the molecular mechanisms of drug action. I will discuss our recent research works on the mechanisms of inhibition of the replication of SARS-CoV-2 by both repurposed, synthetic, and peptide inhibitors. I will also emphasize on strategies to target different active sites of the RNA-dependent-RNA polymerase of SARS-CoV-2 to inhibit the viral replication with higher potency.