Five-Day, E-Faculty Development Program on “Computer aided Drug Design for Pharmaceutical Research and Development"4 sept 21

Day-1

The School of Medical and Allied Sciences (SoMAS), GD Goenka University had inaugurated Five-Day, e-Faculty Development Program on “Computer aided Drug Design for Pharmaceutical Research and Development" at university campus from 31 Aug. 2021 to 04 Sept. 2021. FDP commenced with a welcome address by Prof. Rohit Dutt, Dean, SoMAS wherein he welcomed the august virtual gathering and briefed about the theme of FDP. Chief Guest Prof. (Dr.) Markanday Ahuja, Vice Chancellor, Gurugram University, delivered the inaugural address. Wherein, he appreciated the efforts of faculties to organize virtual FDP on a theme of current interest. He also emphasised the importance of continuous learning in drug discovery and development for successful outcomes. The guest of honor Dr. Ragu Rangaswamy, Vice President, Schrodinger Inc., USA, spoke on the importance of computer-aided drug design, which optimises multiple characteristics at once, and how it will be serendipity to rational drug design. In addition to this two technical sessions were held on very first day. The first keynote address was delivered by Dr. Pritesh Bhat, Principal Scientist, Schrodinger Inc. USA on the topic, ““Introduction to Computational Drug Design”. In that, he reiterated the significance of enzyme conformations, docking, and simulation studies in computer-aided drug design, which is more cost-effective than the pre-clinical and clinical stages of drug development, and will be a proven paradigm shift in pharmaceutical research and development. The technical session was chaired by Prof. (Dr.) Neeraj Upmanyu, Principal and Professor, Department of Pharmacy, People's University, Bhopal. The second session was taken by Dr. Pawan Gupta Assistant Professor Ganpat University, Gujarat, India on “Introduction to In-silico methods for Drug Design and Discovery”. He presented different applications of rational and structure-based drug design, as well as the complete drug discovery process, in detail. Dr. Saloni Kakkar, Assistant Professor, MDU Rohtak's Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, brought the session to a close with her professional comments on the technical discussion. At last Prof. (Dr.) Shailendra Bhatt, Head of the Department, Department of Pharmacy, SoMAS, GD Goenka University, gave the vote of thanks.

Day-2

The second day of FDP began with an excellent presentation by Dr. Navjeet Ahalawat, Assistant Professor, Chaudhary Charan Singh University, Hisar, on the topic “Molecular dynamics simulation technique to quantify protein-ligand recognition pathway”. In real-time analysis, he explored the relevance of molecular dynamics in protein-ligand interactions and the importance of the Markov State Model in ligand binding routes. Dr. Girish Gupta, Professor at Sri Sai University in Pathankot, Punjab, presided over the session. Later, Mr. Kirpa Shankar Tiwari, Senior Research Mangaer, Formulation and Development Research, Sun Pharmaceutical Ltd. Gurugram, presented a great technical session on “Computer Added Formulation Development and Computational Modeling: Quality by Design (QbD)”. The presentation introduced everyone to the most up-to-date software used in the research industry for QbD studies. He also explained how to use QbD computational tools to assess the feasibility of an experiment and revealed the complete risk factor analysis associated with the proposed experiments. Dr. Anuj Malik, Associate Professor at MM University in Ambala, officiated over the session.

Day-3

Dr. Lalit Khurana, Senior Research Manager, Formulation and Development Research, Sun Pharmaceutical Ltd. Gurugram, began off the third day of the FDP with a fascinating talk on “Computer Simulations in Pharmacokinetics”. He discussed the significance of software-generated models as well as the function of computational tools in the development of innovative pharmacokinetic (PK) models. The purpose of this lecture is to acquaint everyone with the various commercial tools used by the pharmaceutical industry for bio-equivalence studies, optimising dosage forms, in-silico ADMET studies, ADR studies, drug delivery studies, and other purposes. Dr. Sudhir Bhardwaj, Director, Divine International Group of Institutions, Gwalior, M.P., India, chaired over the session. Afterwards, second technical session was delivered by Dr. Roshan Palewar, CEO, Global Pharma Leader, DocRosh Global Solutions, Navi Mumbai, on the topic “Artificial Intelligence in Drug Discovery and Development”. He explained how AI tools help scientists in the pre-clinical drug development process. AI is not only aiding in virtual trials, but it is also tremendously reducing the time and expense of the drug discovery process. Positive predication findings produced from AI aided research can help to enhance the overall success rate of discovery. Dr. Devesh U. Kapoor, Assistant Professor, Dr. Dayaram Patel Pharmacy College, Bardoli, Gujarat, India, officiated well over session. The last technical session of the day was delivered by Dr. Kunal Roy, Professor & Head, Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, on the topic, “DTC Lab QSAR Modeling and Validation Tools”. He emphasised the relevance of QSAR in the creation of new compounds in that speech. This presentation covered all of the major QSAR tools and approaches. In addition to pharmacophores mapping, QSAR is one of the finest approaches for determining a molecule's potency. The finest feature of QSAR is that it provides verified data for any medication or chemical without producing any harm to animals during experiments. Dr. Kumar Guarve, of Guru Gobind Singh College of Pharmacy in Yamuna Nagar, Haryana, India, presided over the session.

Day-4

Fourth day of FDP have started with technical session by Prof. (Dr.) Brijesh Kumaron, Professor, Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, BHU, Varanasi, on the topic “Role of computer in clinical development, data collection and management” and the Chairman for the lecture was Prof. Manish Kumar, Professor, Maharishi Markandeshwar University, Ambala. He has emphasised the significance of e-clinical software that may be utilised both commercially and academically. He further stated that the acquired data is converted into a master database in a central place while guaranteeing its confidentiality, validity, and completeness by creating quality assurance reports to track the trial's progress and using open source/free software. In the second half an interesting lecture was delivered by Mr. Sunil Kumar Prajapati, Sr. Lecturer, AIMST University, Malaysia, on the topic, “Current Scenario in Clinical Research in India”. He also presented regulatory bodies throughout the world with a thorough explanation of the medication approval procedure. He has depicted several drug regulatory organisations and their register platform websites from various nations. He had used a graph to show the increase in clinical trial registrations throughout the years. Dr. Ashish Baldi, Professor, Maharaja Ranjit Singh Punjab Technical University, Bathinda, Punjab, India, chaired over the session.

Day-5

Fifth day of e-FDP was started with the technical session of Mr. Shailendra Mangdeon on the topic entitled “Computer aided formulation development and computational modelling- Optimization Techniques” and the session was chaired by Dr. Amber Vyas, Assistant Professor, Pt. Ravishankar Shukla University, Raipur. Mr. Mangdeon emphasised the importance of research in higher education and illustrated the value of computer-aided approaches in medication development and formulation improvement. His expertise of target identification and factors during tablet formulation, pre-formulation research, analytical technique development and validation, and prototype formulation development answered all the participants' questions. econd technical session was delivered by Mr. Raj Kumar Singla, Drug Regulatory advisor, Ex-drug controller, FDA Haryana on topic, “Medical devices regulations in India- Registrations and approval process”. He emphasised the importance of the DCGI and CDSCO in medical device regulation and licencing in India. He has thoroughly described the classification of medical devices, the many types of licences, and the several portals for submitting applications for new medical device approval. The session was chaired by Dr. Vandana Garg, Assistant Professor, Department Of Pharmaceutical Sciences, MDU, Rohtak, Haryana. 

Dr. Deependra Singh, Member, Central Council, Pharmacy Council of India, was the valedictory session's Guest of Honor. He praised SoMAS' efforts in putting together an FDP on a timely topic with a diverse group of great speakers. Prof. Shailendra Bhatt gave a report on FDP, which was followed by a brief video presentation of each technical session. At the end, Dr. Rahul Pratap Singh, Co-Convener, gave a vote of thanks to all of the attendees, resource people, and colleagues. Prof. Rohit Dutt, Dean-SoMAS, gave a motivational valedictory talk to conclude the FDP.