Dr. Prateek Pandya

Brief Biography:

I have been actively involved in the investigation of the phenomenon of drug-receptor interactions. I have studied the interaction of indole based compounds of synthetic and natural origin with duplex DNA sequences. The binding investigations of small alkaloids with RNA have also been carried out and published. Broadly, my work involves spectroscopic investigations, thermodynamic investigations, structural biology and computation chemistry and biology.

The focus of my work so far is to find out the binding modes of various anticancer molecules with DNA and the evaluation of energetic components of binding. I am also doing some synthetic chemistry to prepare compounds with variable DNA binding profile. In addition, I am doing the comparison between the experimental and computational results of DNA binding in order to establish the correctness of the binding model. Computational approaches offer tremendous possibilities for modern science. However, the usefulness of computation can only be realized when its results match with reality. For example, many molecular docking protocols provide marginal accuracy viz-a-viz experimental results. This shows the need to rationalize the technique before applying to real world problems. My work is a small step in that direction.

I have published a few papers where I have highlighted this concept of comparison. I am presently exploring the questions like how spectroscopic and computational results are comparable? which docking algorithm provides better results for drug-receptor binding model, etc.

Academic positions:

Research Associate on a research project sponsored by the Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India since 2009.

Research interests:

Drug-Receptor Interactions, Biomolecular Spectroscopy, Molecular Docking.

What I think of the idea behind WebmedCentral:

The concept of open and easy publication of scientific data is indeed a positive step in the right direction. Webmedcentral can be a game changer in the arena of scientific publishing if it maintains certain standards. My suggestion to the authors of webMedCentral is to provide detailed methodologies in their papers so that people who wish to repeat the work can do so with ease. In addition, the details will also show that various aspects of the investigation were covered thoroughly. Overall its a great start towards a bright future of scientific publishing.