Professors from IIT-M, ICMR-NIRRCH develop biological approach against fungal pathogen

CHENNAI: The Wadhwani School of Data Science and AI (WSAI) at Indian Institute of Technology Madras, and ICMR-National Institute for Research in Reproductive and Child Health (ICMR-NIRRCH) have developed a one-of-a-kind approach to fight 'Candida albicans' (CAL), a fungal pathogen.

The pathogen is a major global health threat with a high mortality rate of up to 63.6 per cent. The biology approach was developed after research identified novel weak points in the pathogen's metabolism, impacting the development of improved antifungal drugs to bypass resistance, enhance patient survival, reduce mortality and treatment costs.

A press note from IIT-M read that the multidisciplinary approach employed an integrated systems biology approach - combining large-scale computational modelling and experimental validation - to identify unknown critical metabolic vulnerabilities in CAL.

The rise of drug-resistant strains and the lack of new antifungal drugs underline the urgent need for new therapeutic options. The current drug discovery methodologies often rely on traditional trial-and-error screening, a time-consuming and inefficient process for identifying novel targets.

The research was led by Professor Karthik Raman, Centre for Integrative Biology and Systems medicinE (IBSE) at WSAI, IIT Madras and Professor Susan Thomas, ICMR-NIRRCH, Mumbai.

The findings have been published in Cell Communication and Signaling, a reputed peer-reviewed journal. The paper was co-authored by Shuvechha Chakraborty, Indumathi Palanikumar, Yash Gune and Susan Idicula-Thomas from ICMR-NIRRCH and KV Venkatesh, a professor from IIT-Bombay.

Highlighting the importance of this research, Karthik Raman said, "This groundbreaking novel research is vital for diversifying and improving antifungal drugs to bypass resistance. It also aims to improve patient survival, reduce mortality and lower treatment costs."