Computational discovery of Natural Drugs against Tuberculosis

Drug design is necessary due to prevalence of multi drug resistant Tuberculosis, HIV co-infection and lack of patient compliance with the chemotherapy and inconsistent efficacy of BCG vaccine. Tuberculosis Research Centre, Chennai has published data on the prevalence of new TB cases which showed that the gradual raise in the prevalence of resistance for the drugs. Hence there is an urgent need to identify more potent and selective antituberculosis drugs that inhibit essential biosynthetic pathways of the bacterium.Natural products have taken a secondary role in drug discovery and drug development, after the advent of molecular biology and combinatorial chemistry made possible the rational design of chemical compounds to target specific molecules. Hence we used natural compounds as a basis for drug development. Hope our study will hold much promise for the development of new therapies against devastating tuberculosis.