The Sadhukhan Lab @ IIT Palakkad
Department of Chemistry

Natural products have been the bedrock of drug discovery for decades. A significant number of approved drugs belong to this category. The structural diversity of natural products makes them uniquely qualified for drug discovery. Our lab is actively working with various natural polyphenols to understand their mechanism of action as well as how one can structurally modify them so that they can be better therapeutic agents and translated to clinical applications. One of the polyphenols that we are currently working on is epigallocatechin-3-gallate or commonly known as EGCG, the major green tea polyphenol. The main pitfall of EGCG is its low bioavailability and the poor lipophilicity of EGCG is directly related to reduced membrane permeability and rapid elimination from the body. We aim to execute strategic chemical transformations to EGCG to get more active molecules with improved pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics.