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CSIR, RSC ink agreement to advance research in cheminformatics

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Press Trust of India New Delhi
Last Updated : Jan 29 2013 | 9:45 PM IST

The agreement signed today by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research between its Open Source Drug Discovery (OSDD) initiative and the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) envisions conducting workshops and conferences to build links between experts and leaders in the coming years.

The partnership will focus on jointly building an online repository of real and virtual molecular structures along with developing free-to-use software tools for drug discovery and development, a government release said.

It also aims at exploring the possibility of advancing OSDD's e-learning program for students, the release said.

On the occasion, Science and Technology Minister S Jaipal Reddy, said, "The Royal Society of Chemistry has undoubted strength in the field of chemistry. This strength will now be coupled with the strengths of the OSDD programme, deployed to improve the innovation for neglected diseases."

Reddy stressed on the importance of scientific institutions to work towards finding solutions for problems that predominantly affect the poorer sections of the society, like the need for new drugs for tuberculosis, malaria and kala-azar (leishmaniasis).

Samir K Brahmachari, Director General CSIR and Chief Mentor OSDD, underlined the importance of this collaboration for finding new drugs for neglected diseases like TB.

David Phillips, the RSC Immediate Past President, said, "Through this agreement, the CSIR and RSC are responding to the challenge of 'lost data'

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First Published: Jan 29 2013 | 9:45 PM IST

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