Dengue is an emerging arthropod-borne disease in Kerala. Though the disease has become more common in recent years, little effort has been made to characterize the viruses that are circulating in Kerala. Our study aims at characterizing the serotypes of Dengue virus causing the disease out-breaks in Kerala at molecular level by viral genome analysis. Our work also involves development of NS3 protease based assays for screening natural products form herbal and marine sources for anti-dengue molecules.

A new drug discovery paradigm for managing infectious diseases has emerged that, in contrast with conventional pathogen – targeting strategies, focus on identifying and targeting those hijacked host factors which are exploited by pathogens for its survival and growth in a hostile cellular environment. My work will focus on studying the host /virus interaction during chikungunya infection, and aims to identify the role of innate immune response mediators and receptors involved in anti-viral responses.

Many host factors play important roles in the intricate host- virus interaction network and exerts either positive or negative impact on viral replication. My work is focused on the profiling of these factors during chikungunya infection. This will throw light on the modulation of genes which are involved in regulating viral replication and mediating innate antiviral defense in the host during Chikungunya infection.

The re-emergence of chikungunya (CHIK) has generated a need to evolve control measures including therapeutic and vaccination strategies. This is also necessitated by the fact that unusual complications, along with suspected incidences of mortality, were observed in recent outbreaks with this virus, infection with which is otherwise considered benign. Major aim of my work will be the evaluation of chikungunya virus inhibitory activity of natural products using whole virus and replicon systems in cell-based and animal models.

The present study aims to develop a screening assay for identifying novel anti -Hepatitis C virus compounds. The assay will be for inhibition of NS3/4 protease, a viral enzyme important in early replication stages in the intracellular environment. A cell -based reporter assay system will be employed for measuring the antiviral potential of new compounds or medicinal plant extracts.

Though a successful vaccination strategy has been developed for Hepatitis B, the effective therapeutic managenment of the previously infected chronic hepatitis B patients is a challenging task. As the pathogenesis of chronic infection has a very strong immunological angle, understanding the modulators of the immune response in this infection is important. Our study focuses on chemokines, the key players in immune response in modulating the gene expression during hepatitis B virus infection. We currently use a duck hepatitis B infection model, where in we have previously generated information on the characterization of important chemokine molecules. The primary focus is to understand the changes in gene expression profiles in virus infected hepatocytes upon treatment with chemokines, and co-relate the information to the immunopathogenesis, poor viral clearance and chronicity of the infection.