Sumana Ghosh, PhD

Sumana Ghosh, PhD

Medicinal Chemist with 17+ year experience in drug discovery
India
English
Academic affiliation

An achievement-oriented professional with experience in R&D including new drug discovery, medicinal  chemistry and patent drafting. Actively involved in various antimicrobial and oncology projects starting from target selection to hit identification, hit to lead development, preclinical till clinical stage.

Individual
Company

Skills

Hit identification
Hit to lead
Physchem property prediction
Fragment based drug discovery
PROTACs
Total synthesis
Covalent inhibitor chemistry
Ligand-based drug design
Patenting, IP, documentations
Allosteric modulators
Molecular dynamics

About

I am currently leading medicinal chemistry team of an oncology company based in USA (San Francisco) and director of medicinal chemistry in a drug discovery company based in India. I am leading many oncology projects starting from target selection to hit identification using generative chemistry and AI model.  Our proprietary platform delivers high success rate (50+%) in obtaining hit molecules from commercial library followed by developing lead molecule with excellent bioavailability and PK properties. Our customised platform for each project  deliver potent and selective molecule with high druggable characteristics. The platform offers minimum number of molecules that need to be synthesised unlike SAR studies. The turn over time from hit identification to lead optimisation is 1-1.5 year depending on target. We are keen on collaborating with university and biotech company for a serious drug discovery projects and ensure high success rate. In addition to oncology I have ten years’ experience in designing and synthesising new antimicrobial agents against recalcitrant fungus and bacteria. we have published six global patent applications and inventor of 15 granted patents.

Work experience

Head of Early Drug Discovery

Company:
Vyome Therapeutics Limited
Duration:
Aug 2010
-
Jun 2020
present

•       Involved in developing advanced chemistry and design strategies of different class of New Chemical Entities (NCEs) against recalcitrant fungal and bacterial infection. Leading a group of five people in early discovery and development project including design, synthesis and pre-formulation while collaborating with cross-functional departments.

•       Involved in developing innovative platform technologies and various drug delivery techniques for NCE candidates like topical emulsion, hydrogel, polymer encapsulated NP, bone cement and others.

•       Substantially involved in patent analysis by creating various search strategies and preparation of IP opinions on patentability.

Head of New Product Innovation (Drug Discovery)

Company:
Biotech company (USA)
Duration:
Aug 2020
-
present

•       Target selection and biomarker identification for developing precision therapy against various cancer.

•       Disordered protein structure prediction and development of small inhibitor molecules based on proprietary platform.

•       Biophysico-chemical characterisation of ligand-protein interaction. Lead molecule prediction by satisfying druggable properties using proprietary platform.

Director (Medicinal Chemistry)

Company:
Immunocure Drug Discovery
Duration:
Jan 2021
-
present

1. Target selection based on novelty and biological significance2. Executing drug discovery project starting from in silico  design of new structural scaffolds, AI platform to predict ADME and toxicity profile, Hit identification, Hit to Lead optimisation till pre-clinical development.3. IP analysis (Prior art and novelty analysis)4. Strategic planning of the projects

Education

University of Massachusetts (UMASS, Amherst)

Degree:
Postdoctoral Associate
Year of degree awarded:
2010

Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore (India)

Degree:
PhD
Year of degree awarded:
2006

Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore (India)

Degree:
M.S.
Year of degree awarded:
2001

Publications

Case STUDIES

A Rationally Designed Multifunctional Antibiotic for the Treatment of Drug-Resistant Acne

Acne is a multifactorial skin disease, underpinned by colonization of Propionibacterium acnes and inflammation. The emergence of resistant P. acnes strains has affected the current acne treatment algorithm. This setback served as an impetus for rationally designing a library of next-generation antibiotics that exhibit a bactericidal effect on resistant P. acnes and exert an immunomodulatory function to reduce inflammation. In silico screening showed that one of the molecules, VCD-004, exhibits improved mode of binding to bacterial DNA gyrase. VCD-004 shows high potency against clinical isolates of resistant P. acnes and excellent efficacy in vivo. Furthermore, VCD-004 exhibits a superior mutant prevention index, suggesting that it impedes the development of resistance better than clindamycin. Additionally, it shows optimal skin penetration and has a potent anti-inflammatory effect via reduction of proinflammatory cytokines (IL-6) independent of its antibacterial action. VCD-004 affects P. acnes-induced nuclear accumulation of NF-κB in THP-1 cells. The in vitro viability of human keratinocytes in the presence of VCD-004 indicates a desirable therapeutic window for topical use. Such rationally designed bactericidal and immunomodulatory dual pharmacophore-based lipophilic molecule(s) can emerge as the next-generation topical therapy for acne with underlying resistant P. acnes etiology.

Development of new generation anti-cancer drug against kinases and DNA damage repair systems.

Engineering a next-generation antibiotic-device combination for bone infections

Drug-resistant bacteria pose a major crisis in modern medicine. Next-generation antibiotics are urgently needed and should ideally meet three criteria: (1) Exhibit activity against drug-resistant bacteria, (2) Retard the development of new resistance, and (3) Engineered for delivery at the desired site of action. Here, we used an in silico modeling approach with wild type and mutated bacterial targets to engineer a library of novel antibiotics for bone infection, an emerging medical need. Screening this library for activity against multidrug-resistant clinical isolates, we identified VCD-077 as a next-generation antibiotic, which exhibited (i) potent activity against resistant strains, (ii) low propensity to generate resistance, (iii) excellent anti-biofilm activity, and (iv) compatibility with delivery from a bone cement matrix. A drug-device combination of VCD-077 with bone cement demonstrated greater efficacy than currently used predicate devices against Staphylococcal bone infection in vivo. Engineering such site-targeted antibiotic-device combination can address the emerging challenge of microbial resistance. We published the work in Nature Biomedical Engineering, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36229662/.