Research Interest

[1] Chemical Biology:

•  Nucleic Acids Recognition and Therapeutics: Stabilization of non-Watson-Crick nucleic acid structures, e.g., A-motif, C-motif, i-motif & G-quadruplex DNA & RNA
• Cellular Delivery: Bioactive/Gene Delivery & Knockdown: Plasmid DNA, si-RNA, sh-RNA, aptamer delivery across eukaryotic cells; Cancer cell Targeting and Cancer Stem cells and in vivo study

[2] Biological Membranes:

• Lipid Design, Synthetic Molecular Membranes & Membrane Biophysics: Structure-Function Studies; Vesicles, Micelles, Signalling in Self-organizing Aggregates; Lipid-DNA Complexation; Lipid-protein Interactions
• Design & Synthesis of New Surfactants: Bolaamphiphiles, Gemini Surfactants, Ion-paired Amphiphiles, Metallo-surfactants, Multi-headed Surfactants; Monolayer films etc.

[3] Supramolecular Chemistry:

• Molecular Design of Soft Materials: Investigation of the resulting materials using a variety of physical methods, e.g., rheology, probe-fluorescence, SANS, SAXS, XRD, DSC, AFM / SEM / TEM / CFM / POM etc.
• Hydrogels & Organogels: The evolution and design of new gelators & characterization of the resulting gels.
• Notable Applications with Gels: Phase-selective gelation; Gels for sustained pheromone release toward live insect control in fruit orchard.
• Molecular Probes: Sensors and probes for analytical & bio-analytical chemistry. Detection of biologically relevant species and environmentally hazardous ions and materials at nanogram level.

[4] Nanoscience & Technology:

• Nanocarbon-composites
• Metal Nanoparticle-composites
• Nanobiotechnology and its applications in Agriculture, Nanomedicine