ABSTRACT:
Drug development is a challenging area and discovery of novel therapeutic deserves great effort. Most of the difficult-to-treat diseases including virus infections do not have proper drugs or treated with the nucleic acid derivatives that block certain viral enzymes or host-mediated process, but are unable to (i) clear the pathogen from the host, (i) prevent or cure recurrent infections, (iii) often lead to the development of viral resistance with adverse drug-reactions, recurrence and viral latency. Moreover, the emergence of new pathogens and the re-emergence of old pathogens require new and effective drug. Thus, the scientific community is exploring the natural resource for new non-nucleoside leads. On the other hand, Century old traditional medicines of India including Ayurveda, based on the cultural beliefs and practices, are less explored against viral diseases. Although many traditionally used medicaments of diverse cultures including Indian folklores showed promising anti-viral activities on genetically diverse viral families with complementary and overlapping mechanism of action by inhibiting specific steps of viral life cycle or host cell modulation. This presentation will portray the detailed study on few of those promising traditionally used plants evaluated in our Institute against microbial infections, along with the bioactivity guided study of one such plant on Herpes Simplex Virus infections to establish its mechanism of action with efficacy in animal model.