Research Projects

Diabetes is a prevalent lifestyle disease, with India being the second most affected country globally. Around 90-95% of diabetics in India are type 2 due to insulin resistance, which means they have insulin but cannot control blood glucose levels. Type 1 diabetics lack beta cells in their pancreas, which are responsible for insulin production. Insulin metabolism and blood sugar levels are regulated by insulin, but controlling blood glucose levels is particularly challenging for type 2. To control blood glucose levels, inhibiting carbohydrate hydrolyzing enzymes like α-glucosidase and Human Pancreatic Amylase (HPA) is crucial. HPA aids in glucose production by cutting long chain carbohydrates into shorter fragments that are further digested by α-glucosidase to monomer glucose. Several drugs, such as acarbose, miglitol, and viglibose, are used as α-glucosidase inhibitors, but only a few have been approved clinically and marketed globally due to low specificity and side effects. Montbretin A (MbA), a natural product isolated from Crocosmia sp, has potential to selectively inhibit HPA activity, controlling blood glucose levels by blocking HPA and stopping the fragmentation of undigested starch. This project aims to develop a synthetic process for MbA using electrochemical methods to control the stereoselectivity of glycosidic linkage. The stereoselective glycosylation reaction remains a significant challenge in carbohydrate chemistry, and recent developments have encouraged the glycoscience community to take on the challenge of synthesizing complex carbohydrate molecules. The project aims to develop a practical and useful method for synthesizing flavone glycoside derivatives related to Montbretin A.