Kuliah Tamu

Serangkaian dengan kegiatan ICMNS 2012, salah satu invited speaker yaitu Prof. Habibah A. Wahab : memberikan kuliah tamu pada:

Kamis, 8 November 2012
Pukul. 14.00
di R. Seminar Lantai 3 SF – ITB
dengan topik: “COMBINING NATURAL PRODUCT AND COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCES TO SPEARHEAD RESEARCH IN DRUG DISCOVERY”

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COMBINING NATURAL PRODUCT AND COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCES TO SPEARHEAD RESEARCH IN DRUG DISCOVERY
Habibah A Wahab, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia

Natural products have been sustainable and most consistently successful sources of new drugs. As a country blessed with mega-biodiversity, the prospect for discovering new drugs from 15,500 flowering species grown in Malaysia, coupled with rich knowledge of traditional uses of herbal remedies cannot be understated. However, to leverage this biodiversity for discovering new active pharmaceutical ingredients is still a great challenge. The development of bioactive compounds from natural products in drug discovery involves screening of natural products derived from plants and microorganisms and testing them for activity in animal models. This, however, is a slow and labour-intensive process. Thus, there is a need for better and faster search of active compounds from natural products. Advances in Computational Chemistry could undertake virtual high throughput screening at a rapid rate through utilization of Grid computing. In this talk, we will highlight our new data sharing system MyShare in fulfilling the need to share our knowledge, expertise and experience to take natural product research to a new level. In addition, an integrated system, NADI which means “pulse of life” in Malay language is a Natural Based Discovery resource has been developed with intended aim as a one-stop center for in silico drug discovery from natural products. NADI’s application in natural product drug discovery will be demonstrated through its application in the discovery of new potential lead compounds (e.g. for diabetes and influenza infections).

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A graduate in BSc in Science and Practice of Pharmacy from Liverpool John Moore University, Habibah A Wahab obtained her PhD in Pharmaceutical Technology from King’s College London, University of London in 1999. In 1999, Habibah joined Universiti Sains Malaysia, as a lecturer at the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences where she found a research group “Pharmaceutical Design and Simulation (PhD)” which focuses on research on drug discovery especially those utilizing structural bioinformatics and computer aided drug design approaches. In 2010 Habibah was promoted as a full professor in the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia. Presently, Habibah is the Director General, Malaysian Institute of Pharmaceuticals and Nutraceuticals, Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.

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