In August, Sudeshna Roy, PhD, a new associate professor at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, moved into offices and lab space on the fifth floor of the College of Pharmacy building, bringing with her a postdoctoral scholar, five doctoral students, and more than 2,000 chemicals.
Formerly of the University of Mississippi College of Pharmacy, the Roy Lab brings new ideas, projects, and funding to UT Health Science Center.
Dr. Roy, a researcher of chemical entities in drug discovery, was recently funded by two substantial NIH grants, including the prestigious Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award. She brings a modern approach to research and lab management, which she believes will produce exciting results to help treat common and complex diseases and improve global health.
Dr. Roy and her team focus on redesigning drug compounds to enhance their efficacy and optimize them for better patient outcomes. “We make molecules,” she said. “We are essentially molecular architects.” Her team focuses on creating better pharmaceuticals for the future by studying drugs at a molecular level, analyzing their chemical and biological properties. “We create these molecules, develop new architectures, and apply them to various disease focus areas,” Dr Roy said.
The new molecular architectures created in Dr. Roy’s laboratory are used in pursuit of advancing antibiotics to treat diseases such as tuberculosis, bacterial infections caused by Mycobacterium abscesses, MRSA, a methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and antifungals for fungal infections caused by Cryptococcus neoformans. The process starts with identifying molecules that show activity against specific pathogens. Dr. Roy and her lab assess issues with these molecules to decide if a new synthetic approach or technology is required while exploring their potential biological applications. Her lab optimizes these molecules by modifying their structure to improve drug-like qualities to develop lead molecules. Ultimately, they utilize these molecules in various infectious diseases to improve global health.
Tuberculosis and Improving Underserved Patient Outcomes
A primary focus of the lab since its inception is fighting Tuberculosis (TB). TB is an ancient disease that impacted more than 10.8 million people in 2023, particularly in developing countries. The fight against TB is personal for Dr. Roy, who grew up in West Bengal in eastern India, where the disease is ever present.
“There is just one vaccine for TB, and there is a huge need for an antibiotic or a combination of antibiotics that can shorten the treatment regimen,” Dr. Roy said. “Our goal is to develop oral drugs that underprivileged people can afford.”
Recently, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health awarded a five-year, $3.9 million grant to Dr. Roy and her longtime collaborator Professor Christina Stallings, PhD, of Washington University in St. Louis, to study the development of 1,2,4-triazolyl compounds and their derivatives as a new treatment for tuberculosis.
“We have made some amazing discoveries over the past couple of years,” Dr. Roy said. “Now, we are trying to understand the molecules we discovered, how they work, how they combat TB, and what else they can do.”
UT Health Science Center’s First NIH MIRA Award
The prestigious, over $1 million Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) of the National Institutes of Health provides funding for Dr. Roy and her lab to study applications of fluorine-containing molecules in drug discovery. This is the first MIRA granted to a UT Health Science Center scientist.
NIH designed the MIRA to provide investigators with greater stability and flexibility to explore new ideas that arise in their research, thereby enhancing scientific productivity and the chances for important breakthroughs.
“Science is a moving target, and we make discoveries that may or may not be predictable,” Dr. Roy said. “The MIRA grant enables us to pursue those different and new research directions.”
Introducing fluorine into organic molecules and pharmaceuticals offers several advantages because of its unique properties. Despite the advancements in the area that led to the surge of fluoro-pharmaceuticals, some aspects remain understudied.
“There are lots of properties associated with fluorine that remain understudied and are not predictable; hence, it’s commonly known as an enchanted atom,” Dr. Roy said. “We are trying to tap into studying their unpredictable properties and how we can harness them in drug discovery. You stick fluorine in a molecule, and the bond between carbon and fluorine is so strong that it lasts for a long time.”
For example, by altering the drug molecule with fluorine atoms, the drug has the potential to create better patient outcomes by allowing it to resist metabolism in areas of the body that often limit the drug’s effectiveness.
Mentorship, Collaboration, Creativity, and Critical Thinking
If you hear more music on the fifth floor than usual, it’s probably the Roy Lab. Creativity, self-expression, and personal freedom are critical to Dr. Roy’s management style.
Dr. Roy emphasizes her role in mentoring her students, scholars, and trainees is to allow them the space to be creative, come up with new ideas, and work together as a team.
Her commitment to mentoring students is embodied in what she calls the “three C’s” central to her laboratory: creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration. This common theme in her work enhances her students’ experience and learning, and it improves research outcomes. “If you can think critically, pursue new ideas, and do it collaboratively, you can pretty much do anything you want,” Dr. Roy said. “Ultimately, when people graduate from my lab or as postdoctoral scholars, they move on to the next opportunity and tend to flourish. Here, we truly foster and nurture collaboration and creativity.”
As Dr. Roy continues her work at the UT Health Science Center College of Pharmacy, she remains dedicated to improving health outcomes for underserved populations through her research and the mentorship of future leaders in pharmaceutical science.
The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. Research reported in this press release was supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under award number R35GM150768 and by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health under award number R01AI181316.