IISER MOHALI

Abstract: RNA has emerged as a promising yet challenging class of drug targets in the last decade, where identifying functional ligands remains non-trivial. Early advances were largely driven by serendipitous discoveries of small molecules binding to structured RNAs. In this context, a bottom-up approach focuses on approaches to identify and characterize RNA binders or modulators of promising mRNA target for antibiotics. In contrast, the top-down approach starts from its functional ligand discovered serendipitously and seeks to define their minimal pharmacophore or scaffold through systematic structure–activity relationship (SAR) studies.