New Delhi Feb 18 PTI Researchers from Indian Institute of Technology IIT Delhi have designed and demonstrated a new strategy for developing potential drug molecules for treating various diseases According to the research team they utilised tools of Organic Chemistry and Biophysics to design molecules that target protein interface Drugs are mostly organic molecules that interact with molecules present in the human body The molecules in the body are bigger in size and are typically called macromolecules These molecules are either proteins or nucleic acids Presently computer-aided rational drug discovery is utilised to find target molecule for a particular protein target Still this takes a considerable amount of time said V Haridas Professor at IIT Delhis Chemistry Department The researchers have come up with a chemical strategy based on the macromolecular mimicry Molecules have shapes just like objects Designing and synthesizing molecules with diverse shapes is an art in itself Mimicking copying the macromolecular interface by uniquely shaped small molecules is an approach adopted by the research group he added They developed a universal privileged scaffold approach for the design of a variety of inhibitors The universal scaffold could be converted to specific inhibitor for a given Protein-Protein Interaction PPI which makes the drug design approach relatively easier We used this strategy to design drug molecules which could be useful for treatment of Japanese Encephalitis Virus JEV the main cause for viral encephalitis in Southeast Asian countries and protein aggregation diseases such as Alzheimers We have also patented the JEV inhibitor drug molecule said Haridas PTI GJS SMN