Fungi Bioactive Metabolites: Integration of Pharmaceutical Applications

This book presents the exploration and exploitation of various bioactive metabolites obtained from  fungi isolated from diverse habitats for pharmaceutical applications. Various fungal sources have been brought under one umbrella ranging from endophytes, marine fungi, endolichenic fungi to fungi existing in the extremophilic conditions like desert and Antarctica and Artic environment. The book tries to cover maximally the range of the pharmaceutical applications wherein these bioactive agents from fungi have been exploited or are in the clinical pipelines and primarily include antibacterial, antifungal, antibiofilm, anticancer, antioxidant, autoimmunological, anti-inflammatory, and anti-thrombotic diseases. The book further emphasizes on the novel strategies to screen or enhance secondary metabolite production. Some other topics includes peptides, nonpeptides drugs, pigments, and enhancement of production of Echinocandin and Kojic acid. The role of bioinformatics in drug discovery and biotransformations have also been discussed.

This book is going to be a comprehensive treatise and a valuable source for mycologists, biotechnologists, microbiologists, biotechnologists, and undertaking research in pharmaceutical sector as well as academia in setting up their research aspirations for using fungi in the process of drug discovery and development. 

Dr. Sunil Kumar Deshmukh is Scientific Advisor to Greenvention Biotech, Uruli-Kanchan, Pune, India, and Agpharm Bioinnovations LLP, Patiala, Punjab, India. Veteran industrial mycologist spent a substantial part of his career in drug discovery at Hoechst Marion Roussel Limited (now Sanofi India Ltd.), Mumbai, and Piramal Enterprises Limited, Mumbai. He has also served TERI-Deaken Nano Biotechnology Centre, TERI, New Delhi, and as an adjunct associate professor at Deakin University, Australia. He has to his credit 8 patents, 150 publications, and 20 books on various aspects of fungi and natural products of microbial origin. He is a president of the Association of Fungal Biologists (AFB) and a past president of the Mycological Society of India (MSI). He is a fellow of Mycological Society of India, the Association of Biotechnology and Pharmacy, the Society for Applied Biotechnology, and Maharashtra Academy of Science. Dr. Deshmukh serves as a referee for more than 20 national andinternational journals. He has approximately four decades of research experience in getting bioactive from fungi and keratinophilic fungi.

Dr. Jacqueline Aparecida Takahashi is a full professor at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (Brazil). For more than two decades, she has been studying routes to modulate fungal secondary metabolism, and she has been dedicated in recent years to issues related to access to Brazilian biodiversity, in reference to international treaties. She is a member of the Disciplinary Nucleus of Bioactive Natural Products of the Montevideo Group Universities Association (AUGM). She has to her credit 8 patents, 183 publications, and 12 book chapters on natural products from plants and fungi. She is a member of the Brazilian Society of Chemistry (SBQ) and of the Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science (SBPS). She serves as a referee for more than 20 national and international journals.

Dr. Sanjai Saxena currently an academic and researcher with over two decades of experience in bio-tech research and development He is currently a full professor in the Department of Biotechnology, Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology (Patiala), India. He has embarked upon his journey as an innovator turned entrepreneur and founded a startup, Agpharm Bioinnovations LLP with a pursuit to address the ever-arising unanswered pharmaceutical and agricultural sector needs. He continually focuses on exploring and exploiting novel biomolecules drawn from biological systems and their interactions in nature, particularly plant-microbe interactions. Prof. Saxena, focuses his research primarily on microbial secondary metabolites, microbial diversity and bioprospecting, biochemistry, and drug discovery. His research work has resulted in significant extramural funding, 4 patents, over 78 peer-reviewed publications in referred research journals, 12 book chapters, and 1 book on applied microbiology to his credit. Dr. Saxena is a fellow of Association of Advancement of Biodiversity Science, Karnataka. Prof. Saxena serves as a referee for approximately 25 peer-reviewed journals apart from being on editorial board of a couple of them.