MotM Submission

This research looks to understand possible treatment methods for pathogenic fungus, one example of such a pathogenic fungus being Magnaporthe grisea. Magnaporthe grisea is an example of a pathogenic fungus, it causes what is more commonly known as rice blasts. Rice being one of the most common, and arguably important crops within the world, rice blast disease can be quite detrimental for human living. 

The intended path of the research involves the construction of a biological model of the thymidylate kinase enzyme from both magnaporthe grisea and plant enzyme, through the website and application swiss modeler. With the creation of the model, I can look to then researching known anti-fungal treatments in both contexts of human medicine and agriculture. Specifically I plan to use molecular docking to determine if known thymidylate kinase inhibitors can specifically inhibit the fungal enzyme. I plan to use AutoDock Vina, an open source application that allows for the simulation of molecular docking and analysis of known compounds that treat other pathogens. I hope to find present treatments that could inhibit the effects of magnaporthe grisea. I will use molecular dynamics (using NAMD) to refine models of the docked drugs.