Scholar in residence 1 June – 15 July 2026
Dr. N. Arul Murugan is currently working as an associate professor in the Department of Computational Biology at Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology (IIITD), New Delhi. He received his Ph.D. in 2005 from SSCU, IISc, Bangalore, for his thesis work in computational materials science. He is leading the Neurocare Lab, which focuses on developing diagnostics and therapeutics for selected neurodegenerative and infectious diseases using computational approaches.
He uses a wide range of techniques for his research, namely molecular docking, molecular dynamics, free energy calculations, electronic structure calculations, ab initio molecular dynamics, hybrid QM/MM molecular dynamics, and hybrid QM/MM response calculations. He also works on developing QM- and AI-based methods for reliable prediction of drug-like properties, such as binding affinity, binding specificity, permeability, BBB permeability, solubility, and bioavailability. He is also interested in developing parallel algorithms for high-performance computing in life-science projects. He has published 153 articles in international peer-reviewed journals and 5 book chapters. Currently, he teaches the courses, Algorithms in Computational Biology and Chemoinformatics at IIITD.
Murugan will be working on developing Non-Caloric Sweeteners with Superior Taste and Safety Profiles for Obese and Diabetic Patients using physics-based and AI methods. During the current visit, molecular dynamics will be employed to study the interactions of known sweeteners with the sweetness-sensing GPCR receptor composed of T1R2 and T1R3, and the mechanism of sweetness.
Contact: arul.murugan@iiitd.ac.in
