NEOPHARMA NUTSHELL COMMUNITY

New Delhi: The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has issued a notification to further amend the Medical Devices Rules, 2017, introducing specific qualification requirements for Inspectors and Government Analysts involved in the regulation of medical devices. The notification, published in the Gazette of India, under G.S.R. 165(E), states that the amendments have been made in exercise of the powers conferred under sub-section (1) of section 12 and sub-section (1) of section 33 of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, after consultation with the Drugs Technical Advisory Board. The ministry noted that a draft of these amendment rules was earlier published in the Gazette of India, Extraordinary, Part II, Section 3, Sub-section (i), vide G.S.R. 748(E) dated October 10, 2025, inviting objections and suggestions from stakeholders within a period of thirty days from the date on which copies of the Official Gazette were made available to the public. Copies of the Gazette containing the dra...

For decades, structure-based drug discovery started with one simple question: “Do we have a protein structure?” If the answer was yes, researchers could design drugs using X-ray crystallography or Cryo-EM structures. If the answer was no, scientists relied on homology modeling tools such as: • SWISS-MODEL – Automated template-based modeling • MODELLER – Comparative protein structure modeling framework • Phyre2 – Fold recognition and remote homology detection • I-TASSER – Threading and fragment assembly-based prediction These tools revolutionized structural bioinformatics. But they had one limitation. They depend on existing structural templates. Then AI changed the rules. New deep-learning models can now predict protein structures directly from sequence data. Some of the most impactful tools include: • AlphaFold (DeepMind) • RoseTTAFold (University of Washington) • ESMFold (Meta AI) • OmegaFold • ProteinMPNN (AI protein design) • RFdiffusion (Generative protein design) Why this matters...

  If you are a researcher, academic, or student looking to publish your work, you need to be aware of one of the biggest threats in modern academia: predatory journals. These fake or low-quality publications charge researchers hefty article processing fees while providing no real peer review, no editorial standards, and zero scientific credibility. This updated 2026 guide is based on the well-known Beall’s List — a resource originally compiled by librarian Jeffrey Beall and now maintained at beallslist.net. Whether you’re a researcher in India, the US, Europe, or anywhere else in the world, this post will help you identify and avoid journals that could damage your academic reputation. What Is a Predatory Journal? A predatory journal is a publication that exploits the open-access publishing model for profit. Instead of upholding rigorous academic standards, these journals: Charge authors to publish without providing legitimate peer review Use deceptive names that mimic reputable jou...