Research activities at the department are primarily aimed at the delineating and mechanistically describing the plant secondary metabolites related biosynthetic pathways and their steps, through structural and functional characterization of the relevant genes/ proteins/metabolites involved on important MAPs as Withania somnifera, Centella asiatica, Neem, mint and Ocimum. The ultra-modern techniques such as transcriptome mapping, RNAi, genetic transformation on one hand and on other hand conventional approaches to generate knowledge for the holistic understanding of various physiological and regulatory issues of the biogenetic processes for the commercially important metabolites are utilized. The bioinformatics aspects of molecular modeling, computational biology and chemistry, e.g., the study of molecular shape and properties, molecular simulations, protein modeling and drug design, structure activity, toxicity and property relationships, database mining and compound library design are also carried out. Crystallographic and crystal engineering studies of biologically active natural products and cytotoxic plant peptides are also pursued at the department.