Proteins are biological macromolecules and twenty natural amino acids are their building blocks. They carry out myriad of tasks of building, growth, repair, transport, messaging, catalysis and many more inside the cells of human body. Proteins possess unique shape, or technically speaking unique structure, which essentially govern their tasks (functions), and therefore details of their structure is required for drug discovery and engineering protein structure for their applications in industry. However, obtaining the knowledge of protein structure is not an easy task, requiring sophisticated crystallography and NMR experimental techniques or computational predictive methods having limited accuracy and serious quality concerns. To check the quality of protein structures, precisely speaking to validate protein structures, G.N. Ramachandran and co-workers came up with a brilliant idea in 1963, and proposed a two-dimensional map called Ramachandran map. Scientists with the help of this map can, not only identify problems in protein structures but also pinpoint specific amino acids having serious structural problems. The ability to analyse proteins containing tens of thousands of atoms by mere visual inspection made this a ubiquitous tool in molecular biology for modelling, structure analysis and understanding structure. Over the years, several new types of 2D and 3D Ramachandran maps have been proposed and there was lack of a proper platform, where such type of analysis can be readily made.

Prof. R.S. Rathore and his research scholar M. Kumar at the Department of Bioinformatics, Central University of South Bihar, Gaya, have developed a versatile tool called Ramplot after discussion with several experts. Prof. Rathore said that earlier there were few online servers available. Not only it was a tedious task but many types of analyses could not be made. Now, with this utility, one can generate different types of 2D and 3D Ramachandran maps, and many of the analysis can be easily accomplished such as examining structural preference of non-standard amino acids in protein design, or tracking structural transitions of amino acids during molecular simulations. The open access tool is available online at https://www.ramplot.in/, and for offline use, one can download the program at Github and other online repositories.  The work has been recently published in a Wiley Journal of Applied Crystallography, which has an impact factor of 5.2 as per Clarivate JCR 2024 report.  The CUSB Vice Chancellor Prof. Kameshwar Nath Singh has lauded the efforts of bioinformatics team. Dean of School of Earth, Biological and Environmental Sciences. Prof. Rizwanul Haque, Head of the Department of Bioinformatics Prof. Asheesh Shanker and faculties Dr. Krishna Kr Ojha, Dr. Durg Vijay Singh, Dr. Vijay Kr. Singh and Anil Kumar have congratulated Prof. Rathore and M. Kumar, and said that such efforts should accelerate drug discovery efforts.