MIND THE GAP DISCRIMINATION AND MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES AMONG FEMALE PHYSICAL THERAPISTS

Gender matters and has an impact, and it is intended to encourage readers to think about this important issue in clinical practice, education, research, and a wider context of public health1. Due to the dearth of gender theoretical knowledge that has been discovered within the field of physiotherapy, there are still many difficulties that women must overcome in today's world of gender equality and feminism for women's rights2. Historically, women are predominated in the physiotherapy profession, although this has gradually changed throughout the years3. According to Chartered Society of Physiotherapists (CSP) data for both practicing and non-practicing physiotherapists, the gender split changed from 76% female to 24% male to 74% female to 26% male between 2017 and 2020. Although women make up more than 50% of the physiotherapy workforce globally, they make up fewer than 50% of executive positions in national physiotherapy associations3.

Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Heterocyclic Derivatives Via Knoevenagel Products

A facile methodology was developed which involved multicomponent single pot reaction which yielded the synthesis of highly functionalized 5-arylidene barbiturates/thiobarbiturates (158a – 166a), (158b – 167b), tricyclic-heterocycle compounds (158c – 163c) (158d – 164d), pyrimido[4,5‐d][1,3]diazine (170a – 173b), (170b – 174b) and pyrido[2,3‐d]pyrimidine‐6‐carboximidate, (176 – 181) and in good yields (60-95%). The discovered novel methodology involved sequential multicomponent reactions; consisting of Knoevenagel reaction followed by Michael addition; moreover, the proposed mechanism is consistent with the stepwise methodology which also availed the same tricyclic heterocycle compounds (158c – 163c) and (158d – 164d). In-silico (α glucosidase inhibitory studies) and in-vitro biological evaluation was extensively performed for synthesized tricyclic and bicyclic heterocyclic compounds. Tricyclic heterocycle compounds (158c – 163c) and (158d – 164d) showed excellent interacting affinity with receptor protein (PDB ID: 3A47) which were further complemented and confirmed through in-vitro α-glucosidase inhibitory studies which were found to be comparable with standard acarbose. Whereas, 160c 160d, 162d and 171b exhibited IC50 value (111.8, 99.4, 108.7, 121.4 µmol/L) as compared to standard acarbose (135.6 µmol/L) making them excellent α-glucosidase inhibition candidates among the lot. Furthermore, all the freshly synthesized compounds were screened for in-vitro antibacterial, and antioxidant studies, which revealed that all these compounds show mild bacteriostatic properties at 200 µM concentration against 105 CFU/200 µL of three bacterial strains; Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli, and Staphylococcus aureus, while compounds (159d, 160d, 161d, 163c, 163d) are found more potent antioxidants than the standard ascorbic acid. viii The barbituric acid derivatives (158a-165a) are less toxic as compared to the thiobarbituric derivatives (158b- 165b). Cheminformatics and docking score also supported that arylidene barbiturates and their derivatives follow the Lipinski rule due to which they would be excellent candidates as antioxidant and α-glucosidase inhibitors.