Our Bureau
West Lafayette, IN
The Purdue University recently announced the promotion of Gaurav Chopra to James Tarpo Jr. and Margaret Tarpo Associate Professor of Chemistry as approved by the Purdue Provost’s Office. Chopra’s groundbreaking contributions, visionary leadership, and commitment to advancing chemistry and biology through AI make him an exceptional candidate for the Tarpo Associate Professorship.
His lab’s interdisciplinary research merges chemistry, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and immunology to develop novel approaches for drug discovery, particularly in treating neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
Chopra’s innovative work on lipid accumulation in brain cells, through AI-guided drug discovery platforms, has uncovered therapeutic strategies for neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases, demonstrating the potential to slow or reverse disease progression.
He has combined machine learning with experimental validation for its potential clinical applications. His publications in Nature, Chemical Science, and ACS Measurement Science have received high-impact recognition in the scientific community, while his ongoing NIH-funded research aims to further accelerate drug discovery through large language model-based AI systems.
As the Director of the Merck-Purdue Center, he has secured more than $3 million in funding to support interdisciplinary research across the university. His collaborative approach to science is evident through his ability to attract significant funding from federal agencies and industry partners, totaling more than $16 million in external grants, of which $8 million has directly supported his group’s research.
His recent achievements include being awarded the NIH NCATS ASPIRE Grand Prize for his AI-based drug discovery automation platform, which has already been implemented in NIH laboratories and pharmaceutical pipelines, such as Merck & Co.
He has Scialog Fellowship for Automating Chemical Laboratories and received the College of Science Leadership Award in 2024.
The Tarpo Department of Chemistry is internationally acclaimed for its excellence in chemical education and innovation, boasting two Nobel laureates in organic chemistry.
Purdue University is a public research institution demonstrating excellence at scale. It is ranked among top 10 public universities and with two colleges in the top four in the United States.
