Chemical Biology Seminar: Professor Gaurav Chopra, Purdue University
About the Seminar
"How do Glial and Immune Cells become Dysfunctional in Aging and Neurodegeneration?"
Pathogenic aging leads to neurodegeneration and imposes chronic metabolic stress on the brain, rewiring glial and immune programs and predisposing to neuroinflammation. My laboratory investigates lipid metabolism as a central causal driver of this neuroimmune dysfunction. Recently, we showed that accumulation of “fat” (lipid droplet accumulation) in microglia actively promotes neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease—reframing lipids from passive byproducts to primary effectors of pathology. In this seminar, I will outline the mechanism of this metabolic remodeling and show that targeted molecules that lowers “fat accumulation” in microglia and astrocytes lowers inflammation, improves synapse integrity, lowers neuronal dystrophy and improves neuronal resilience in neurodegeneration. I will briefly introduce our neuro-inspired AI-based automation and drug discovery platform that identified the role of lipid composition in accumulated droplets, enabled metabolic target validation and cellular function in vivo, and led to discovery of new targets in the brain—such as DGAT2 and fatty-acid elongation pathways—for therapeutic intervention. I will also introduce our CellTAC platform of cell-specific small-molecule degraders to precisely remove pathogenic proteins in glial cell populations. Finally, I will introduce an emerging direction examining antigen presentation in the brain as a neuroimmune mechanism that further shape glial dysfunction across aging and neurodegeneration. Together, we show how metabolic dysfunction makes glial and immune cells go awry and highlight that mechanism-based targeted translational strategies and drug candidates restores homeostasis in neurodegeneration.
About the Speaker
Gaurav Chopra is the James Tarpo Jr. and Margaret Tarpo Professor of Chemistry and (by courtesy) Computer Science at Purdue University. Since 2020, he has directed a Merck & Co.–funded center supporting single- and multi-PI programs in drug discovery and development across Purdue. He is a core member of Purdue’s Institutes for Drug Discovery, Cancer Research, Integrative Neuroscience, Immunology, and the Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering. Chopra leads the Molecular Intelligence in Neuroimmunology and Disease (MIND) Lab, focused on uncovering and targeting lipid and metabolic mechanisms that drive glial and immune-cell dysfunction in neuroinflammation. To advance this mission, the MIND Lab has developed deep lipidomics for in vivo mechanisms, targeted neuro-immune small-molecule therapies, and engineered neuro-inspired AI automation platforms to accelerate experimental validation and drug discovery. Chopra has co-founded three companies: LIPOS BIO (lipid-based neuro-immune therapeutics), BrainGnosis (neuro-symbolic scientific AI agents), and Meditati (drugs for mental health). He serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of Pharmaceutical Research (AAPS) and has organized or served on programs and study sections across EuroGlia, GRC, ASMS/ACS workshops, and NIH. His research is supported by the NIH, DoD, DTRA, NSF, and Merck & Co. He earned a B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Delhi; an M.S. in Scientific Computing and a Ph.D. in Computational Mathematics and Biology from Stanford Engineering with Michael Levitt; and completed postdoctoral training in structural/chemical biology at Stanford Medicine, followed by a JDRF fellowship in immune tolerance with Jeffrey Bluestone (UCSF School of Medicine) and additional glial biology mentorship from the late Ben Barres (Stanford Medicine). Selected honors include the NIH NCATS ASPIRE Grand Prize (Challenge and Reduction-to-Practice awards), Scialog Fellow in Automating Chemical Laboratories, Analytics Indiana Fellow in Life Sciences, and the ACS Measurement Science Au Rising Star award. Chopra’s trainees have earned prestigious awards including the Beckman Fellowship, ADDF Young Investigator, Merck Rising Star, and Lilly–Stark Fellowships. Chopra group has also developed a virtual reality-based AI drug discovery game called MINT and have conducted several outreach events for K-12 and university students to enhance their love for science.