Professor 

• Chemistry

gchopra@purdue.edu 

https://sites.google.com/view/chopralab/home 

2013-2016 JDRF Fellow, University of California - San Francisco, School of Medicine , San Francisco, CA. Mentor: Professor Jeffrey A. Bluestone
2010-2012 Postdoctoral Scholar, Stanford University School of Medicine , Structural Biology, Stanford, CA
2003-2010 Stanford University School of Engineering, Stanford, CA. M.S. in Scientific Computing/Computational Mathematics, May 2005 ; Ph.D. in Computational Mathematics, Jan 2010. Mentor: Professor Michael Levitt ( 2013 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry )
2002-2003 University of California at Irvine, Henry Samueli School of Engineering, Irvine, CA . M.S. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, May 2003.
1998-2002 Indian Institute of Technology – Delhi , New Delhi, India. B. Tech. in Mechanical Engineering, May 2002  

Artificial Intelligence and Automation for Accelerating Drug Discovery, Development, Digital Health, Biophysical Modeling and Machine Learning for Drug Design and Synthesis  

Artificial Intelligence and Automation for Accelerating Drug Discovery, Development, Digital Health  

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.