Sharad Gupta

Sharad received MSc (integrated) in Chemistry from IIT Kanpur 2003.  He pursued doctoral studies at University of Pittsburgh under Prof. Schafmeister’s supervision where he focused upon the synthesis and applications of Bis amino-acids and peptides.  After receiving PhD in 2009 he joined Prof. David Colby’s research group as a postdoctoral fellow where he extensively studied phenomenon of protein misfolding in neurodegenerative disorders in particular Huntington’s Disease.  He came to IIT Gandhinagar in July 2012 as the first faculty member in Biological Engineering and since than he is actively pursuing research in the field of Diagnostic/Therapeutic Tools and Techniques.

His research is primarily focused at developing methodologies for synthesis of peptides of therapeutic relevance and identification of “aggregation inhibitors/modulators” or diagnostic probes against tau protein which has been implicated in Alzheimer’s disease.  Short peptides are one such class of compounds currently under investigation.  His group has developed an efficient workflow for in vitro testing of potential tau aggregation inhibitors and screens for peptides, natural extracts and small molecules are being carried out routinely.  Other upcoming focus areas are bioinformatics studies and MD simulations to identify the role of post translational modification on the process of aggregation of proteins (such as tau and Synuclein) as well as the effect of such modification on aggregation inhibitors.

1. Ralhan, K.; Guru Krishna Kumar, V.; Gupta. S. “Piperazine and DBU: a safer alternative for rapid and efficient Fmoc deprotection in solid phase peptide synthesis.” RSC Advances,2015, 5, 104417-104425. DOI: 10.1039/C5RA23441G.
2. Morozova, O. A.*; Gupta, S.*; Colby, D. W. “Prefibrillar Huntington oligomers isolated from HD brain potentially seed amyloid formation” FEBS letters, 589(15):1897-903, 2015. doi: 10.1016/j.febslet.2015.05. * Equal contribution.

Title: : Disulfide-rich peptides as scaffold for the development of tau protein aggregation inhibitors in Alzheimer Disease

Sponsor: Department of Science and Technology

Beginning Year: Dec 2015