Tharp Lab
Principal Investigator: Jeffery Micheal Tharp
Institution: Indiana University Indianapolis (Indianapolis, IN)
Primary Subfield: Molecular & Cell Bio
Recruitment Status: ✅ Hiring Postdocs
Research Focus
Project Summary/Abstract Peptides are an attractive scaffold for therapeutic development due to their unique ability to combine desirable features of both small molecules and larger, protein-based biologics. Like small molecules, peptides are synthetically accessible and can penetrate tissues effectively, yet they offer the superior binding affinity and specificity typical of biologics. Another key advantage of peptides lies in the availability of powerful screening technologies, such as phage display, which enables the rapid screening of vast peptide libraries to identify novel ligands for a chosen target. However, phage display libraries are traditionally limited to the 20 natural amino acids, which lack useful chemical functionalities found in non-ribosomal peptides and synthetic pharmaceuticals. As a result, the full potential of phage display in therapeutic peptide discovery remains underutilized. The overarching goals of my research are: (1) to develop synthetic and chemical biology approaches to expand the chemical diversity of phage display libraries, thereby improving their utility in early-stage drug discovery, and (2) to apply these expanded libraries to identify novel a…
Active NIH Awards
- 1R35GM162266-01: Novel strategies to expand the chemical diversity of phage display libraries for inhibitor discovery (2026)
- 5R00GM141320-04: Genetically encoded bicyclic peptide libraries for the discoveryof novel antiviral agents (2025)
- 3R00GM141320-04S1: Genetically encoded bicyclic peptide libraries for the discoveryof novel antiviral agents (2025)
- 5R00GM141320-03: Genetically encoded bicyclic peptide libraries for the discoveryof novel antiviral agents (2024)
- 3R00GM141320-03S1: Genetically encoded bicyclic peptide libraries for the discovery of novel antiviral agents (2024)
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