profile photo of Ashima Chopra

Ashima Chopra, PhD

Postdoctoral Associate

Currently: Postdoctoral Researcher - Stephen Fesik's lab at Vanderbilt University

CABM, 200
Arnold Lab
(848) 445-9829

Education

B.S. Chemistry, University of Delhi, 2012
B.Ed. Education, Maharshi Dayanand University, 2013
M.S. Chemistry, Panjab University, 2015
PhD, Structural Biology and Biochemistry, Rutgers University, 2022

Bio

Ashima is a postdoctoral associate in the lab of Professor Eddy Arnold. She obtained her PhD in May 2022 on “Discovery of ligands binding to HIV-1 reverse transcriptase and capsid protein using X-ray crystallography, fragment screening, and covalent small-molecule screening”. She has a background in Organic Chemistry, and switched to Structural Biology for her PhD to be more involved in biological target studies for drug discovery research. Her PhD work led to the discovery of novel ligand-binding sites on HIV-1 reverse transcriptase and capsid, which can be used for drug development.

Research Focus

Structure-based drug discovery against HIV, X-ray crystallographic fragment screening

Helmsley Fellowship, to attend the CSHL “X-ray methods in Structural Biology 2019” course (October 2019)

CCB Fellowship, Department of Chemistry and Chemical biology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick (2016)

CCB Merit supplement, Department of Chemistry and Chemical biology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick (2016)

Research fellowship in Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (2015)

HIV Interactions in Viral Evolution (HIVE) research collaboration for HIV research, 2017-present