Advancing towards next-gen biotherapeutics: Gadkari Research Group secures $2.1M NIH grant
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (08/07/2026) – Department of Chemistry Assistant Professor Varun Gadkari and his laboratory have been awarded a $2,117,500 grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). By applying advanced mass spectrometry to study the structure and stability of biotherapeutics, the lab aims to make complex biological medicines more stable, effective, and reliable for patient care.
Biotherapeutics such as antibodies and nucleic acid drugs are transforming medicine, but their effectiveness depends on maintaining their molecular structure during manufacturing, storage, and delivery. Through their newly-funded research project, the Gadkari Research Lab will develop advanced mass spectrometry methods to answer complex questions about how these critical biological medicines unfold, disassemble, aggregate, or degrade under stress. By mapping the shared molecular principles of stability across biomolecular classes, this work aims to establish new design tools for resilient biotherapeutics to help overcome breakdown in the supply chain and make drug discovery more efficient.
“Mass spectrometry has played a central role in the development of biotherapeutics, but emerging therapeutic platforms present analytical challenges that existing methods were not designed to address,” Prof. Gadkari says. “This grant will allow us to substantially expand the scope of our work, from established antibody therapeutics to new classes of protein- and RNA-based drugs and other promising biological molecules. The flexibility of the MIRA program also gives us the opportunity to move beyond characterizing existing therapeutics and use these technologies to contribute directly to the discovery and development of new ones.”
The proposed research builds on a foundation established through two recent publications from the lab. A 2025 paper in Analytical Chemistry combined machine learning with mass spectrometry to detect subtle differences in protein structure and stability. More recently, a 2026 paper in Analytical Chemistry demonstrated accurate intact mass measurements of entire messenger RNA molecules while also assessing their structural features. The new NIGMS grant will allow the lab to further advance both of these capabilities and apply them to a broader range of biotherapeutic molecules and new analytical challenges.
About the Gadkari Research Group
The Gadkari Research Group – led by Assistant Professor Varun Gadkari – blends bioanalytical chemistry and biological chemistry. The group’s research is aimed at developing novel mass spectrometry techniques for the structural analysis of proteins, nucleic acids, and their complexes. This research spans biomolecular structure, stability, and self-assembly, together with the development of bioanalytical methods that enable increasingly complex measurements. Founded by Prof. Gadkari in 2022, the group currently includes seven graduate students and three undergraduate researchers.
About the National Institute of General Medical Sciences
From the NIGMS website
The National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) supports basic research that increases our understanding of biological processes and lays the foundation for advances in disease diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. NIGMS also supports research in specific clinical areas that affect multiple organ systems: anesthesiology and peri-operative pain; clinical pharmacology common to multiple drugs and treatments; and injury, critical illness, sepsis, and wound healing. NIGMS-funded scientists investigate how living systems work at a range of levels—from molecules and cells to tissues and organs—in research organisms, humans, and populations. Additionally, to ensure the vitality and continued productivity of the research enterprise, NIGMS provides leadership in supporting the training of future scientists and developing research capacity throughout the country.
NIGMS is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the principal medical research agency of the federal government and a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. With a budget of $3.2 billion in FY 2023, NIGMS supported more than 4,800 investigators, more than 5,500 research grants, and more than 5,200 research trainees. The Institute has a strong track record of funding scientists who go on to receive Nobel Prizes, including 51 in Chemistry and 46 in Physiology or Medicine.