Gaurav Bhardwaj is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington, Seattle. Dr. Bhardwaj received his bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology from G.G.S. Indraprastha University, India, and Ph.D. in Integrative Biosciences from the Pennsylvania State University. He completed his postdoctoral training with Prof. Kit Lam at the University of California, Davis, and Dr. David Baker at the University of Washington, Seattle. As a postdoctoral fellow, he pioneered computational methods for the design of constrained peptides and macrocycles with precise control over their shapes, sizes, and chemical diversity. He started his independent research group at the University of Washington in 2020. Since then, Dr. Bhardwaj’s lab has focused on developing computational and experimental methods for the development of functional peptides. Ongoing work in his lab focuses on designing peptides for antibiotic, antiviral, and analgesic applications using deep-learning based approaches. His research group has also developed design principles for peptides with enhanced membrane permeability and oral bioavailability. Dr. Bhardwaj is the scientific co-founder of Vilya, an early-stage biotechnology company focused on peptide drug design and development.