Sharma Lab
Anjali Sharma
Dr. Anjali Sharma is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Michigan, where she leads the Sharma Laboratory (Translational Nanomedicine Research Laboratory). Prior to joining the University of Michigan in 2026, she was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Washington State University, where she founded and directed the Translational Nanomedicine Research Laboratory. Dr. Sharma earned her Ph.D. in Materials Chemistry from McGill University and completed her postdoctoral training in translational nanomedicine at the Center for Nanomedicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her research program integrates chemistry, materials science, nanotechnology, engineering, and medicine to develop clinically translatable, target-specific nanotherapeutics for drug delivery, gene delivery, and molecular imaging.
Lab and Research Overview
The Sharma laboratory’s research program focuses on the rational design of clinically translatable, target-specific nanomedicines for drug delivery, gene delivery, and imaging. We specialize in the rational design of functional polymeric and dendrimer-based nanomaterials that enable precise delivery of therapeutics to diseased tissues while minimizing systemic toxicity. Our goal is to transform fundamental discoveries in nanomedicine into practical therapies for diseases with significant unmet clinical needs.
Although nanomedicine has demonstrated tremendous promise over the past several decades, relatively few nanoparticle-based therapies have reached clinical practice. We believe that this translational gap often originates at the materials design stage, where overly complex architectures and synthetic strategies result in poor reproducibility, manufacturing challenges, high production costs, and batch-to-batch variability. The central philosophy of the Sharma Laboratory is to incorporate the key requirements for clinical translation, including simplicity, reproducibility, scalability, stability, biocompatibility, and cost-effectiveness, into the design of nanomaterials from the very beginning.
Our laboratory develops next-generation nanoplatforms capable of overcoming biological barriers that limit therapeutic efficacy. Poor transport across physiological barriers, including the blood-brain barrier, blood-retinal barrier, blood-tumor barrier, and other tissue-specific barriers, remains a major obstacle in treating neurological disorders, ocular diseases, cancer, inflammatory diseases, and other complex conditions. We engineer disease-responsive nanomaterials that selectively target pathological cells, immune cell populations, or intracellular organelles, enabling “magic bullet” delivery that enhances therapeutic efficacy while reducing off-target toxicity. Drawing inspiration from disease biology rather than conventional nanoparticle engineering, we develop smart, minimally invasive nanomedicines that combine simple yet powerful molecular designs with highly efficient synthetic chemistry. By leveraging biocompatible building blocks, scalable manufacturing approaches, and robust conjugation strategies, our research aims to accelerate the translation of nanotechnology from the laboratory to the clinic.