Biography

Karlie R. Sharma, Ph.D., is a program director in the Office of Drug Development Partnership Programs, where she serves as the lead for the NIH Common Fund-sponsored Illuminating the Druggable Genome (IDG) program. In this capacity, she oversees the overall administration of the IDG Consortium and its relationships with external partners. Building on the success of a small grant program she led in the IDG program, Sharma has established a rare disease R03 pilot project funding opportunity to enable exploration of understudied proteins purported to affect rare diseases. She is involved in several additional initiatives, including the Helping to End Addiction Long-term® Initiative, or NIH HEAL Initiative® and the Small Business Technology Transfer and Small Business Innovation Research program at NCATS. In addition, Sharma serves as the co-lead on various clinical artificial intelligence and machine learning-related activities.

Sharma received her doctorate in molecular physiology and biophysics from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. Prior to joining NCATS in 2017, Sharma was a postdoctoral fellow in the Laboratory of Host Defenses headed by Dr. Harry L. Malech at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Research Topics

Sharma’s research topics focus on early-stage target identification, drug discovery and preclinical drug development, and artificial intelligence as it relates to clinical care decision support tools.

NIH HEAL Initiative and Helping to End Addiction Long-term are registered service marks of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.