The IU Impact: IU's transformative researchers contributed to some of the nation's most significant and life-altering innovations in chemistry, including Crest toothpaste and GLP-1 drugs to treat obesity.
Richard DiMarchi says academia is a place well-suited to exploratory research. "Exploring is exciting because it's where one goes in search for new knowledge, for the ability to do something that has not been done before and for the ability to see that which has not been witnessed before," he said. Photo by Chris Meyer, Indiana University
Approximately 700,000 adults in Indiana struggle with diabetes. Obesity affects about a third of adult Hoosiers. Indiana University's Richard DiMarchi has dedicated his career to developing cutting-edge pharmaceutical treatments to treat both conditions.
While working at Eli Lilly and Company, DiMarchi discovered the first chemically optimized human insulin. But it was at IU that he enjoyed the freedom to explore the use of GLP-1 and other peptide hormones for weight management, leading to the transformation of treatment for obesity worldwide.
As group vice president at Lilly, DiMarchi generated rDNA-derived medicines that dramatically advanced the treatment of Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes. In studying these chemically optimized peptides for diabetes treatment, DiMarchi and colleagues realized that in addition to regulating blood sugar, these drug candidates also helped patients lose weight. At the time, the scientific consensus was that obesity was an issue of individual willpower, not a disease to be medicinally treated.
"No one wanted to touch pharmaceutical solutions for obesity in the 1990s, even though it is just as much a disease as diabetes or high blood pressure," said James Andry, a Bloomington, Indiana, physician and weight-loss specialist. "And now Indiana has become a center of not just the thought but also the manufacture of medications that are proving to be some of the most life-changing medical treatments we've ever seen."
IU has long been home to remarkable discoveries in chemistry like DiMarchi's, including the invention of the key ingredient in Crest toothpaste. Chemistry professor Amar Flood recently created some of the world's brightest materials, which have a variety of uses in medicine and microscopy, and Distinguished Professor Martin Jarrold's refined charge detection mass spectrometer will help scientists revolutionize the treatment of many genetic disorders.
Key to science: 'Notice new things'
"The most brilliant thing you can do isn't necessarily develop new things; it's to notice new things," Andry said. "DiMarchi noticed that you could make this small change in just a couple of amino acids on insulin and make it work better as a medicine. That's the scientific story."
DiMarchi's scientific story began with a bachelor's degree from Florida Atlantic University in 1974, followed by a Ph.D. in chemistry from Indiana University in 1979. It was time as a post-doctoral student in the Rockefeller University lab of Nobel Prize winner Bruce Merrifield where his lifelong fascination with peptides began.
At Lilly, DiMarchi proved that, compared to a natural human hormone, a synthetically optimized peptide could be biologically more effective, more convenient for patients to use and easier to manufacture. It established a foundation for medicinal macromolecules at a time when the prevalent fear was that change in sequence increased immune rejection.
"Richard is not a typical faculty member," IU Distinguished Professor of Chemistry David Clemmer said. "He's singularly gifted, and able to manage worlds outside of his world. He could easily retire tomorrow but he doesn't because he wants to make people healthier." Photo by Wendi Chitwood, Indiana University
After two successful decades at the company, DiMarchi left that role for IU's Department of Chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences, in large part to pursue the increased independence of an academic research position.
"Innovation is not easy to come by in industry because everybody's so focused on stock prices," said David Clemmer, IU Distinguished Professor in Chemistry. "That fundamental research - research like the kind Richard DiMarchi conducts - has to come from laboratories at universities, smaller companies and startups."
When the chemistry department recruited DiMarchi, he insisted his lab be in Bloomington, even though it initially required travel from his primary residence in Carmel, Indiana, because "at the core I am a chemist, and the chemistry department at Indiana University Bloomington is world-class."
Clemmer, who was chair of the department when DiMarchi joined, said he was able to recruit DiMarchi because of the opportunity to collaborate with the department's visionary researchers and access other leading academic researchers like German physician Matthias Tschöp, a key player in the refinement of GLP-1 drugs for obesity treatment.
"What that means is that you can just get things done here," Clemmer said.
'Create the future'
For DiMarchi, who is now the Linda and Jack Gill Chair in Biomolecular Science in the IU College of Arts and Sciences, academia "is a place for people who are iconoclastic, for people who want to create the future."
DiMarchi's unorthodox approach to science earned him over 100 U.S. patents. He is the founder of eight successful biotechnology start-ups. His research regularly wins the most prestigious accolades in the field of chemistry and medicine.
For his work on synthetic insulin, DiMarchi was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. He was awarded the prestigious Mani L. Bhaumik Breakthrough of the Year Award in 2024 for his success with GLP-1 and obesity research. Along with Tschöp, he received the 2026 Rolf Luft Award for outstanding contributions to diabetes and obesity research.
But DiMarchi said his students constitute his greatest legacy.
DiMarchi delights in maintaining a lab at a university: "Just walking the Bloomington campus is inspirational," he said. "It inspires you to think differently. Being around youth is unbelievably infectious in terms of their unbridled optimism." Photo by Chris Meyer, Indiana University
"The biggest reward is the people you produce," he said. "I've contributed technology and drug candidates to the world, but I've also contributed the next generation of scientists capable of continuing to improve the world."
Included in his group of former students are a vice president of obesity research at Lilly, an associate dean at Columbia State University and a president of a life science group at GenScript.
Many of DiMarchi's former students fuel biosciences work in Indiana. His first post-doctoral student, John Mayer, directed Lilly's peptide research group for over a decade. During this time, the group advanced several peptide clinical candidates, including tirzepatide, currently approved for diabetes management and weight control.
"I would not have had the career I had without his mentorship," Mayer said. "Richard brings incredible passion and drive for the science, and his confidence rubs off and inspires those working with him."
Archita Agrawal, one of DiMarchi's last graduate students, currently conducts research on finding hidden peptides in the human genome with the Salk Institute for Biological Studies' Alan Saghatelian.
"He coached me to value that science demands integrity," Agrawal said. "You can't afford to just see what you want to see; you must be willing to see what's actually going on. He also taught me that you can't give up when you fail in science because there's going to be a lot of failures."
DiMarchi motivated his students through failure and success, multiplying his scientific legacy in the realm of biotechnology and improving human health worldwide.
"We're not just controlling weight," he said. "By treating obesity, we may also be improving cognition, preventing cancer and lengthening our lives. That's the power of biotechnology as a force to change life as we know it. And I believe that universities - Indiana University certainly being one of them - have the opportunity and the obligation to use these powers to create products and people that make a real difference."
