The Rise and Global Spread of IMP Carbapenemases (1996–2023): A Genomic Epidemiology Study.
Nature Communications 17, 183 (2026). doi:10.1038/s41467-025-66874-7
About
Background, research focus, publications, and technical experience for Bhargava Morampalli.
About
Bhargava Reddy Morampalli.
PhD candidate in Genetics at Massey University in Auckland, New Zealand
Background
I’m currently a PhD candidate in genetics at Massey University, studying RNA modifications in bacteria with Oxford Nanopore sequencing. Before transitioning into bioinformatics during my PhD, I spent several years doing wet-lab research across academia and industry. I worked in research groups focused on bioengineering, lung regeneration, and endocrinology before moving into biotech roles at AbbVie and Bristol Myers Squibb. During this period, I designed and established cellular models to study disease biology, both for understanding fundamental biological mechanisms and for evaluating potential drug candidates.
When I began my PhD, I had minimal programming experience. Over the course of my research, I learned Python, Unix, and Nextflow for data analysis, automation, and visualization. That transition from bench science to computational biology shaped how I think about biological data. I’ve come to believe that computational biologists with experience in both wet-lab and dry-lab research often develop a stronger intuition for interpreting experimental data and understanding the technical nuances behind it. Alongside my research, I’ve been actively involved in the broader bioinformatics community through Nextflow and nf-core, participating in the nf-core mentorship, hackathons, and briefly serving as a Nextflow Ambassador. I’m particularly interested in reproducible and scalable bioinformatics workflows that make computational biology more accessible and robust.
Toward the end of my PhD, I took a break from thesis writing to work as a Research Scientist at Alfred Health in Melbourne, where I worked on large-scale meta-analyses of antimicrobial resistance data to study the genomic epidemiology of IMP carbapenem resistance. Most recently, I worked in India as a Subject Matter Expert and Product Owner for FastFinder, a qPCR data analysis and laboratory management platform. In this role, I worked across software development, product management, customer support, and direct customer engagement, while helping coordinate the transition of the project from an overseas team to a new team in India.
Research focus
- Epitranscriptomics
- Mapping RNA modifications in bacterial genomes using direct RNA sequencing.
- Microbial genomics
- Comparative genomics, phylogenetics, pangenome analysis.
- Antimicrobial resistance
- Genomic epidemiology of IMP carbapenem-resistant pathogens.
- Pipeline development
- Nextflow workflows for reproducible analysis.
- Method evaluation
- Benchmarking tools, optimizing workflows.
Technical skills
- Languages
- Python (Biopython, pandas, data visualization) · R · Bash
- Workflows
- Nextflow (containerization, HPC) · Snakemake
- Sequencing
- Oxford Nanopore (library prep, basecalling, signal analysis) · Illumina
- Infrastructure
- Unix/Linux · version control · HPC environments · containers
- Wet lab
- Molecular biology techniques across microbial and mammalian systems
Publications
Efficiency of the Synthetic Self-Splicing RiboJ Ribozyme Is Robust to Cis- and Trans-Changes in Genetic Background.
MicrobiologyOpen 10, no. 4 (2021): e1232. doi:10.1002/mbo3.1232
Synthesis of in vitro transcribed RNA from whole bacterial transcriptome.
Protocols.io (2021) doi:10.17504/protocols.io.81wgb7r7yvpk/v1
Preprints
Benchmarking Tools for Identification of rRNA Modifications in Escherichia coli using Oxford Nanopore Direct RNA Sequencing.
biorxiv (2026). doi:10.64898/2026.04.15.718756
Elsewhere
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