People

Principal Investigator

Associate Professor Dr. Sarath Chandra Janga

Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering
Indiana University Indianapolis (IUI)
Department of Medical & Molecular Genetics
Center for Computational Biology & Bioinformatics
Division of Gastroenterology/Hepatology, Department of Medicine
Indiana University School of Medicine

Dr. Janga obtained his PhD (2008-2010) from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Darwin College, University of Cambridge, UK. He received his Bachelors and Masters degrees in Bio-chemical Engineering & Biotechnology from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and has previously worked in the Laboratory of Computational Genomics, Center for Genomic Sciences, UNAM, Cuernavaca, Mexico where he was involved in understanding bacterial gene regulatory networks in the group of Dr. Julio Collado-Vides. He started his doctoral work at Cambridge in 2007. He was an Institute for Genomic Biology Fellow, at University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, working on applying computational and systems approaches to understanding regulation at post-transcriptional level and using genome mining techniques for identifying novel antibacterial pathways and compounds during his post-doctoral period (2010-2012).

Postdoctoral Researchers

Doaa Hassan Salem, PhD

Doaa H. Salem is a machine learning postdoctoral researcher at Janga lab and an adjunct lecturer at Bio-health informatics department at Luddy Indianapolis.  Her research interest focuses on the new directions for the application of data mining and machine learning techniques, particularly in computational biology, social networks, and cyber security. Currently her research work emphasizes on the application of machine learning combined with Nanopore technology for detecting modifications in RNA sequences. She is also interested in using machine/deep learning for predicting the association between RNA (particularly lncRNA) and various diseases as well as predicting the genotype-phenotype association.

PhD Students

Hunter Gill

Alexander Krohannon

Xander completed his Bachelor’s in Biochemistry at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and recently completed his Master’s in Bioinformatics at IUI. He is currently a Ph.D. student in Janga Lab. His current research interests are in using next-generation sequencing (NGS) and other high throughput methods to understand cellular methods of RNA regulation. His previous work includes the development of a CRISPR-Cas13 sgRNA designer.

David Schaeper

David has completed his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Purdue University and his master’s in bioinformatics at IUI. He is currently a part-time student pursuing a PhD in bioinformatics while working as a bioinformatician in public health. His research interests are RNA structure, focused on RNA-RNA interactions, and has been diving into scRNA-sequencing in an oral health context.

Upol Chowdhury

Upol completed his bachelor’s degree in computer science & engineering at Chittagong University of Engineering & Technology, Bangladesh. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Bioinformatics and serves as a graduate research assistant in Janga Lab. His research focuses on leveraging deep learning models for bioinformatics applications, specifically in the identification of RNA modifications and dental image segmentation.

Master’s Students

Tejaswini Repala

Tejaswini Repala earned her bachelor’s in dental surgery from Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences in 2019. After dedicating three years to the dental field, she expanded her academic pursuits and is now working towards a master’s in bioinformatics. Currently, she is a research assistant at The Janga Lab, where she is immersed in a project focused on dental image analysis. By leveraging machine learning methods, she aims to revolutionize dental diagnostics and treatment planning, ensuring every patient receives precise and reliable care.

Sharon Niharika Arava

Sharon earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Biomedical Engineering from Bharath Institute of Higher Education and Research, Chennai. Her current studies focus on the use of deep learning models for bioinformatics applications, and she is now working on image segmentation at Janga Lab while finishing her master’s degree.

Sahiti Somalraju

Sahiti completed her Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Informatics from Indiana University Indianapolis and is now pursuing a Master’s in Bioinformatics. In the lab, she focuses on Next Generation Sequencing data analysis and contributes to various projects centered on high-throughput data processing and interpretation. Her current research utilizes Oxford Nanopore’s direct RNA sequencing datasets to predict poly(A) tail lengths and detect RNA modifications.

Manjinder Kaur

Manjinder completed my Master’s in Biotechnology from Lovely Professional University (LPU), Punjab, India. During her master’s, she worked on virtual screening and molecular docking of antidiabetic compounds, which sparked her interest in bioinformatics. This experience motivated Manjinder to further explore computational biology, particularly in understanding RNA regulation. Currently, she is focusing on studying the impact of RNA modifications on RNA structure, aiming to uncover how these modifications influence RNA function and stability. 

Eugenio Jose Garcia

Eugenio completed his Bachelor’s in Biology at Indiana University Bloomington and is currently doing his Master’s in Bioinformatics at IUI. His current research interests are in using next-generation sequencing (NGS) and other high throughput methods in Janga’s Lab.

Currently, we’re not hosting any interns/visiting scholars. Go to our Join page for visiting our lab as an intern/visiting scholar.