Deepak Rajput

I am a second-year Biotechnology Engineering student at Chandigarh University (Batch 2024–2028), working at the intersection of molecular biology and computational biology-not as adjacent disciplines, but as a unified approach to understanding biological systems at sequence, structural, and functional levels. My current research focuses on the characterization of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) using integrated bioinformatics approaches, supervised by Dr. Prasant Saxena. This work spans comparative genomic analysis of resistance gene families, multiple sequence alignment, phylogenetic reconstruction using Neighbor-Joining(NJ) and Maximum Parsimony methods(MPMs), and protein homology modeling - combining molecular biology principles with computational analysis pipelines to understand how resistance mechanisms evolve, diversify, and propagate across bacterial populations. The biological questions drive the computational methods, not the other way around. On the computational side, I work with NCBI BLAST for sequence homology searches, MEGA 11 for phylogenetic analysis, Swiss-Model and AlphaFold for structure prediction, and MODELLER for comparative homology modeling. I am building Python proficiency for biological data analysis (IBM Coursera certified, Rosalind.info), with a long-term focus on integrating scripting into molecular research workflows. On the experimental side, I am actively developing wet lab competencies in GLP-aligned lab practice, aseptic technique, pipetting, and scientific documentation — because I believe computational predictions must always be grounded in experimental reality. My long-term research goal is genuine integration of both fields: designing experiments informed by computational predictions, and using molecular data to validate and refine computational models. I am particularly drawn to AMR genomics, structural bioinformatics, and functional genomics as convergence points for this approach. Open to connecting with researchers, faculty, and technicians working in molecular biology, microbiology, structural bioinformatics, or AMR. 📧deepakrajput8869984@outlook.com | 🔗 ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-5935-6077