Badhan Das
Exploring the intersection of biology, data, and computation
Exploring the intersection of biology, data, and computation
I am a PhD candidate in Computer Science at Virginia Tech, specializing in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics. My research focuses on analyzing genomic data to uncover insights hidden within biological datasets, developing computational models and tools to explore biological systems, particularly in virology and antimicrobial resistance. My academic journey combines teaching and research, with 3.5 years of experience in academia. I served as a full-time faculty member at Southeast University for over three years and worked as an adjunct faculty at Virginia Tech during the summer of 2024.
In my work, I have investigated the evolutionary dynamics of viruses, modeling the interplay between mutation and diffusion processes within host contact networks. My recent projects include the ViraFit model, which incorporates fitness landscapes and viral quasispecies to simulate virus diffusion with mutations, and the Variant Evolution Graph (VEG), a novel framework for representing SARS-CoV-2 evolution and disease transmission networks. Additionally, I developed HT-ARGfinder, a bioinformatics pipeline for detecting horizontally transferred antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in metagenomic data, with applications in monitoring ARG dissemination in aquatic environments. My research interests lie in integrating computational techniques to study viral evolution, antibiotic resistance, and genome analysis, contributing to advancements in public health and epidemiology.