Dr. Venkata Kiran Melapu is a bioinformatician whose work focuses on functional genomics, systems biology, and neurological disease research. He currently serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Jackson State University.

His research centers on the identification and validation of biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological disorders, including Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, multiple sclerosis, tauopathies, and prion diseases. He also has expertise in computational analysis of molecular markers and in the use of Monte Carlo simulations for protein structure prediction.

Dr. Melapu earned his Ph.D. in Bioinformatics through the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. He also completed postdoctoral research in DNA methylation studies at UAMS and received his master’s degree in Bioinformatics through the UALR/UAMS program. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology from Acharya Nagarjuna University in India.

At Jackson State University, he teaches graduate courses in computer science and conducts research in big neuroimaging data analysis. His collaborative work with the University of Mississippi Medical Center is supported through the Vanguard Center for Data Mining and research initiatives related to Big Data to Knowledge. He also serves on academic committees and graduate thesis committees and has authored and co-authored research papers in journals and conference proceedings.