The Computational Biology AND Biochemical Genomics Lab

What we do

There are ~300,000 plant species, producing over a million metabolites. How is this staggering diversity generated? What purpose do these metabolites serve, if any? How can we make use of this diversity in agriculture, nutrition and medicine? The Moghe lab uses computational biology, molecular biology, biochemistry, synthetic biology and field-based approaches to address these questions. Know more about what we do by exploring the links below.

Philosophy

Research

Lab members

Publications

Teaching

I teach PLBIO 4000/6000: Concepts and Techniques in Computational Biology - an intensive co-meet course for advanced undergraduates and grad students every spring. This course is meant for biologists intent on learning computational genomics approaches, and covers topics such as Python programming, genomics, domain analysis, network analysis and machine learning.

Students interested in registering for this class but are unsure of the advertised requirements can contact me at my email address listed below.

I also teach a 2-lecture grad student lab class on Mass Spectrometry for metabolomics in Fall (PLBIO 6410), a 4-lecture Introduction to Machine Learning for plant science graduate students (PLSCI 7202), and a paper discussion in the spring semester for plant biology grad students (PLBIO 7410) as part of larger courses for plant science students.

We also co-organize the #PhytochemTalks - a biweekly virtual seminar series for phytochemists worldwide! Register here for updates and the zoom link.

Interested in joining?

Please contact Gaurav at gdm67 AT cornell DOT edu to inquire about any open positions. We are part of the Plant Biology Section, the Plant Breeding and Genetics Section, the Computational Biology graduate field, and the Chemistry-Biology Interface graduate training program. Graduate students interested in rotating in the lab will need to be accepted through the these programs.

ONGOING: We recently got awarded a SIPS Grand Challenge graduate fellowship grant titled "AI and Evolution-guided genomic models for crop stress resilience". If you are interested in applying, please contact me. More information here.

Moghe lab@Cornell

Address

260, Emerson Hall, Cornell University

607-255-5714

Recent blog posts

Latest News

Spring 2024

Undergraduates Pradhi, Chesney and Garrett join the lab.
Bhaswati Sarmah heads over to UC-Davis for the LC-MS workshop.
Mac submits his Honors thesis on biochemistry of Physalis grisea, and heads over to Max Planck for PhD!! 🎉🎈

Fall 2023

Undergraduates Aidan, Ariana and Ling join the lab
Bhaswati Sarmah joins the lab for her PhD in Plant Breeding, working on sweet potato projects
Nate Smith joins the lab as a lab tech, working on enzyme family functional prediction and evolution
We received the Grand Challenge graduate recruitment fellowship award from SIPS 🎉🎈. More information here.
We received a CALS Moonshot Grant to engineer tomato fruit biochemistry using novel circuits. 🎉🎈
Gaurav presents at the Cornell Co-evolution symposium held in honor of May Berenbaum.

Summer 2023

Multiple conference presentations!
Kanza - ASPB, Irfan - HortSci, Gaurav - multiple
Kanza graduates!! 🎉🎈

Spring 2023

TPJ article has a research highlight and is a Cover Article.
Mac Flanagan wins the ASPB SURF summer fellowship 🎉🎈
Lars Kruse (ex-postdoc) is awarded the 2023 Plant Journal Early Career Award by the Phytochemical Society of North America 🎉🎈
Gaurav is awarded the 2023 Arthur Neish Young Investigator Award by PSNA.
Four papers published in Current Opinions in Plant Biology (Gaurav, Bhaswati, Irfan), Genome Biology and Evolution (Arielle), The Plant Journal (Liz), Frontiers in Plant Sciences (Gaurav, Lars) 🎉🎈
Gaurav speaks at the grad-student organized University of Missouri Plant Science symposium sponsored by Corteva Agrosciences. Thank you for the invitation!
Our project on identifying the biosynthetic pathway of resin glycosides in sweet potato was funded by the USDA! 🎉🎈
NSF grant on protein function discovery is awarded! 🎉🎈

Fall 2022

After 5 years in the lab, we are sad but also overjoyed to see Liz Mahood leave with her PhD degree. Liz will join Corteva Biosciences in the Crop Protection group! 🎉🎈
Kanza Arshad joins the lab as an MPS student on a Fulbright scholarship. Welcome Kanza!
Jacob Novozhenets from Biomedical Engineering joins the lab. Welcome Jacob!
Mac Flanagan wins the Cornell CALS undergraduate research grant to work on Physalis metabolites! 🎉🎈
Gaurav presents the lab's research at Purdue University, Zhejiang University and University of Toronto - Scarborough. Thank you for the invitations!
Annual Reviews in Plant Biology - review on BAHDs published! (Gaurav, Lars)
Multiple papers submitted!
Botanical Society of America Phytochemical Section symposium proposal on plant defenses accepted! 🎉🎈
Cornell Intercampus Symposium proposal on "Drug Discovery from Nature's Metabolites" accepted! 🎉🎈(clickable link)
Manuscript with 55 or so co-authors on protein function prediction published in the journal Databases.

Summer 2022

USDA - Hatch award on effect of arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis on cold tolerance funded! 🎉🎈
Gaurav presents at PSNA at Virginia Tech
Bhaswati leaves the lab after a fantastic four months! We will miss you!

Spring 2022

Gaurav is selected as a TW Turner Fellowship Mentor and a Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability Faculty Fellow.
Congratulations Liz for getting awarded the ASPB Travel Award!! 🎉🎈
Congratulations Irfan for getting awarded the Atkinson Center small grant! 🎉🎈
Our HortRes manuscript is now online.
Bhaswati Sarmah joins the lab as an ICAR-World Bank visiting fellow
Gaurav co-chairs a session in a workshop on Protein Function Prediction organized at University of Florida - Gainesville.