Chathurani Ranathunge

Bioinformatics Scientist | Computational Biologist

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Hi! My name is Chathurani Ranathunge. I am a bioinformatics scientist with over a decade of experience working with multiple types of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) data. I currently work as the Lead Bioinformatics Scientist at the University of Houston’s Sequencing and Gene Editing core (UHSEQ), where I design and develop bioinformatics pipelines for cancer immunotherapy research. Though my current work revolves around cancer genomics and immunotherapy, my scientific journey began in evolutionary biology and population genetics.

I earned my Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from Mississippi State University under the guidance of Dr. Mark Welch. My dissertation focussed on the role of short tandem repeats (STRs) in rapid adaptive evolution. Using the common sunflower (Helianthus annuus) as a model system, I studied how STRs fine-tune gene expression in response to environmental changes.

After completing my Ph.D., I accepted a postdoctoral position in Dr. Stuart McDaniel’s lab at the University of Florida, where I studied rapidly changing Arctic eco-systems. My postdoc gave me an opportunity to step out of my comfort zone - both scientifically and literally. I went from sunflowers to mosses and from Mississippi to the Arctic tundra. But more importantly, it is during this time that I discovered my passion for bioinformatics. I realized that while benchwork no longer excited me, the process of analyzing data, and finding meaningful patterns in biological data did.

This realization led me to a position at the Eastern Virginia Medical School, where I transitioned into bioinformatics focused research, gaining experience in tool development and cancer biomarker discovery. Looking back, I truly believe that my combined experience in wet-lab and computational analysis has shaped the way I approach bioinformatics. Now, my goal is to continue leveraging biological data to drive biomedical research forward, developing new ways to transform large biological datasets into actionable discoveries, and, last but not least, sharing the magic of bioinformatics with future scientists.

news

Aug 03, 2024 The final chapter of my dissertation is now published in Biomolecules! :tada: Read the paper here.
May 15, 2024 Excited to share that I’ve started a new role as a Lead Bioinformatics Scientist @ the UH Sequencing Core! :dna:
Jul 31, 2023 promor v0.2.1 is now available on CRAN! :rocket: Check it out.

selected publications

  1. mec.2018.27.issue-5.cover.jpg
    Transcriptome profiles of sunflower reveal the potential role of microsatellites in gene expression divergence
    Chathurani Ranathunge, Gregory L Wheeler, Melody E Chimahusky, and 5 more authors
    Molecular Ecology, 2018
  2. mec.v29.9.cover.jpg
    Transcribed microsatellite allele lengths are often correlated with gene expression in natural sunflower populations
    Chathurani Ranathunge, Gregory L Wheeler, Melody E Chimahusky, and 3 more authors
    Molecular Ecology, 2020
  3. m_bioadv_3_1cover.jpeg
    promor: a comprehensive R package for label-free proteomics data analysis and predictive modeling
    Chathurani Ranathunge, Sagar S Patel, Lubna Pinky, and 6 more authors
    Bioinformatics Advances, 2023