About the Faculty
Dr. Jigneshkumar D. Prajapati is a computational biophysicist with a strong interdisciplinary background, holding a B.Pharm. degree from Sardar Patel University (2009), an M.S. (Pharm.) in Pharmacoinformatics from NIPER Mohali (2011), and a Ph.D. in Biochemical Engineering from Jacobs University Bremen, Germany (2018). Fascinated by the molecular mechanisms underlying biomolecular function, he has developed broad expertise in molecular simulations, enhanced sampling, and coarse-grained simulation approaches for studying RNA dynamics, ribosome translation, transport across membrane proteins, and nanopore-based sensing.
Dr. Prajapati conducted his doctoral and subsequent postdoctoral research in the group of Prof. Ulrich Kleinekathöfer, where he worked on antibiotics and substrates permeation through Gram-negative bacterial porins (OmpF, OmpC, CymA, DcaP), Brownian dynamics methods development, and nanopore sensing (small solutes and peptides), contributing to improved understanding of membrane transport at the molecular level. In 2021, he joined the Dr. Karissa Sanbonmatsu group at Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA, as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. His research there spans the development of computational tools, including the MUON (MUlti-scale multi-bOdy accelerated sampliNg) framework and Python-based Cryo_fit for integrating structural dynamics with cryo-EM/SAXS densities, as well as large-scale all-atom simulations of bacterial riboswitches (SAM-I, 2'-dG, Glycine), bacterial ribosomes, and Ryanodine receptor (RyR1) channel. Subsequently, he worked as a Research Scientist at the New Mexico Consortium in the USA, where he studied the dynamics of the hAChE enzyme. Before joining BITS Pilani, Dr. Prajapati had published 25 peer-reviewed articles, including papers in Chemical Reviews, PNAS, JACS, ACS Nano, Angewandte Chemie, and Chemical Science. Dr. Prajapati joined the Pilani campus of BITS Pilani as an Assistant Professor in November 2025.
