Principal Investigator

Prof. Chapagain

Prof. Prem Chapagain

Professor, Department of Physics, College of Arts, Science, and Education
Associate Director, Biomolecular Sciences Institute
Courtesy Professor, Department of Immunology and Nano-medicine, , HW College of Medicine

Short Bio:
Dr. Chapagain is a Professor in the Department of Physics at Florida International University, specializing in biological physics. His research focuses on the computational investigations of biomolecules and he has extensively published on various topics of biophysics including protein aggregation, exploring novel antimicrobial compounds against antibiotic-resistant pathogens, membrane interactions and dynamics of viral proteins of emerging viruses such as Ebola and Marburg viruses and more recently SARS-CoV-2. He has developed an excellent research infrastructure in computational biophysics at FIU with external funding from the NSF, NIH, DoD, and industry partners. He has been recognized by a number of teaching and research awards, including the 2022 Faculty Senate award for Faculty Excellence in Research and the 2019 Faculty Senate award for Faculty Excellence in Teaching. Dr. Chapagain has a highly successful record of teaching and mentoring both graduate and undergraduate students.



Theoretical Biophysics includes two faculty (Gerstman & Chapagain). Dr. Gerstman's page can be accessed here.


Current Members


Jeanpierre Fuente

PhD Student, Biochemistry

Investigations of the DNA repair activities of polymerases.


Ashmita Shah

PhD Student

Research topic: TBD


Hugo Perez

PhD Student

Structural modeling and dynamics of lantibiotic peptides, Biophysical chanracterization of membrane pore formation by antimicrobial peptides


Michael Cioffi

PhD Candidate

Coarse-grained modeling of drug diffusion through lipid membranes


Yasir Mamun

PhD Student, Biochemistry

Structure, dynamics, and RNA interactions of human topoisomerase 3B (hTOP3B)


Tej Sharma

PhD Student

Membrane interactions of the Ebola and Marburg virus protein VP40


Aakash Shrestha

Undergraduate Student

RNA structure


Rafael Barreto

Undergraduate Student

TBD



Former Members

Md Lokman Hossen

PhD (2022)

Currently: Postdoctoral Fellow, Texas A&M, Texas.

Prabin Baral

PhD (2022)

Currently: Postdoctoral Fellow, MacKerell Lab, University of Maryland, Baltimore

Nisha Bhattarai

PhD (2021)

Currently: Postdoctoral Fellow, Cleveland Clinic, Ohio

Chandra Dhakal

PhD (2021)

Currently: Nepal

Rudramani Pokhrel

PhD (2020)

Currently: Bioinformaticist, College of MedicineArizona State University, Tuscon, Arizona

Timothy Steckmann

PhD (2017)

Currently: Quantum Computing, TeachMe.Codes

Jeevan GC

PhD (2016)

Currently: Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Columbia University

Chola Regmi

PhD (2014)

Currently: Data Analyst, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality

Yuba Bhandari

PhD (2013)

Currently: Research Associate, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University

Yanxin Liu

MSc (2009)

Currently: Assistant Professor, University of Maryland

Camilla Uzcategui

BSc (2016)

Currently: Graduate Student, University of Colorado, Boulder

Ilan Chemmama

BSc (2015)

Currently: Graduate Student, University of California, San Fransisco

William Castillo

BA (2011)


Contact: chapagap@fiu.edu