PhD · ML & Bioinformatics · UGA

Building tools to read the microbiome at scale.

I'm Utsav Lamichhane, a PhD researcher at the University of Georgia working on microbiome analysis, predictive modeling, and 16S & shotgun metagenomics — and the open-source software that makes those pipelines reproducible.

microbiome analysis predictive modeling 16S amplicon shotgun metagenomics machine learning
mbX_pipeline.sh
# 16S amplicon → insight, end to end
qiime tools import \
  --input-path manifest.tsv \
  --output-path reads.qza

mbx denoise --asv \
  --classifier silva-138

mbx diversity --alpha --beta
mbx ml --random-forest \
  --target phenotype

# → report.html  ✓

Research focus

Where computation meets the gut.

My work sits at the intersection of microbial ecology, sequencing, and machine learning — turning raw reads into models that explain host phenotypes.

16S

Microbiome analysis

Amplicon & shotgun metagenomic workflows — from primer detection and denoising through taxonomy, diversity, and differential abundance.

ML

Predictive modeling

Supervised models (random forests, deep learning) that link microbial community structure to host phenotypes and traits.

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Reproducible tooling

Open-source R and Python packages, Shiny apps, and step-by-step pipelines so analyses run the same way on any machine.

Featured work

Software & applications.

mbX

mbX — microbiomeX

A toolkit for microbiome data wrangling and visualization, available in both R and Python. Published in Stats (MDPI, 2025).

R packagePythonShiny
Q2

QIIME2 Code Generator

An interactive Shiny app that writes correct QIIME 2 commands for your study design — no more syntax hunting across docs.

ShinyQIIME 2
19

mbX Pro Pipeline

A 19-step, fully documented amplicon pipeline — primer ID, DADA2, taxonomy, diversity, ANCOM-BC2, PICRUSt2, ML and networks — each step with copy-ready code.

19 stepscopy-ready
py

utsav — Python library

A pip-installable package bundling microbiome taxa helpers and machine-learning utilities used across my projects.

pip install utsavv0.2.5

Toolbox

Things I work with.

PythonRQIIME 2 Machine learningDeep learningSQL R ShinyHPC · Sapelo2Linux NGS analysisBioconductorDash · Plotly

See all skills

Get in touch

Open to collaboration & research conversations.

Reach out about microbiome analysis, ML for biology, or the tools above.

Contact me