Bioinformatics PhD Candidate · UNC Charlotte
Gerard Nasser
I develop Hi-C metagenomic methods that link antimicrobial-resistance genes to their bacterial and plasmid hosts in built and wastewater environments.
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Research
Linking resistance genes to their hosts.
I am a bioinformatics PhD candidate at UNC Charlotte and an affiliate of the NSF-funded PreMiEr (Precision Microbiome Engineering) Research Center. My work uses large-scale sequencing data to study how resistance spreads and persists.
Researching
- Hi-C metagenomics for resistance genes
- AMR in built & wastewater environments
- Linking plasmids to their bacterial hosts
Building
- Reproducible bioinformatics pipelines
- Cross-platform research desktop tools
- Systematic-review & literature tooling
Training
- Trained in microbiology & wet-lab work
- Bacteriophage genomics (SEA-PHAGES)
- Wet-lab ↔ dry-lab across the stack
Software
Desktop apps and command-line tools I wrote and maintain. Each row links to its repository.
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PRISMA-App
Desktop app for running PRISMA-2020 systematic reviews & meta-analyses — field-aware checklists, screening, extraction and risk-of-bias workflows, with pulls from PubMed, OpenAlex and Crossref.
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Bioinformatic Scripting App
Offline GUI that builds bioinformatics pipelines from a catalog of 60+ tools and exports them to Bash, Python, R, Nextflow, Snakemake or CWL — with SLURM/PBS/SGE/LSF scheduler support.
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rarekit
Single-pass cumulative subsetting CLI for rarefaction workflows (FASTQ / FASTA / TSV / count tables) — holds a <200 MB memory ceiling regardless of input size, with a property-based test suite.
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Inkstone
Converts Word docs, notebooks, CSV/TSV, BibTeX, source code and more into clean, Obsidian-ready Markdown with YAML frontmatter. Ships as a desktop app and a Python library.
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OneLiner
Minimal macOS utility that flattens messy multi-line text into one clean line, stripping invisible Unicode and collapsing whitespace.
Talks and posters
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All Edges Lead to Nodes: Can Multiple Methods Lead to the Same Hi-C Contact Maps?
- talk ICCABS 2026 — 14th Int'l Conference on Computational Advances in Bio and Medical Sciences · Raleigh, NC
- poster ASM Microbe 2026 · Washington, D.C.
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Isolation and Characterization of Novel Mycobacterium smegmatis Bacteriophage from New Jersey Soil Over the Past Six Years
- poster 9th Annual SEA-PHAGES Symposium · Ashburn, VA
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Development of Cluster-Specific Phage PCR Primers
- poster Montclair State University Student Research Symposium · Montclair, NJ
Genome submissions
Complete bacteriophage genomes I co-authored and deposited to NCBI GenBank through SEA-PHAGES and related comparative-genomics work.
| Phage | GenBank accession | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Mycobacterium phage Gator | MN096361.1 | 2019 |
| Arthrobacter phage Linus | MN204503.1 | 2019 |
| Mycobacterium phage BreSam8 | MH576949.1 | 2018 |
| Mycobacterium phage LifeSavor | MG872839.1 | 2018 |
| Arthrobacter phage Tenno | MH825711.1 | 2018 |
| Arthrobacter phage Abidatro | MF140397.1 | 2017 |
Teaching
Lab and classroom teaching since 2016, at Montclair State University and UNC Charlotte.
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Graduate Teaching Assistant
Department of Bioinformatics & Genomics, UNC Charlotte
Teaching assistant in the bioinformatics & genomics graduate program; also mentor two master's students through computational analysis and interpretation.
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Lead Graduate Assistant
Department of Biology, Montclair State University
Oversaw lab courses and a team of graduate TAs across the department, coordinated lab scheduling, and designed teaching techniques and instructional materials for undergraduate labs.
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Teaching Assistant
Department of Biology, Montclair State University
Taught undergraduate labs across Principles of Biology, Microbiology, and SEA-PHAGES; helped expand the SEA-PHAGES genome-sequencing curriculum in collaboration with HHMI.
Materials
Education and awards
Education
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Ph.D. Bioinformatics & Computational Biology
UNC Charlotte
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M.S. Biology
Montclair State University
Thesis: Effects of Differing Environmental Conditions on Bacteriophage Jenika
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B.S. Biology (Minor: Psychology)
Montclair State University
Awards
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Mario M. Casabona Future Scientists Program
College of Science and Mathematics, Montclair State University
Second place — one of two students selected from the Department of Biology (and one of ten from the College).
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SEA-PHAGES Symposium Student Representative
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
One of two student representatives selected from Montclair State to present at the Annual HHMI SEA-PHAGES Symposium.
Contact
Open to collaboration on bioinformatics tools, genomics pipelines, and microbiome research.