Our lab is committed to explore and characterize prokaryotic diversity across a broad range of natural and human-impacted habitats, with a strong focus on microbial diversity, genomics enabled systematics and application of deep-sequencing metagenomics approaches for deciphering the structural components and functional potential of the microbial community. In the past decade, we have cultured and described several novel novel taxa from diverse environments such as marine algae, sediments, mangrove sediments, salt pans, and freshwater niches like the river Ganges, soda lakes (Pangong and Lonar lakes), explosive-contaminated areas, and the human gut. In-depth analyses of these microbes have uncovered a wide array of carbohydrate-active enzymes, unknown BGC clusters, cytochrome cyt P450, xenA/B, and xplA/B genes, as well as numerous biosynthetic gene clusters, underscoring their promise in pollutant bioremediation, industrial enzyme production, and drug discovery. Our ongoing research encompasses the structural and functional dynamics of atmospheric, deep-sea, and host-associated microbiomes, with a special focus on novel drug leads (through focus on bioactive producing myxobacteria and Actinomycetes), therapeutic approaches for Parkinson’s disease, host-microbe interactions, and fecal microbiota transplantation in IBD.

1) Bioprospecting and taxonomic studies of marine microorganisms in search of novel anti-infectives.

2) Use of genomic approaches for deciphering taxonomic intricacies in bacterial taxa.

• Schultz, J., Jamil, T., Sengupta, P., Sivabalan, Krishnamurthi, S…. Venkateswaran, K. et al., (2025) Genomic insights into novel extremotolerant bacteria isolated from the NASA Phoenix mission spacecraft assembly cleanrooms. Microbiome. 13, 117.
• Joyasree, D., Shilpee, P., Anu, N., S., S. S., Amit, Y., Srikrishna, S., K., S. S., Jayanta, S., and Srinivasan, K. (2025) Genomic insights into novel predatory myxobacteria isolated from human feces. Microbiol. Spectr. 0, e02147-24.
• Arora, P., Tewary, S., Krishnamurthi, S., and Kumari, N. (2025) Comparative Study on Evaluating the Performance of Automated Bacterial Colony Counting with Available APP and Software on Generated Image Dataset. SN Comput. Sci. 6, 357.
• Kumar, P., Verma, A., Yadav, P., Das, J., Kumar, L., and Krishnamurthi, S. (2024) Phylogenomic evaluation of Mangrovimicrobium sediminis gen. nov. sp. nov., the first nitrogen fixing member of the family Halieaceae adapted to mangrove habitat and reclassification of Halioglobus pacificus to Pseudohaliglobus pacificus comb. nov. Sci. Total Environ. 933, 172995.
• Yadav, P., Das, J., Sundharam, S. S., and Krishnamurthi, S. (2024) Analysis of Culturable Bacterial Diversity of Pangong Tso Lake via a 16S rRNA Tag Sequencing Approach. Microorganisms. 10.3390/microorganisms12020397.
• Pal, Y., Mayilraj, S., and Krishnamurthi, S. (2022) Exploring the Distinct Distribution of Archaeal Communities in Sites Contaminated with Explosives. Biomolecules. 10.3390/biom12040489.
• Yadav, S., Singh, R., Sundharam, S. S., Chaudhary, S., Krishnamurthi, S., and Patil, S. A. (2022) Geoalkalibacter halelectricus SAP‐1 sp. nov. possessing extracellular electron transfer and mineral‐reducing capabilities from a haloalkaline environment. Environ. Microbiol. 24, 5066–5081.