Jorge Alexander Rojas Vargas
Postdoctoral Associate, University of Western Ontario · Departments of Biology and Microbiology & Immunology (Schulich School of Medicine)
About
Colombian and first generation scientist. I work at the intersection of bioinformatics, genomics, and microbial ecology. I develop and apply reproducible workflows to analyze microbial communities (16S and shotgun metagenomics), with a focus on k‑mers, microbial “dark matter”, and HPC‑ready, reproducible pipelines.
Research Interests
- Pangenomics and microbial functions
- Large‑scale orthology analysis and phylogenetic inference
- k‑mer‑based methods and distance metrics
- Human and environmental microbiomes
- Xenobiotics microbial degradation
Research
Kmerbiome & distance metrics
2023–present
Development of pipelines to compare k‑mer profiles (CLR/ALR/ILR, cosine, Wasserstein, UMAP) and evaluate taxonomic/functional stability.
Microbiome and sexual health
2022–present
Links between reproductive maturation, sexual debut, the microbiome, and immune activation; GEE and DMM models; immune markers.
Hydrocarbon and plastic degradation
2019–present
Use wet-lab and genomics to explore microbial degradation of complex hydrocarbons and polymers.
Selected Publications
- Rojas‑Vargas J., et al. (2025). The Neovaginal Microbiota, Symptoms, and Local Immune Correlates in Transfeminine Individuals with Penile Inversion Vaginoplasty . Cell Reports (accepted for publication) microbiome, metagenomics
- Monari B., Wilcox H., Haywood P., Gajer P., Rojas‑Vargas J., et al. (2025). The vaginal microbiota, symptoms, and local immune correlates in transmasculine individuals using sustained testosterone therapy. Cell Reports (in revision). microbiome, metagenomics
- Rojas‑Vargas J., et al. (2024). A comparative genomic study of a hydrocarbon-degrading marine bacterial consortium . PLoS ONE. comparative genomics, hydrocarbon degradation
- Rojas-Vargas, J., et al. (2023). HADEG: a curated hydrocarbon aerobic degradation enzymes and genes database. Computational Biology and Chemistry. database, hydrocarbon degradation
For the full list, see Google Scholar.
Teaching
- Applied Bioinformatics — R/Python, HPC, and reproducibility workshops.
- Comparative Genomics — theory and practice of pangenomics, orthology, and phylogenies.
News
- Sep 2025: Launch of this website on GitHub Pages 🎉
- Jun 2025: Receive the 2025 CANSSI Ontario Postdoctoral Fellowship in Genome Data Science ✨
- May 2025: Short-talk at IHMT Lisbon on phages in neovaginal microenvironment.
- Mar 2024: Start as Postdoctoral Associate at Western University.
Contact
Email me at jrojasva@uwo.ca or via GitHub.