Ipsita Mohanty

Ipsita Mohanty

  • Assistant Professor of Pharmacology
Room 306C
Life Sciences Building
University Park, PA 16802

Areas of Expertise

  • Host-Microbiome Communication
  • Untargeted Mass-Spectrometry and Metabolomics
  • Data Science and repository sale analysis
  • Bile Acid Diversity in Human Health and Disease
  • Metabolic signatures in Diet and Aging

Websites

Dr. Ipsita Mohanty is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences and Nutritional Sciences at Penn State University. Her research focuses on decoding chemical communication between the host and the microbiome using mass spectrometry-based metabolomics and data science.

Dr. Mohanty completed her undergraduate studies in Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, where she graduated with a silver medal. She then earned her Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Georgia Institute of Technology. During her doctoral research, she applied untargeted mass spectrometry-based metabolomics to explore the chemical diversity of marine sponges and mapped their associated microbiomes using 16S rRNA sequencing, revealing links between microbial communities and natural product chemistry.

She conducted her postdoctoral training at the University of California, San Diego in the laboratory of Professor Pieter Dorrestein. There, her work focused on expanding the known diversity of bile acids, important signaling molecules involved in host-microbiome interactions. By developing novel large-scale data-mining strategies for untargeted LC-MS/MS datasets, she demonstrated that the diversity of bile acids present in biological systems was vastly underappreciated.

The Mohanty Lab integrates metabolomics, computational data mining, and enzymology to uncover the small molecules that mediate communication between microbes and the host. By discovering and characterizing previously unknown metabolites and linking them to microbial enzymes and host physiology, her research aims to illuminate how chemical signals produced at the host-microbiome interface influence health, aging, and disease.

Research Program Centers on Three Themes:
  • Discover: Repository-scale mining, untargeted LC-MS/MS, and in silico annotation to expand the atlas of microbially-modified metabolites and their enzymes.
  • Decode: High-throughput enzyme-substrate screens, activity-guided fractionation, and receptor panels to map who does what and how messages act on host targets.
  • Modulate: Conduct mechanistic studies in models of diet, drug exposure, and aging to test causality and identify the impacts of interventions.
Awards and Recognitions
  • Early Career Rising Star Award, Metabolomics Association of North America, 2024
  • Elected Co-Chair, Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) Metabolomics and Human Health, 2027
  • Bagwell Undergraduate Research Mentor Fellowship, Georgia Tech, 2021
  • Institute Silver Medal, IIT Kharagpur, 2017

Publications

A searchable metadata network graph for microbiome metabolomics.
bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology, Charron-Lamoureux, V, Xing, S, Patan, A, Walker, C, Monter, R, Abiead, Y, Zhao, H, Patel, L, Weng, Y, Gonzalez, A, Ackermann, G, Deleray, V, Gandhi, V, Mohanty, Ipsita, Caraballo-Rodriguez, A, Kvitne, K, Zuffa, S, Norman, A, Martin, A, Chin, L, Paz-Gonzalez, R, Sala-Climent, M, Suryawinata, N, Zemlin, J, Gouda, H, Hu, Z, Norton, G, Rajkumar, P, Molina, A, Bergstrom, J, Pinner, M, Giddings, S, Aron, A, Liang, L, Dahesh, S, Lamichhane, S, Reilly, E, Nizet, V, Skrip, A, Lukowski, A, Shore SFH, None, Ghoshal, S, Engevik, M, Horvath, T, Renwick, S, Agongo, J, Marco, M, Mazmanian, S, Wang, M, Yang, H, McDonald, D, Guma, M, Stegmann, E, Hernandez Perez, N, Stincone, P, Kemen, E, Pakkir Shah, A, Bode, L, Petras, D, Siegel, D, Raffatellu, M, Patterson, A, Devkota, S, Jinich, A, Knight, R, Zengler, K, Dorrestein, P, 2026

MS/MS Mass Spectrometry Filtering Tree for Bile Acid Regio- and Stereoisomer Annotation.
Analytical Chemistry, Mohanty, Ipsita, Xing, S, Castillo, V, Agongo, J, Patan, A, El Abiead, Y, Mannochio-Russo, H, Gonçalves Nunes, W, Zemlin, J, Mizrahi, I, Siegel, D, Wang, M, Hagey, L, Dorrestein, P, 2026

A metabolic atlas of mouse aging.
Cell Metabolism, Pilley, S, Awad, D, Latumalea, D, New, C, Esparza, E, Wang, S, Shi, X, Zhang, L, Unfried, M, Lee, J, Schmid, E, Mohanty, Ipsita, Blum JLE, None, Raventhiran, S, Wong, E, Iyengar, P, Mulondo, R, Kashyap, S, Moaddeli, D, Sajjakulnukit, P, Sutton, D, Wong HKA, None, Gao, Y, Wang, G, Coakley, A, Garcia, G, Higuchi-Sanabria, R, Karlstaedt, A, Frankel, T, di Pasca Magliano, M, Cohn, W, Liu, S, Yu, B, Dorrestein, P, Fraenkel, E, Davidson, S, Tu, W, Kennedy, B, Lyssiotis, C, Mullen, P, 2026

Community Curation of Microbial Metabolites Enables Biological Insights of Metabolomics Data.
bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology, Mannochio-Russo, H, Goncalves Nunes, W, Xing, S, de Oliveira, F, Caraballo-Rodriguez, A, Portal Gomes, P, Charron-Lamoureux, V, Agongo, J, Avalon, N, Bui, T, Cancelada, L, Chevrette, M, Cumsille, A, de Araujo, M, De Graeve, M, Deleray, V, Donia, M, Dzveta, M, El Abiead, Y, Ellis, R, Franklin, D, Garg, N, Gouda, H, Hamany Djande, C, Hiskia, A, Ho, B, Hughes, C, Hwang, S, Iliakopoulou, S, Iudicello, J, Jarmusch, A, Kaloudis, T, Koester, I, Konkel, R, Koolen HHF, None, Kvitne, K, La Rosa, S, Lam, A, Lamichhane, S, Lephatsi, M, Letendre, S, Magyari, S, Mazur-Marzec, H, McDonald, D, Mohanty, Ipsita, Monge-Loria, M, Moore, D, Moura Veiga, T, Mulaudzi, M, Nephali, L, Nguyen, G, Orsagh, M, Patan, A, Pluskal, T, Pope, P, de Soman Medeiros, L, Stincone, P, Tekel, A, Thomas, S, Torres, R, Tsunoda, S, Tugizimana, F, van Faassen, M, Vasquez-Castro, F, Vitale, G, Wagner, B, Wang, C, Zervou, S, Zhao, H, Zuffa, S, Petras, D, McCall, L, Knight, R, Wang, M, Dorrestein, P, 2026

Fecal microbial and metabolic signatures in children with very early onset inflammatory bowel disease.
npj Biofilms and Microbiomes, Kvitne, K, Zuffa, S, Charron-Lamoureux, V, Mohanty, Ipsita, Patan, A, Mannochio-Russo, H, Zemlin, J, Burnett, L, Zhang, L, Cecala, M, Ersoz, C, Connelly, J, Halasa, N, Nicholson, M, Dorrestein, P, Tsunoda, S, Markle, J, 2025

Environmental and maternal imprints on infant gut metabolic development.
Cell Host and Microbe, Kvitne, K, Allaband, C, Onuora, J, Perry, D, Zuffa, S, Patel, L, Charron-Lamoureux, V, Mohanty, Ipsita, Sejane, K, Patan, A, Mahmud, A, Ahmed, T, Bassani, D, González, A, Hamer, D, Haque, R, Ho, B, Hossain, M, Islam, M, McDonald, D, Pell, L, Qamar, H, Roth, D, Saha, S, Shah, P, Siddiqui, M, Sarker, S, Sultana, S, Thomas, S, Burnett, L, Tsunoda, S, Bode, L, Dorrestein, P, Knight, R, 2025

A resource to empirically establish drug exposure records directly from untargeted metabolomics data.
Nature Communications, Zhao, H, Kvitne, K, Brungs, C, Mohan, S, Charron-Lamoureux, V, Bittremieux, W, Tang, R, Schmid, R, Lamichhane, S, Xing, S, El Abiead, Y, Andalibi, M, Mannochio-Russo, H, Ambre, M, Avalon, N, Bryant, M, Burnett, L, Caraballo-Rodríguez, A, Maya, M, Chin, L, Corominas, L, Ellis, R, Franklin, D, Girod, S, Gomes PWP, None, Hansen, L, Heaton, R, Iudicello, J, Jarmusch, A, Khatib, L, Letendre, S, Magyari, S, McDonald, D, Mohanty, Ipsita, Cumsille, A, Moore, D, Rajkumar, P, Ross, D, Sapre, H, Shahneh MRZ, None, Gil-Solsona, R, Thomas, S, Tribelhorn, C, Tubb, H, Walker, C, Wang, C, Zemlin, J, Zuffa, S, Wishart, D, Gago-Ferrero, P, Kaddurah-Daouk, R, Wang, M, Raffatellu, M, Zengler, K, Pluskal, T, Xu, L, Knight, R, Tsunoda, S, Dorrestein, P, 2025

A Perspective on Unintentional Fragments and Their Impact on the Dark Metabolome, Untargeted Profiling, Molecular Networking, Public Data, and Repository Scale Analysis.
JACS Au, El Abiead, Y, Mohanty, Ipsita, Xing, S, Rutz, A, Charron-Lamoureux, V, Damiani, T, Lu, W, Patti, G, Zamboni, N, Yanes, O, Dorrestein, P, 2025

Charting the Undiscovered Metabolome with Synthetic Multiplexing.
bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology, Patan, A, Xing, S, Charron-Lamoureux, V, Hu, Z, Deleray, V, Agongo, J, El Abiead, Y, Mannochio-Russo, H, Mohanty, Ipsita, Gouda, H, Zemlin, J, Rajkumar, P, Lee, C, Leanos, D, Weimann, N, Tsuda, W, Giddings, S, Bui, T, Kvitne, K, Zhao, H, Zuffa, S, Nguyen, V, Andrade, A, Gonçalves Nunes, W, Caraballo-Rodríguez, A, Caetano David, L, Carver, J, Bandeira, N, Wang, M, Burnett, L, Siegel, D, Dorrestein, P, 2025

Learning molecular fingerprints of foods to decode dietary intake.
Research square, Dorrestein, P, Gouda, H, Agongo, J, Kelly, P, Sala-Climent, M, Nunes, W, Gkikas, K, Xing, S, Deleray, V, Wang, C, Charron-Lamoureux, V, Zhao, H, Mohanty, Ipsita, McMaugh, A, Sharma, M, Nguyen, A, Fleming, J, Wang, M, Rattray, N, Russell, R, Gerasimidis, K, Guma, M, 2025

Microbial lipid shifts in a multi-stage simulated gut.
bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology, Tamanna, I, Salonen, K, Mannochio-Russo, H, Kråkström, M, Gomes PWP, None, Lamoureux, V, Mohanty, Ipsita, Forssten, S, Ouwehand, A, Hyötyläinen, T, Dickens, A, Dorrestein, P, Orešič, M, Lamichhane, S, 2025

Cross-organ metabolite production and consumption in healthy and atherogenic conditions.
Cell, Bae, H, Jung, S, Le, J, Tamburini, I, Kim, J, Wang, E, Song, W, Choi, W, Jang, K, Kang, T, Lopez, M, Ramirez, C, Mohanty, Ipsita, Kelly, M, Kim, J, Kim, R, Park, S, Baek, J, Mendez, B, Petrus, P, de Aguiar Vallim, T, Nicholas, D, Smith, Q, Lee, G, Seldin, M, Jang, C, 2025

The microbiome diversifies long- to short-chain fatty acid-derived N-acyl lipids.
Cell, Mannochio-Russo, H, Charron-Lamoureux, V, van Faassen, M, Lamichhane, S, Gonçalves Nunes, W, Deleray, V, Ayala, A, Tanaka, Y, Patan, A, Vittali, K, Rajkumar, P, El Abiead, Y, Zhao, H, Gomes PWP, None, Mohanty, Ipsita, Lee, C, Sund, A, Sharma, M, Liu, Y, Pattynama, D, Walker, G, Norton, G, Khatib, L, Andalibi, M, Wang, C, Ellis, R, Moore, D, Iudicello, J, Franklin, Jr, D, Letendre, S, Chin, L, Walker, C, Renwick, S, Zemlin, J, Meehan, M, Song, X, Kasper, D, Burcham, Z, Kim, J, Kadakia, S, Raffatellu, M, Bode, L, Chu, H, Zengler, K, Wang, M, Siegel, D, Knight, R, Dorrestein, P, 2025

Metatranscriptomics uncovers diurnal functional shifts in bacterial transgenes with profound metabolic effects
Cell Host and Microbe, Ramos, S, Siguenza, N, Zhong, W, Mohanty, Ipsita, Lingaraju, A, Richter, R, Karthikeyan, S, Lukowski, A, Zhu, Q, Nunes WDG, None, Zemlin, J, Xu, Z, Hasty, J, Dorrestein, P, Panda, S, Knight, R, Zarrinpar, A, 2025

Correction: Impact of diet change on the gut microbiome of common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) (American Society for Microbiology (2024) 9:8 (e00108) DOI: 10.1128/msystems.00108-24)
mSystems, Tang-Wing, Cassandra, Mohanty, Ipsita, Bryant, MacKenzie, Makowski, Katherine, Melendez, Daira, Dorrestein, Pieter C., Knight, Rob, Caraballo-Rodríguez, Andrés Mauricio, Allaband, Celeste, Jenné, Keith, 2025

Influence of perinatal ampicillin exposure on maternal fecal microbial and metabolic profiles.
bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology, Zuffa, S, Thomas, S, Mohanty, Ipsita, El Abiead, Y, Deleray, V, Kvitne, K, Kousha, A, Suzuki, E, Tsai, C, Nguyen, G, Ho, B, Liu, G, Nizet, V, Dorrestein, P, Askarian, F, Tsunoda, S, 2025

Untargeted and semi-targeted metabolomics approach for profiling small intestinal and fecal metabolome using high-resolution mass spectrometry.
Metabolomics, Tronel, A, Roger-Margueritat, M, Plazy, C, Cunin, V, Mohanty, Ipsita, Dorrestein, P, Soranzo, T, Le Gouellec, A, 2025

Enabling pan-repository reanalysis for big data science of public metabolomics data.
Nature Communications, El Abiead, Y, Strobel, M, Payne, T, Fahy, E, O'Donovan, C, Subramamiam, S, Vizcaíno, J, Yurekten, O, Deleray, V, Zuffa, S, Xing, S, Mannochio-Russo, H, Mohanty, Ipsita, Zhao, H, Caraballo-Rodriguez, A, Gomes, P, Avalon, N, Northen, T, Bowen, B, Louie, K, Dorrestein, P, Wang, M, 2025

Profiling the human luminal small intestinal microbiome using a novel ingestible medical device.
medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences, Tronel, A, Roger-Margueritat, M, Plazy, C, Biennier, S, Craspay, A, Mohanty, Ipsita, Portier, S, Laiola, M, Roeselers, G, Mathieu, N, Hupe, M, Dorrestein, P, Alcaraz, J, Martin, D, Cinquin, P, Silvent, A, Giai, J, Proust, M, Soranzo, T, Buelow, E, Gouellec, A, 2025

The International Space Station has a unique and extreme microbial and chemical environment driven by use patterns.
Cell, Salido, R, Zhao, H, McDonald, D, Mannochio-Russo, H, Zuffa, S, Oles, R, Aron, A, El Abiead, Y, Farmer, S, González, A, Martino, C, Mohanty, Ipsita, Parker, C, Patel, L, Portal Gomes, P, Schmid, R, Schwartz, T, Zhu, J, Barratt, M, Rubins, K, Chu, H, Karouia, F, Venkateswaran, K, Dorrestein, P, Knight, R, 2025

Streamlined extraction of nucleic acids and metabolites from low- and high-biomass samples using isopropanol and matrix tubes.
Microbiology spectrum, Brennan, C, Shaffer, J, Belda-Ferre, P, Mohanty, Ipsita, Weng, Y, Cantrell, K, Ackermann, G, Allaband, C, Bryant, M, Farmer, S, González, A, McDonald, D, Martino, C, Meehan, M, Rahman, G, Salido, R, Schwartz, T, Song, S, Tribelhorn, C, Tubb, H, Dorrestein, P, Knight, R, 2025

Exploring the human small intestinal luminal microbiome via a newly developed ingestible sampling device.
ISME Communications, Tronel, A, Roger-Margueritat, M, Plazy, C, Biennier, S, Craspay, A, Mohanty, Ipsita, Portier, S, Laiola, M, Roeselers, G, Mathieu, N, Hupe, M, Dorrestein, P, Alcaraz, J, Martin, D, Cinquin, P, Silvent, A, Giai, J, Proust, M, Soranzo, T, Buelow, E, Le Gouellec, A, 2025

How bile acids and the microbiota interact to shape host immunity.
Nature Reviews Immunology, Lee, M, Nuccio, S, Mohanty, Ipsita, Hagey, L, Dorrestein, P, Chu, H, Raffatellu, M, 2024

Clearing the plate: a strategic approach to mitigate well-to-well contamination in large-scale microbiome studies.
mSystems, Brennan, C, Belda-Ferre, P, Zuffa, S, Charron-Lamoureux, V, Mohanty, Ipsita, Ackermann, G, Allaband, C, Ambre, M, Boyer, T, Bryant, M, Cantrell, K, Gonzalez, A, McDonald, D, Salido, R, Song, S, Wright, G, Dorrestein, P, Knight, R, 2024

Discovery and Folding Dynamics of a Fused Bicyclic Cysteine Knot Undecapeptide from the Marine Sponge Halichondria bowerbanki.
Journal of Organic Chemistry, Zhong, W, Olugbami, J, Rathakrishnan, P, Mohanty, Ipsita, Moore, S, Garg, N, Oyelere, A, Turner, T, McShan, A, Agarwal, V, 2024

Impact of diet change on the gut microbiome of common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus).
mSystems, Tang-Wing, C, Mohanty, Ipsita, Bryant, M, Makowski, K, Melendez, D, Dorrestein, P, Knight, R, Caraballo-Rodríguez, A, Allaband, C, Jenné, K, 2024

The changing metabolic landscape of bile acids - keys to metabolism and immune regulation.
Nature Reviews Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Mohanty, Ipsita, Allaband, C, Mannochio-Russo, H, El Abiead, Y, Hagey, L, Knight, R, Dorrestein, P, 2024

Discovery and Biosynthesis of Ureidopeptide Natural Products Macrocyclized via Indole N-acylation in Marine Microbulbifer spp. Bacteria.
ChemBioChem, Zhong, W, Deutsch, J, Yi, D, Abrahamse, N, Mohanty, Ipsita, Moore, S, McShan, A, Garg, N, Agarwal, V, 2023

Limited Metabolomic Overlap between Commensal Bacteria and Marine Sponge Holobionts Revealed by Large Scale Culturing and Mass Spectrometry-Based Metabolomics: An Undergraduate Laboratory Pedagogical Effort at Georgia Tech.
Marine Drugs, Deutsch, J, Green, M, Akavaram, P, Davis, A, Diskalkar, S, Du Plessis, I, Fallon, H, Grason, E, Kauf, E, Kim, Z, Miller, 2nd, J, Neal, A, Riera, T, Stroeva, S, Tran, J, Tran, V, Coronado, A, Coronado, V, Wall, B, Yang, C, Mohanty, Ipsita, Abrahamse, N, Freeman, C, Easson, C, Fiore, C, Onstine, A, Djeddar, N, Biliya, S, Bryksin, A, Garg, N, Agarwal, V, 2023

Stereochemical Assignment and Absolute Abundance of Nonproteinogenic Amino Acid Homoarginine in Marine Sponges.
ACS Omega, Mohanty, Ipsita, Moore, S, Biggs, J, Freeman, C, Gaul, D, Garg, N, Agarwal, V, 2021

Enzymatic Synthesis Assisted Discovery of Proline-Rich Macrocyclic Peptides in Marine Sponges.
ChemBioChem, Mohanty, Ipsita, Nguyen, N, Moore, S, Biggs, J, Gaul, D, Garg, N, Agarwal, V, 2021

An Obligate Peptidyl Brominase Underlies the Discovery of Highly Distributed Biosynthetic Gene Clusters in Marine Sponge Microbiomes.
Journal of the American Chemical Society, Nguyen, N, Lin, Z, Mohanty, Ipsita, Garg, N, Schmidt, E, Agarwal, V, 2021

Presence of Bromotyrosine Alkaloids in Marine Sponges Is Independent of Metabolomic and Microbiome Architectures.
mSystems, Mohanty, Ipsita, Tapadar, S, Moore, S, Biggs, J, Freeman, C, Gaul, D, Garg, N, Agarwal, V, 2021

Precursor-Guided Mining of Marine Sponge Metabolomes Lends Insight into Biosynthesis of Pyrrole-Imidazole Alkaloids.
ACS chemical biology, Mohanty, Ipsita, Moore, S, Yi, D, Biggs, J, Gaul, D, Garg, N, Agarwal, V, 2020

Multi-Omic Profiling of Melophlus Sponges Reveals Diverse Metabolomic and Microbiome Architectures that Are Non-overlapping with Ecological Neighbors.
Marine Drugs, Mohanty, Ipsita, Podell, S, Biggs, J, Garg, N, Allen, E, Agarwal, V, 2020