Murali obtained his Ph.D from the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, followed by postdoctoral research at Astra Zeneca India, the US National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York. His major academic interest was in human genetics and genomics, where he contributed to the human genome sequencing project and to the discovery of novel disease genes implicated in bipolar disorder and narcolepsy. 

Murali then moved from academia to the pharmaceutical industry to pursue his interest in translating biological research to drug discovery and development. After working at CuraGen Corporation, Connecticut, he joined the drug discovery and development team at Piramal Life Sciences, Mumbai, rising to the position of Associate Director. Murali has over 15 years of experience in drug discovery and development. He has coordinated multidisciplinary teams in areas from assay development and screening to lead optimization, and from hypothesis-generating biological studies to biomarker development for clinical trials.

At CCBT, Murali is involved in development of biochemical assays, compound screening, identification and confirmation of small molecule hits against novel biological targets that are being pursued at CCBT.  Murali holds 8 granted US patents to his credit.