Amit Kumar

My academic training and research experience have provided me with an excellent background in multiple biological disciplines including molecular biology, microbiology, cell biology, and microscopy. In my early career I studied host-pathogen interactions and molecular pathogenesis, intracellular signaling, and cytotoxicity. In my work, during graduate and as a postdoctoral fellow, I have applied traditional and innovative cell biology, transcriptomic and flow cytometric approaches to study KSHV reactivation and EBV mechanisms of genomic instability in nasopharyngeal carcinoma and got expertise in live cell imaging and genomic instability. The postdoctoral research at JHMI provided me with new conceptual and technical training in stem cell biology and genome editing. I had been conducting research to develop a hiPSC- derived HSPC-based therapy as a curative alternative to the expensive non-curative GCase enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) to treat Gaucher's Disease (GD). Parallelly at Johns Hopkins I explored and understand the complexities of cancer immunotherapy and cell-cell interactions, I used immunotoxin (DAB-IL2) directed to deplete Tregs from the tumor microenvironment in different established preclinical tumor models and found that Tregs depletion from tumor microenvironment resulted in the antitumor effect and enhanced immune functions. Currently I am working as a postdoctoral fellow at VCU to define the molecular basis of cancer development and progression to metastasis.  In the future, I am planning to continue research on the interactions between cells and the cellular microenvironments in various diseases in order to identify possible biomarkers and therapeutic targets that will enhance patient health.