Personal information
Biography
Abhishek Kumar was born in Bihar, India. He earned a B.Sc. in Zoology from Magadh University in 2007. He qualified All India Combined Entrance Examination for Biotechnology (CEEB), 2007 conducted by JNU, New Delhi, and sponsored by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, and qualified Department of Biotechnology (DBT) (Government of India) scholarship for postgraduate studies in Biotechnology (2007-2009) and pursued M.Sc. Biotechnology from Calicut University in 2009. In 2009, he qualified Junior Research Fellowship conducted by the Department of Biotechnology as well as the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. In 2010, He joined for his Ph.D. degree at the Institute of Life Sciences, Bhubaneswar (Affiliated by DBT Govt. of India) with the objective “To pursue fundamental research in Biological Sciences for the growth of the -subjects & globalization of its benefit”. He is working on the Chikungunya virus and published five research articles in several international journals under the supervision of Dr. Soma Chattopadhyay, Scientist-E. He has attended several national and international conferences and has a Lifetime membership in the Indian Society of Biological Chemists. After His Ph.D., he worked for one year as a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at UIC in Chicago and he moved to the University of Florida to work as a post-doctoral associate in Dr. Zsolt Toth's lab. In Dr. Toth’s Lab, he investigated the role of Histone demethylase UTX, JMJD3, and Histone Methyltransferase MLL1-4 in the regulation of KSHV lytic and latent replication cycle. During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, he did research to identify SARS-CoV-2 proteins with the help of Luciferase Screening which can deregulate cellular signaling pathways, that lead the viral pathogenesis, and circumvent the host defense mechanism. He is also proficiently involved in multiple projects simultaneously and meeting independent individual deadlines. Additionally, he actively mentored graduate students in KSHV BACMID cloning and its utilization in KSHV latency research projects.
In March 2022, He moved for his 3rd post-doc to Washington University at Saint Louis, Missouri in the Department of Molecular Microbiology, School of Medicine, and joined Dr. Sebla B. Kutluay Laboratory. In Dr. Kutluay’s lab, he is doing research on basic molecular virology to investigate how HIV-1 replication is regulated by host and viral RNA-binding proteins and targeting these interactions to block HIV-1 replication in infected cells. His research has contributed to the discovery of an enzyme currently in clinical trials.
He also investigated how manipulation of the HIV-1 Integrase and Capsid lattice leads to the mislocalization of HIV-1 vRNPs, and their involvement in the regulation of HIV particle maturation during its release from the cellular membrane. Additionally, he performed high throughput screening of cellular host factors that regulate the HIV genomic RNA trafficking during viral replication. In April 2023, Dr. Kumar was promoted to staff Scientist to continue his research on HIV pathogenesis and replication.