Dr. Surinder Kumar is a Research Investigator in the Department of Pathology at the University of Michigan. He received his Ph.D. from the Institute of Microbial Technology and Jawaharlal Nehru University in India, where he identified and characterized structurally and functionally important conserved antigenic targets in malaria. Dr. Kumar subsequently moved to the University of Michigan, initially to Dr. Sundeep Kalantry’s group, where he studied the process of X chromosome inactivation. As a postdoctoral fellow (2012-2013) in the Kalantry laboratory, Dr. Kumar focused on the identification and characterization of a novel non-coding RNA that plays a crucial role in the proper execution of X-chromosome inactivation. In a separate study, he investigated the impact of culture conditions on the status of X-chromosome inactivation during prolonged culture of human embryonic stem cells.
In 2014, Dr. Kumar moved to Dr. David Lombard’s laboratory in the Pathology Department at the University of Michigan. In Lombard laboratory, he studied the sirtuin family proteins and their relationships with mammalian diseases. In 2018, Dr. Kumar was promoted to the rank of Research Investigator, a research track faculty position at the University of Michigan. His current research focuses on elucidating roles for the sirtuin SIRT5 in Ewing Sarcoma and other cancer types, and development of SIRT5 inhibitors. In addition, he is exploring the epigenetic mechanisms underlying cellular cadmium toxicity. He is a recipient of an award from the Pablove Foundation, and serves as a co-investigator on several NIH and DoD awards.
