Vinod Kumar
Lecturer
Centre for Bioenergy & Resource Management
Cranfield University
United Kingdom
Biography
Before joining Cranfield University, Dr Vinod Kumar was a Marie Curie International Incoming Fellow in EPSRC/BBSRC Synthetic Biology Research Centre (SBRC) at University of Nottingham, UK. Prior to this, he worked as Post-Doctoral Fellow in France, South Korea and United Kingdom. He has worked on different biological systems; fungal, yeast and bacterial. His primary skills spans across Biochemical Engineering, Microbial Fermentations, Industrial Biotechnology, Metabolic Engineering and Synthetic Biology. Dr Kumar has worked on multidimensional projects aiming at Development of low cost, energy efficient and sustainable bioprocesses for production of biofertilizers, biopesticides, biofuels and biochemicals. Dr Kumar earned his M.Sc. (Chemistry) and PhD (Biochemical Engineering & Biotechnology) degree from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi), which is among the top five engineering institutes in India. He graduated in B.Sc (Hons) Chemistry from Hindu College, University of Delhi, India and was ranked first. Dr Kumar has qualified national as well as international level competition with top ranks. He qualified Marie Curie Fellowship with an overall score of 97.1/100. He qualified Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) examination in Chemistry (All India rank 4th with 99.77 percentile in GATE 2002) as well as Life Sciences (All India rank 1st with 99.99 percentile in GATE 2005). He also qualified joint CSIR-UGC (India) examination three times and two times secured position among top 20% awardees.
Research Interest
The research interests of Dr Kumar are bio-based production of fuels and chemicals from renewable sources.
Publications
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Kumar V, Hart AJ, Wimalasena TT, Tucker GA & Greetham D (2015) Expression of RCK2 MAPKAP (MAPK-activated protein kinase) rescues yeast cells sensitivity to osmotic stress, Microbial Cell Factories, 14 (85).
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Kumar V, Hart AJ, Keerthiraju ER, Waldron PR, Tucker GA & Greetham D (2015) Expression of Mitochondrial Cytochrome C Oxidase Chaperone Gene (COX20) Improves Tolerance to Weak Acid and Oxidative Stress during Yeast Fermentation, PLoS ONE, 10 (10).
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Kumar V, Durgapal M, Sankaranarayanan M, Somasundar A, Rathnasingh C, Song H, Seung D & Park S (2016) Effects of mutation of 2,3-butanediol formation pathway on glycerol metabolism and 1,3-propanediol production by Klebsiella pneumoniae J2B, Bioresource Technology, 214 (August) 432-440.
