- Vivek Kumar is Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA.
- He believes that scientists should take a big-picture view of their field, making sure their research includes collaboration with practitioners, clinicians, and patients.
- The KumarLab trains researchers to consider and map out the entire drug development process, from ideation to implementation.
Vivek Kumar, Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA, works at the interface of biomolecular engineering, materials science, and synthetic peptide chemistry. In his lab you won’t just find scientists, though; you’ll encounter interrogative thinkers and budding entrepreneurs.
Kumar trains his researchers not just to do science but to translate big ideas into real-life solutions. What’s the point in inventing a new disease treatment if it can’t actually be rolled out and used in the clinic?
In this interview with Research Features, the inspirational researcher explains how his own perspective on research and development has changed and where he thinks the future of the medical sciences lies.
Could you tell us a bit about yourself, your background, and how you are managing to bridge the worlds of academia and business?
I am an Associate Professor of biomedical engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Here in my research lab, we innovate new biomaterials-based drugs.
After completing my own PhD, I held a post-doctoral position for some time, and where I developed a strong interest in protein engineering.
The dream for someone like me, a biomedical engineer, is to take something we’ve invented and use it to treat humans. And as a part of that, we invent these technologies, file intellectual property such as patents and publish papers, then turn them into seed-stage start-ups and go out there and pitch for institutional investment to help translate technologies.
It’s essential we get a full range of perspectives, and this approach helps us understand what patients struggle with and how to ease their burden.
Essentially – we try to get venture capital or angel investment to move technology towards the clinic.
As I tell all the students I advise today, it is important to explore and remain open-minded. If you want to be a physician, if you want to get a PhD, if you want to go into healthcare or any career for that matter, go and speak to someone who does it every day! Go speak to a clinician, not just a surgeon, but someone who works in underserved populations or someone addressing the nation’s mental health crisis.
It’s essential we get a full range of perspectives, and this approach helps us understand what patients struggle with and how to ease their burden.
Can you give us a quick tour of what happens at the KumarLab?
In the lab we conduct computational drug design for synthesis and in vitro / in vivo testing. We use souped up gaming computers in particular because they run certain computational simulations very efficiently. We have peptide synthesisers, and we do efficacy studies in vitro, in petri dishes, and in small and large animal models.
In addition, we train translational scientists. Not only do we synthesise materials, but we also teach students that if they have an idea, and if they want to treat a disease that doesn’t have a treatment, they should look for the gap in the field. For every one of those new ideas, and because it’s new intellectual ‘property’, we try to file patents.
When was the first time that you had the notion to commercialise a project?
During my early career as a scientist, I loved doing science and I didn’t much care for the business side of things. One of the patents that I had filed at Rice University was assessed in connection with an entrepreneurship course, and I was subsequently retained as an advisor for the course. I ended up taking the course myself, and through that I started to realise that there is so much more to medical device and drug development than sitting behind a research bench.
Your research may end up in Nature, Science or other premier journals, but it may never go further than that. What really matters is what is required for translation. That revelation transformed the way I do work. This segues perfectly into the business side of things. If you have the end target in mind, if you understand that pharma requires X, Y, and Z, you know what kind of efficacy study you need to do. I think answering those questions is a lot more important and a better use of taxpayer money in terms of grants – that have a translational goal in mind rooted in strong basic science.
Is commercialisation and development best suited for every avenue of research or every individual researcher?
I think the answer is yes and no. In my opinion, every researcher should go through the process of understanding translation and know from start to finish how their product is going to work.
When I have a student talk to me about an idea, I ask them, what do you envision on the product insert? How and where is it going to be dosed? What’s the dosing formulation? Who is going to dose this, and at what frequency?
You might not know the answers to all or any of this, but you should think about it.
You could create a vaccine for X, but if it can’t survive delivery to remote locations, it may never benefit the communities you intend to support.
You could create a really good cure for something, but if it’s unstable, you may never get it to the masses. You could create a vaccine for X, but if it can’t survive delivery to remote locations, it may never benefit the communities you intend to support.
In terms of entrepreneurship and the translation of ideas, how do you take an idea and actually implement it?
In my area of drug development, I know that I am not the right person to take my product to human beings. The right person to do this is someone who has raised ~$50 million with pharma before. At the right time you need to bring on the right skills. When we take our product into phase one clinical trials, we need to hire a CEO who has done phase one clinical trials.
I should mention the National Science Foundation runs a programme called NSF I-Corps. It’s a phenomenal programme, that is very, very intense. You go through the I-Corps programme at your local university, and if you’re making key insights may be able to go onto the national programme. They’ll give you money to go and speak to people and to figure out if your idea is good or bad!
What advice do you have for future science entrepreneurs?
I cannot think of a better time to be doing science than today! The toolbox is growing bigger every day! I would strongly recommend getting into artificial intelligence, machine learning, and quantum computing. ChatGPT is a great tool to start asking questions, but quantum computing can now help answer those questions! In the next five to ten years, these technologies and more are going to revolutionise medicine. If you can speak some of that language I think you will have a leg up. You can learn a lot of this on YouTube even! There are many resources available for free online, so go and get lost in learning about these things.
With respect to social media – I am a huge fan of LinkedIn; it’s a phenomenal social networking app.
Since COVID-19, I have used LinkedIn to initiate so many collaborations that have significantly changed the type of work I do and the people I speak to. It’s a great way to communicate with people who you might never have spoken to before. People like me, as is evidenced right here, love to talk about themselves and what they do! So if you message someone and say, I’m really interested in what you do, they’ll reply! Just don’t go in as a salesman. Don’t go in pitching. Don’t go in saying, I want to be an astrophysicist, tell me what steps I need to take. I would say, you’re an astrophysicist, what do you do every day? What’s your favourite part about the job? Discover something true about it. That perspective, that feel, that unique aspect, that’s hard and even ChatGPT isn’t going to tell you that.
Finally…go out there and change the world! Keep in mind that the extra second that you put in, the extra minute, the extra day, the extra year, might change someone’s life. The clock is ticking, patients are waiting. That’s what drives me.
