Welcome
We are a group of geneticists, neuroscientists, and computer scientists who are passionate about discoveries of novel targets and models for mental illness through innovation at the confluence of computational, genetic, and genomic methods.
The Kumar Laboratory is located at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine. We study neural circuits in the brain whose misregulation leads to behavioral abnormalities including addiction, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and depression. Using mouse molecular genetics as a foundation, and a combination of computational, biochemistry, physiology, and imaging techniques, we dissect these complex conditions in mammals.
Primarily, we use functional genomic approaches in mice to identify genes and pathways that regulate these behaviors. We seek to develop better models of human diseases that can be used by the biomedical research community for therapeutics. Recently, we have applied machine learning and artificial intelligence methods to understand animal behavior at high spatial and temporal resolution, objectively, and over long periods of time. Our work has been published in numerous high impact journals such as Science, eLife, Nature Communications Biology, among others.
Latest Lab News and Blogs:

Kumar Lab featured in an article in The Scientist
Our paper that describes the new DIV Sys (aka Envision) was featured in The Scientist. https://www.the-scientist.com/ai-powered-tech-enables-continuous-lab-animal-monitoring-72714 More info here https://www.jax.org/envision AI-Powered Tech Enables Continuous Lab...

Vivek Attends Simons Foundation SFARI meeting
Vivek attended the annual SFARI meeting hosted by the Simons Foundation in NYC. He presented a poster and had awesome pizza!

Jake is awarded the Paigen Fellowship
Jake has been awarded the Paigen Fellowship. Paigen Endowed Fellowship recognizes promising postdoctoral talent at JAX. Congratulations, Jake! The award is well deserved....

‘Tis the season
We celebrated the 2024 Holiday Season with a window decorating contest, participating in the JAX holiday lunch, and a dinner at Vivek's house. This year's Kumar Lab Mug was the following: [gallery...

Its FAT BEAR time in the lab
Enough said! See here for more info!

Vivek Presents at Northwestern University symposium
Vivek was invited to present at the Synaptic Dysfunction in Neurodevelopmental Disorders symposium. It was part of the NWU Conte Center and a satellite meeting to SfN 2024.

Some useful links