Kumar Lab receives a new grant from NIDA
The Kumar Lab received a grant from NIDA to build new models of addiction. The press release is here https://www.jax.org/news-and-insights/2020/july/building-better-mouse-models-for-addiction-research The project summary is available here: PROJECT SUMMARY Addiction...
Kumar Lab hosts Dr. Eric Yttri for a virtual visit
Dr. Yttri, from Carnegie Mellon University, Department of Biological Sciences, presented his lab's latest work from this paper. The paper uses unsupervised learning to understand the types of behaviors mice carry out. Dr. Yttri met with postdocs, engineers, and...
Circadian and Sleep Research Support by NIH
I was part of a special emphasis study section last week titled - "Circadian Patterns of Gene Expression Associated with Disease" for RFA-HL-20-016. The RFA was sponsored by NHLBI and NIDA, so most of the proposals revolved around priorities of these two ICs. ...
Vivek attends the 2020 NIDA genetics consortium meeting
Vivek and Arojit attended the NIDA genetics meeting in Bethesda, MD. They presented two posters. Vivek presented our work on cloning of a mutation that regulates cocaine responses. This is a new gene that has not been linked to cocaine responses. Abstract from the...
Vivek gives lecture at Dartmouth
Vivek was invited to give a seminar at Dartmouth University by Dr. Gio Bosco and his postdoctoral fellow Shiva Sathyanarayana. Vivek spoke about the lab's work on Cyfip2 (work of postdoctoral Arojit Mitra, Kyungin Kim, and others). He also spoke about the lab's...
Vivek talks about addiction on WVOM radio in Bangor
Vivek was on the Ric Tyler and George Hale show https://www.wvomfm.com/episode/ghrt-rewind-07-17-kumar-jax-lab-addiction-research-1100/
Vivek Speaks at the Causeway Club on MDI
Vivek gave a lecture on the genetics of addiction at the Causeway Club on behalf of Acadia Family Center. The talk was attended by approximately 50 people. Dr. Dick Dimond also gave a talk preceding Vivek's talk.
Vivek presents at the 2019 Complex Trait Consortium Meeting
Vivek attended and presented at the CTC meeting in UCSD. The CTC meeting is an annual meeting of complex trait geneticists who use model organisms. Vivek spoke on the use of computer vision to extract heritable ethological endophenotypes from mice. The meeting has...
Press Article on Dr. Kumar and Dr. Chesler
https://www.jax.org/news-and-insights/2019/may/jax-scientists-speak-out-on-the-crisis-of-opioid-addiction
Arojit’s paper demonstrating that TMOD2 is a regulator of cocaine responses is on Biorxiv.
The paper is currently under review and we hope it is published soon. Meanwhile, the preprint is available here. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/648295v1
Vivek speaks at MDIBL on an opioid crisis panel
MDIBL hosted a meeting of researchers on the opioid crisis in Maine. The panel is part of the 46th Maine Biological and Medical Sciences Symposium (MBMSS), an annual statewide gathering at which students and scientists have the opportunity to network, collaborate,...
Vivek gives a talk at the Discovery Museum in Bridgeport, CT
Vivek gave a talk on the genetics and neuroscience of addiction at the Discovery Museum in Bridgeport, CT. The talk was attended by several dozen museum attendees and organized by JAX government outreach folks. Vivek also met with Connecticut State Representative,...
Brian’s tracking paper published
Brian's paper on robust mouse tracking is published. This paper describes how to track mice in complicated environments. Sean and others contributed to this paper. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-019-0362-1 Data from the paper is here. [button...
Vivek speaks at the 2019 Maine State Science Fair
Vivek spoke about addiction genetics and neuroscience to high schools students from across the state of Maine. Over 200 students competed in over a dozen categories in this year's science fair. More information about the event is here. Arojit Mitra was...
Vivek gives Maine Engineering Expo Keynote Address
Vivek presents the keynote address at the Maine Engineering Expo. Approximately 150 people attended the banquet. National Engineers Week was initiated to publicly promote the work and contributions of our nation's engineers. During this week, engineering...
Brian’s video compression tests
Visual examples of some of the compression tests. Original sub-panel of video and differences between original and compressed frames. Difference previews are amplified 2x to enhance visibility. Video Acquisition Imaging Hardware All data was acquired using the same...
Lab Lunch May 2017 to celebrate Graduation.
The lab celebrated the end of the school year with a lunch at Side Street Cafe. Congratulations to Kai, who is off to Stanford in the fall. Congratulations to Alden, who is off to University of Massachusetts, Amherst in the fall. A big thanks to Megan McOsker from...
Vivek’s Op-Ed in the Ellsworth American about neurobiology of opioids
In this piece in the Ellsworth American, Vivek discussed what leads to opioid overdose and why those in recovery are at greater risk of...
Kumar lab profiled in the Ellsworth American
The lab was profiled in the Ellsworth American where Vivek discussed treating addiction like a chronic disease.
Lab Hike to Precipice
We hiked the Precipice Trail, a non-technical climb inside Acadia National Park!
Vivek apperas on Love Maine Radio Show in Portland Maine
https://www.themainemag.com/radio/radio-guests/dr-elissa-chesler-dr-vivek-kumar/
Op-ed on addiction published in the Portland Press Herald
Vivek published an Oped in the Portland Press Herald that argues that addiction is a chronic disease....
