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:

Malachy’s paper is published in Cell Patterns

Malachy’s paper is published in Cell Patterns

Malachy worked for two years on how to use computer vision to determine mouse mass. We are really proud of his accomplishment! Gautam and Brian both were critical in his success. We look forward to all that Malachy will accomplish. Paper link...

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Kumar Lab Friends of Acadia Soil Heroes!

Here in the Kumar lab, the D in PhD stands for Dirt! As part of The Jackson Lab's commitment to community service the lab carried up ~80 lbs of dirt to the summits of Mt Penobscot and Mt Sargent as part of the summit restoration project! Climate change and human...

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Jake’s Trip to NAPS

Jake’s Trip to NAPS

Last week Dr. Jake Beierle, our post-doctoral fellow, traveled to Montebello Quebec to attend the prestigious North American Pain School (NAPS). At the weeklong event, Jake shared his work assessing migraine models using the Kumar Lab’s machine learning empowered...

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SSP Retreat Weekend

SSP Retreat Weekend

The two summer students from the Kumar lab were able to go with the rest of the summer student program (including from the Connecticut campus) to a weekend retreat at Camp Medomak in Washington, Maine! The weekend was spent swimming by the lake, playing various...

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Strain Survey Open Field Video Dataset made public!

We have released our Strain Survey Open Field video dataset to the public over on harvard dataverse here: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/SAPNJG What this release includes: 2509 55-minute open field assay experiments across 62 inbred and F1 hybrid strains 2509 pose files...

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Vivek gives a seminar at Scripps Florida

Vivek gives a seminar at Scripps Florida

Vivek was invited to give a talk at The Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology in February. Thank you for the invitation. I learned an incredible amount from my interactions with the faculty at Scripps Florida.    ...

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Some useful links