page_title: Vijay Kumar (molecular biologist)
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Vijay Kumar (molecular biologist) / Legacy
context_page_description: Vijay Kumar is an Indian molecular biologist, virologist and an Honorary Scientist at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology. Known for his research in hepatology, Kumar is an elected fellow of National Academy of Sciences, India, National Academy of Medical Sciences, and National Academy of Agricultural Sciences as well as a J. C. Bose National Fellow of the Department of Biotechnology. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Medical Sciences in 1997.
context_section_description: Vijay Kumar focused his research on the assembly, cloning and expression of genes and on the role played by steroid hormone receptors as well as oncogenic viruses in producing cancer cells. He has done pioneering research on Hepatitis B virus and his studies widened the understanding of the trans-activating domain of the HBx protein. He contributed in developing a protocol for assembling multiepitope protein gene which assisted in the studies of the immunobiology of the virus. His research collaboration with Debi Prasad Sarkar assisted him to demonstrate for the first time that HBx protein stimulated Mitogen-activated signaling cascades in vivo. His research has been documented and cited in texts and articles and he has contributed chapters to books published by others.
  Kumar is a member of the Institutional Ethics Review Board (IERB-JNU) of the Jawaharlal Nehru University and was a member of the Advisory Committee for Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for the years, 2005, 2011 and 2014. He served as a principal investigator for a number of projects by Department of Science and Technology and Department of Biotechnology. The invited lectures or key note addresses delivered by him include the presentation on Epigenetic control of origin licensing during mammalian DNA replication at the Indian Science Congress of 2012 among others.
caption: The genome organisation of HBV; the genes overlap. ORF X, in yellow, encodes HBx.