Ashwani Kumar (scientist)

Ashwani Kumar is an Indian bacteriologist, biotechnologies, and the principal scientist at the Institute of Microbial Technology (ImTech). He is known for his studies on Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis. His laboratory focuses on understanding the reasons for drug tolerance observed in humans. His laboratory hypothesise that tuberculosis is a biofilm infection and that is why its treatment needs administration of multiple drugs for at least six months. The Department of Science and Technology has awarded him Swarnajayanti Fellowship for years 2016-2017.
Biography.
Ashwani Kumar is a principal scientist at the Institute of Microbial Technology (ImTech) where he heads a laboratory, popularly known as "Ashwani Kumar's Lab". and serves as a principal investigator. He is known to have done extensive research on Mycobacterium tuberculosis and has served as a member of MDRIpred project, an open source server for predicting inhibitors against drug-tolerant M.tb H37Rv. He has published a number of articles; ResearchGate, an online repository of scientific articles has listed 31 of them. His laboratory has demonstrated the presence of cellulose encased biofilms inside the hosts including human. He also works on regulation of autophagy by signalling gases such as carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfide. The Department of Biotechnology of the Government of India awarded him the National Bioscience Award for Career Development, one of the highest Indian science awards, for him contributions to biosciences, in 2017–18.