Vikram Sheel Kumar (born 1976) is an American engineer, doctor, and entrepreneur.

Early life and education

Vikram Kumar was born in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

to an

Indian-American Indian Americans or Indo-Americans are citizens of the United States with ancestry from India. The United States Census Bureau uses the term Asian Indian to avoid confusion with Native Americans, who have also historically been referred to ...

family. His father was a neurosurgeon. As a child, the family returned to

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, where Kumar attended the Modern School in

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...

. After graduation, he studied engineering at the

Indian Institute of Technology The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are central government owned public technical institutes located across India. They are under the ownership of the Ministry of Education of the Government of India. They are governed by the Institu ...

. In 1996, Kumar returned to the United States, and received a BS in operations research from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1999. He then studied medicine and business at the

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

Division of Health Sciences and Technology, which was supported by

The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, founded by Paul Soros and Daisy Soros in 1997, is a United States postgraduate fellowship for immigrants and children of immigrants. In 2021, the Fellowship received 2,445 applications and aw ...

Career

In 2002, Kumar co-founded

Dimagi Dimagi, Inc. is a for-profit social enterprise based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, that delivers open-source software technology suitable for low-resource settings and underserved communities. The company designs clinical interfaces, health in ...

, a for-profit software company which develops open-source software technology for doctors in impoverished areas. Kumar currently serves as the company's Chief Medical Officer (CMO). He also co-founded Cogito Corp, a startup which uses a mobile-phone based voice analysis system to determine the mental health patterns of patients, and Ozorie, which manufactures pain relief, rapid heal, and hair revival products. In 2004, ''

Technology Review ''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and editorially independent of the university. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "The" in ...

'' named him one of the world's top 100 innovators under 35 in biotechnology and medicine, and awarded him the "Technology in the Service of Humanity" award. In 2005, he received the

Ten Outstanding Young Americans The Ten Outstanding Young Americans (TOYA) program is an annual award given by JCI USA (formally known as The United States Junior Chamber or the Jaycees). It is given to ten Americans between 18 and 40 years of age who "exemplify the best attribu ...

(TOYA) award. In 2005, Kumar was one of the judges on the MIT ''Technology Review'' contest, which found a series of proposed refutations of the

strategies for engineered negligible senescence Strategies for engineered negligible senescence (SENS) is a range of proposed regenerative medical therapies, either planned or currently in development, for the periodic repair of all age-related damage to human tissue. These therapies have the u ...

approach to

biomedical gerontology Life extension is the concept of extending the human lifespan, either modestly through improvements in medicine or dramatically by increasing the maximum lifespan beyond its generally-settled limit of 125 years. Several researchers in the area ...

had not succeeded.Pontin, Jason (July 11, 2006).
Is Defeating Aging Only A Dream?
. ''Technology Review''. In 2007, Kumar completed a residency as a clinical pathologist at

Brigham and Women's Hospital Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) is the second largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School and the largest hospital in the Longwood Medical and Academic Area, Longwood Medical Area in Boston, Massachusetts. Along with Massachusetts Gener ...

. He then returned to India to help his ailing father, who owned Doctor Kares Hospital, a super-specialty hospital in New Delhi, manage his business. While in India, Kumar also founded another startup. After his father's death, he returned to

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

to better manage Dimagi. In 2017, Kumar co-founde
Clear Creek Bio
to develop a

dihydroorotate dehydrogenase Dihydroorotate dehydrogenase (DHODH) is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the ''DHODH'' gene on chromosome 16. The protein encoded by this gene catalyzes the fourth enzymatic step, the ubiquinone-mediated oxidation of dihydroorotate to ...

(DHODH) inhibitor, called brequinar, for

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ' ...

. The company is also studying brequinar as an oral

antiviral drug Antiviral drugs are a class of medication used for treating viral infections. Most antivirals target specific viruses, while a broad-spectrum antiviral is effective against a wide range of viruses. Unlike most antibiotics, antiviral drugs do n ...

for

SARS-CoV-2 Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2) is a strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019), the respiratory illness responsible for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The virus previously had a ...

. Kumar currently serves as the CEO of Clear Creek Bio. As of now, he lives in Boston, with his wife and two children.

References

Dr. Vikram Sheel Kumar
Dimagi
Healthy Thinking , Vikram Kumar BS'99
- Columbia University
Vikram Sheel Kumar
- Economic Times.

* [http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-09-22/news/42272989_1_ema-partners-international-executive-search-firm-corporate-india/2 India no longer a hot destination for jobs: NRIs disillusioned; many flee after impulsive return] Living people 1976 births Columbia University alumni Harvard Medical School alumni {{US-engineer-stub