Dr. Ravinder Kumar, Ph.D. is currently working as a Senior Postdoctoral Research Associate in theDepartment of Biological Sciences at Rensselaer Polytechnic institute in Troy, New York, USA. Thepresent work of Dr. Kumar involved the expression, characterization of viral-like particles (VLPs)for vaccine development. Before moving to Troy Dr. Kumar worked at the University of CaliforniaSan Diego and the University of California San Francisco where he developed a lipophagy assayin Pichia pastoris and developed a high throughput screening platform for screeningenvironment chemicals for their reproductive toxicities using yeast respectively. Dr. Kumar holdsa Master's and Ph.D. in biotechnology from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai,India. Dr. Kumar has more than a decade of experience working on yeast (Saccharomycescerevisiae and Pichia pastoris). My research interest includes the application of yeast both inbasic science as well as applied or translational science. Dr. Kumar has published several researchand review articles which are well-cited throughout the world. Presently Dr. Kumar is working onthe expression of VLPs in Pichia pastoris and the development of simple yeast-based assays forscreening of viral protease inhibitors.