About

Vijay Kumar is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics at the University of Pennsylvania and serves as the Nemirovsky Family Dean. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, recognized for his contributions to the field. His research focuses on areas related to mechanical engineering and applied mechanics, with a notable leadership role in advancing engineering education and research at Penn Engineering.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Nanotechnology
• Biology
• Materials science
• Chemistry
• Immunology
• Biochemistry
• Telecommunications
• Engineering
• Bioinformatics
• Cell biology
• Molecular biology
• Medicine
• Physics
• Biomedical engineering
• Computational biology

Selected publications

• Disruption of WNT/Notch signaling in pancreatic cancer reveals tumors depend on the intricate equilibrium of malignant cell states

  Developmental Cell · 2026-03-23

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Engineering considerations for paediatric drug delivery

  Nature Reviews Bioengineering · 2026-03-12

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• HITE: HIV Inspired Lipid Nanoparticle Platform for CAR T Cell Engineering

  Nano Letters · 2026-04-21

  articleSenior authorCorresponding

  Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T therapy has led to remarkable advancements in the treatment of hematologic malignancies, encouraging extensive studies on its application to solid tumors and other diseases. However, the production of CAR-T cells is mostly achieved through viral transduction, which results in permanent CAR expression in T cells, potentially leading to unintended adverse effects. Here, we present a lipid nanoparticle (LNP) platform for mRNA delivery to human primary T cells, inspired by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) which naturally infects T cells. We perform multiple rounds of screening to sequentially optimize the structure and ratio of ionizable lipid in the base formulation, the ratios of HIV lipid components, and the type and ratio of PEG-lipid for CD3 antibody conjugation. Our HIV envelope-Inspired T cell transfection-Enhancing (HITE) LNP enables efficient generation of CAR-T cells with potent cytotoxic activity against cancer cells in vitro, demonstrating its potential for efficient CAR-T cell production.

  PublisherDOI

• To modify or not to modify: Rethinking mRNA design for CAR T cell engineering

  Molecular Therapy — Nucleic Acids · 2026-03-13

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Dual switches ignite tumour-specific mRNA therapeutics

  Nature Nanotechnology · 2025-11-12

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Cas9 Protein Outperforms mRNA in Lipid Nanoparticle-Mediated CFTR Repair

  Nano Letters · 2025-09-17 · 2 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding

  Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) are currently one of the most clinically advanced delivery systems for nucleic acid cargo and hold great potential for clinical applications in gene editing and the treatment of genetic diseases. LNP-mediated delivery of Cas9 with single guide RNA (sgRNA) and homology-directed repair DNA template (ssDNA) enables efficient and precise editing in vitro and in vivo. Comparative analysis of LNP delivery of Cas9 as protein or mRNA for relevant clinical targets, such as cystic fibrosis (CF), which is caused by mutations in the CFTR gene, is imperative in the design of corrective therapeutics for genetic diseases. Here, we show that delivery of Cas9 protein LNPs outperforms Cas9 mRNA LNPs when evaluated for in vivo lung editing as well as corrective CRISPR/Cas9 editing and functional recovery of the CFTR protein. These results demonstrate the ability to optimize the use of CRISPR/Cas9 LNPs for cystic fibrosis applications.

  PublisherDOI

• Supp Fig S3 from Ubiquitin-Specific Protease 6 mRNA Lipid Nanoparticles Ignite Antitumor Immunity and Suppress Tumorigenesis in Ewing Sarcoma

  2025-11-03

  articleOpen access

  <p>IVT USP6 mRNA recapitulates immunostimulatory effects</p>

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Lipid nanoparticles for engineering next generation CAR T cell immunotherapy

  Nanoscale Horizons · 2025-10-20 · 5 citations

  reviewOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  CAR T cell production. The review concludes with a discussion of safety, immunogenicity, scalability, manufacturing, and regulatory factors which will be essential as LNP-based CAR T cell immunotherapies move toward clinical translation.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Elucidating lipid nanoparticle properties and structure through biophysical analyses

  Nature Biotechnology · 2025-10-23 · 14 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Supp Fig S8 from Ubiquitin-Specific Protease 6 mRNA Lipid Nanoparticles Ignite Antitumor Immunity and Suppress Tumorigenesis in Ewing Sarcoma

  2025-11-03

  articleOpen access

  <p>USP6 mRNA triggers immunostimulatory effects in head and neck cancer</p>

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• A data-driven drug delivery (4D) platform for probing and treating the chemoresistant bone marrow microenvironment

  NIH · $2.4M · 2018–2023

• Polymeric Nanoparticles for siRNA Delivery to Bone Marrow Endothelium to Disrupt Tumor Cell Adhesion and Bone Metastasis Formation In Vivo

  NIH · $164k · 2015–2018

• CAREER: Nanoparticle mRNA and DNA Immunoengineering of Macrophages for Solid Tumor Targeting

  NSF · $500k · 2022–2027

Frequent coauthors

• Margaret M. Billingsley

  University of Pennsylvania

  81 shared

• Drew Weissman

  University of Pennsylvania

  71 shared

• Xuexiang Han

  Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine

  66 shared

• Mohamad‐Gabriel Alameh

  California University of Pennsylvania

  61 shared

• Ningqiang Gong

  University of Pennsylvania

  59 shared

• Rakan El‐Mayta

  University of Pennsylvania

  55 shared

• Alex G. Hamilton

  University of Pennsylvania

  54 shared

• Sarah J. Shepherd

  University of Pennsylvania

  46 shared

Labs

• Penn EngineeringPI

Education

• Postdoctoral Fellow, Chemical Engineering

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  2017

• PhD, Biomedical Engineering

  Cornell University

  2014

• MS, Biomedical Engineering

  Cornell University

  2012

• BE, Biomedical Engineering

  Stevens Institute of Technology

  2009

• ME, Materials Science and Engineering

  Stevens Institute of Technology

  2009

Awards & honors

• Penn Engineers Awarded Fulbright 2026-27 U.S. Student Progra…