Swati Kumar, MD, PhD

Dr. Kumar is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University. Prior to joining SUNY Downstate, she was on the faculty at the Medical College of Wisconsin. She is a Board Certified pediatric infectious disease physician and provides consultations at the University Hospital of Brooklyn and Kings County Hospital. Her research aims to understand how viral nucleic acids and proteins are sensed by the host at the cellular level, and how viruses evade and antagonize host intrinsic and innate immunity. These studies have the potential to advance our understanding of how host immune responses can be harnessed for antiviral defense and identify pathways that can be pharmacologically or genetically targeted for antiviral control. Research interests include viral entry and replication, antiviral responses, interferon pathways, nucleic acid sensing, antibody dependent enhancement.