Kumar Pichumani, PhD, is a research scientist at the Neurosurgery Research Laboratory and Associate Research Member at Houston Methodist Research Institute. Dr. Pichumani is an NMR physicist and has worked in NMR spectroscopy since 1990. He developed new methods using first principles of NMR spin relaxation to increase both resolution and sensitivity so that complex biomacromolecules of larger molecular mass can be studied by NMR Spectroscopy. These research publications were cited by two Nobel Laureates in NMR spectroscopy.

Dr. Pichumani's most recent research involves investigating in-vivo cancer metabolism using non- radioactive 13C enriched nutrients as infusion substrates (glucose, acetate, fatty acids), studying the fate of these substrates via high-resolution 13C NMR spectroscopy of surgically resected tumor tissues extracts. In a recent article published in CELL, he demonstrated that acetate acts as an alternate energy source for cancer cells in human glioblastoma patients and mouse models. He studied in India, Sweden and the US, gaining a diverse background spanning physics, mathematics, electronics, physical chemistry, NMR, Cancer Metabolism and biophysics.