Alagarraju Muthukumar, Ph.D.
Associate Professor

     

Dr. Kumar has a Masters and PhD in Biochemistry. He has completed clinical fellowships in clinical chemistry and molecular diagnostics at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. He had worked in the clinical diagnostic industry for 4 years before moving back to academia. He is a board certified Clinical chemist, and is currently the Medical Director of Clinical Chemistry at the Clements University Hospital, Zale Lipshy University hospital, Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center, Moncrief Cancer Institute in Fort Worth, and the UT Southwestern Clinics in Plano and Richardson.

His research interests include validating new diagnostic assays, repurposing big data for clinical research, and finding new applications for existing diagnostic markers. Current ongoing projects in his labs include the assessment of humoral immune response to SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and a collaboration with Johns Hopkins University on the evaluation of clinical implications of LDL under-estimation in Coronary Heart Disease patients.

Medical School

Madras University Medical School (1996)

Other Post Graduate Training

Foreign Credentials Service of America (1996)

Graduate School

Foreign Credentials Service of America (1996)

Fellowship

UT Southwestern Medical Center (2006)

Fellowship

UT Southwestern Medical Center (2007)

• Repurposing of big data for clinical research
• Validation of new diagnostic assays

Featured Publications

Comparison of Methods to Estimate Low-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol in Patients With High Triglyceride Levels.

Sajja A, Park J, Sathiyakumar V, Varghese B, Pallazola VA, Marvel FA, Kulkarni K, Muthukumar A, Joshi PH, Gianos E, Hirsh B, Mintz G, Goldberg A, Morris PB, Sharma G, Blumenthal RS, Michos ED, Post WS, Elshazly MB, Jones SR, Martin SS, JAMA Netw Open 2021 Oct 4 10 e2128817

Poor Humoral Response in Solid Organ Transplant Recipients following Complete mRNA SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination.

Cao J, Liu X, Muthukumar A, Gagan J, Jones P, Zu Y, Clin Chem 2021 Aug

Myocarditis Temporally Associated with COVID-19 Vaccination.

Rosner CM, Genovese L, Tehrani BN, Atkins M, Bakhshi H, Chaudhri S, Damluji AA, de Lemos JA, Desai SS, Emaminia A, Flanagan MC, Khera A, Maghsoudi A, Mekonnen G, Muthukumar A, Saeed IM, Sherwood MW, Sinha SS, O'Connor CM, deFilippi CR, Circulation 2021 Jun

In Depth Evaluation of a Case of Presumed Myocarditis Following the Second Dose of COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine.

Muthukumar A, Narasimhan M, Li QZ, Mahimainathan L, Hitto I, Fuda F, Batra K, Jiang X, Zhu C, Schoggins J, Cutrell JB, Croft CL, Khera A, Drazner MH, Grodin JL, Greenberg BM, Mammen PPA, Morrison SJ, de Lemos JA, Circulation 2021 Jun

Serological Response in Lung Transplant Recipients after Two Doses of SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccines.

Narasimhan M, Mahimainathan L, Clark AE, Usmani A, Cao J, Araj E, Torres F, Sarode R, Kaza V, Lacelle C, Muthukumar A, Vaccines (Basel) 2021 Jun 9 7

Variable Creatinine Levels in Critical Care Patients: A Concerning Knowledge Gap.

Shah T, Narasimhan M, Rathinam ML, Relle K, Kim M, Muthukumar T, Tharpe W, Bartolome S, Mahimainathan L, Muthukumar A, J Clin Med 2021 Apr 10 8

Expanding COVID-19 Vaccine Availability: Role for Combined Orthogonal Serology Testing (COST).

Narasimhan M, Mahimainathan L, Araj E, Clark AE, Wilkinson K, Yekkaluri S, Tiro J, Lee FM, Balani J, Sarode R, Singal AG, Muthukumar A, Vaccines (Basel) 2021 Apr 9 4

Clinical evaluation of the Abbott Alinity SARS-CoV-2 spike-specific quantitative IgG and IgM assays among infected, recovered, and vaccinated groups.

Narasimhan M, Mahimainathan L, Araj E, Clark AE, Markantonis J, Green A, Xu J, SoRelle JA, Alexis C, Fankhauser K, Parikh H, Wilkinson K, Reczek A, Kopplin N, Yekkaluri S, Balani J, Thomas A, Singal AG, Sarode R, Muthukumar A, J Clin Microbiol 2021 Apr

'nAb' the self-reactive activity in the COVID-19 combat.

Narasimhan M, Mahimainathan L, Muthukumar A, Signal Transduct Target Ther 2021 03 6 1 105

Silent SARS-CoV-2 Infections, Waning Immunity, Serology Testing, and COVID-19 Vaccination: A Perspective.

Narasimhan M, Mahimainathan L, Noh J, Muthukumar A, Front Immunol 2021 12 730404

• Best Poster Finalist
  Systematic Analysis of Biotin Interference in Roche Chemistry Assays. ASCP 2017 Annual Meeeting, Chicago, IL. September 6-8, 2017
• Best Poster Finalist
  Are all creatinine results suspect during Dopamine and Debutamine infusions? ASCP 2017 Annual Meeeting, Chicago, IL. September 6-8, 2017
• Distinguished Abstract award
  Susceptability of High Sensitivity Cardiac Troponin I and Gen 5 cTnT assays to Biotin interference. 70th AACC Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL. July 29 - August 2, 2018

• American Society for Clinical Pathology (2015)
• American Association of Clinical Chemistry (2005)