Girishkumar Kumaran

I manage the Spatial Profiling Hub at the CAMS Oxford Institute, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford. The Hub operates CosMx Spatial Molecular Imager, GeoMx Digital Spatial Profiler, and nCounter platforms, supporting spatial transcriptomic and proteomic projects for research groups within Oxford and for external academic and industrial collaborators. My day-to-day work spans experimental design, panel selection, sample QC, instrument operation, and downstream analysis, across a wide range of tissue types and disease contexts.

My current collaborative work centres on applying spatial multi-omics to human tissue biology, with a particular interest in skin disease. Together with colleagues at COI, I authored a review in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology (2025) examining how spatial transcriptomic profiling can advance our understanding of cutaneous ageing, skin tumorigenesis, and psoriasis. Through the Hub, I also support projects spanning the tumour microenvironment, immunology, nephrology, inflammatory disease,etc.

I trained as a cell biologist. My PhD, with Prof. Israel Hanukoglu at Ariel University, used high-resolution confocal imaging of the actin cytoskeleton to identify and classify epithelial cells along the nephron, and to map peritubular capillary architecture in the kidney (FEBS Journal 2020; Cytoskeleton 2024). I then moved to Dr. Simon Michaeli's group at the Volcani Institute in Israel for a postdoc on autophagy in plants, where I co-led work showing that autophagy restricts climacteric fruit ripening by repressing ethylene production in tomato (New Phytologist 2025). I joined CAMS Oxford Institute in 2023 to build and run the Spatial Profiling Hub.

I am happy to discuss collaborations, service access, or experimental design. Please contact me at girishkumar.kumaran@ndm.ox.ac.uk