Vinay successfully defended his doctoral thesis titled "In Search of Hidden Colours: Rare Pigmentation Variants and Their Implications in Tigers.". During his doctoral thesis, he identified the genetic mutation that gave rise to pseudo-melanistic stripes in the Simplipal tigers. Also, he found that these mutations are found in high frequency in this population and are only confined to this population. This indicates that the Simplipal tiger population is geographically and genetically isolated and genetic drift may explain the reason for the high frequency of this mutation in the population. 
In the pursuit of finding the colours in tigers, he genetically screened non-invasive samples across India, hoping to find the mutations causing white and golden pigmentation in tigers. But failed to. Vinay sees this as a possibility of an alternative mutation driving the unique pigmentation patterns, distinct from the initially screened mutation.