Immune Disease Institute

The Rao lab is studying the mechanisms by which T cells turn on genes when they respond to foreign antigens. When the body encounters foreign or pathogenic entities such as bacteria, viruses, cancer cells, or transplanted organs (collectively known as antigens), it responds with a powerful defensive reaction known as the immune response.

During the immune process, specialized circulating white blood cells including T cells, natural killer cells and mast cells turn on a variety of cell-specific genes. Many of the genes code for local hormones (cytokines) which greatly increase the overall effectiveness of the immune response. Rao and colleagues are identifying transcription factors and nuclear proteins that play a key role in these processes, developing methods for identifying their target genes in both immune and non-immune cell types, delineating the intracellular signaling pathways which regulate their activation, and using this information to screen for selective inhibitors. They are also examining how gene expression is regulated over long distances by chromatin structure and methylation status of DNA. Finally, they are attempting to understand the mechanisms by which T cells in a healthy organism are prevented from reacting to the body's own self-antigens and causing autoimmune disease.

Dr. Rao received a master's of science in physics from Osmania University in Hyderabad, India. She earned a Ph.D. in biophysics from Harvard University and did her postdoctoral work at Harvard Medical School and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where she subsequently conducted research as a professor of pathology. In 2000 she won the AAI-Huang Foundation Meritorious Career Award. In 2008, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.