Anjana Rao

Anjana Rao co-discovered the TET (Ten-eleven translocation) family of enzymes that oxidize 5-methylcytosine to 5-hydroxymethylcytosine, fundamentally changing our understanding of DNA demethylation as an active enzymatic process rather than passive dilution. Her laboratory demonstrated that TET2 mutations are among the most frequent epigenetic alterations in hematologic malignancies, causing aberrant DNA methylation patterns that promote leukemogenesis. She showed that TET enzymes regulate immune cell differentiation and function, connecting epigenetic programming to anti-tumor immunity. Her work on clonal hematopoiesis driven by TET2 mutations has revealed how age-related epigenetic alterations create a pre-malignant state.