Omar Abdel-Wahab

Omar Abdel-Wahab has made transformative contributions to understanding how mutations in chromatin regulators and RNA splicing factors drive myeloid malignancies including myelodysplastic syndromes, acute myeloid leukemia, and related disorders. His laboratory discovered that mutations in spliceosome components including SRSF2, SF3B1, U2AF1, and ZRSR2 are among the most common driver mutations in MDS and occur in diverse myeloid cancers, fundamentally reshaping understanding of these diseases. He elucidated how specific splicing factor mutations cause aberrant splicing of key transcripts including EZH2, BCOR, and other epigenetic regulators that promote malignant hematopoiesis. His work on IDH1/IDH2 mutations producing oncometabolite 2-hydroxyglutarate supported development of enasidenib and ivosidenib, FDA-approved IDH inhibitors for AML.