Titia de Lange

Titia de Lange is a world authority on telomere biology and its roles in cancer genome instability. Her laboratory identified and characterized the shelterin complex that protects telomeres from recognition as DNA damage, and defined the molecular mechanisms by which telomere uncapping triggers DNA damage responses and genome instability. Her research established the concept of telomere crisis as a mechanism that drives the massive chromosomal rearrangements and copy number changes characteristic of cancer genomes through breakage-fusion-bridge cycles. She has delineated how telomerase re-expression in cancer resolves telomere crisis while preserving the genomic instability generated during telomere crisis.