Manjeet Rao, Ph.D., joined the Greehey Children’s Cancer Research Institute in January of 2007 with major faculty responsibilities as a Principal Investigator in Molecular Oncogenesis and Assistant Professor in the Department of Cellular and Structural Biology. Dr. Rao attended the University of Delhi, India and received his Ph.D from the University of Delhi, India. He completed his post-doctoral research at The University of Texas, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA.

During his tenure at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, he studied the function and regulation of an imprinted homeobox gene -“Rhox5”-that encodes for a potent tumor antigen. By using Rhox5 as a model system he addressed the mechanism by which a tissue-specific gene can be corrupted in tumors. In addition, he developed a novel tissue-specific in vivo RNA interference (RNAi) approach that can be used to silence virtually any gene in the genome. As a proof of principle he used this approach to study the after birth function of Wilms’ tumor 1 (WT1) tumor suppressor gene that if mutated in humans increases the probability of acquiring childhood kidney tumors, leukemia, and other types of cancer.

Dr. Rao is a molecular biologist who studies the role of small regulatory RNAs in cancer growth and progression. In collaboration with other PIs at GCCRI, he is investigating the role of naturally occurring short RNA- “micro RNA” in different types of pediatric cancers including Wilms’ tumor. For his research on tissue-specific RNAi, Dr. Rao has been supported by the National Institutes of Health.