Omar Abdel-Wahab is an Attending Physician on the Leukemia Service in the Department of Medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Abdel-Wahab’s research focuses on the role of genomic alterations in the pathogenesis of hematopoietic malignancies.

The Abdel-Wahab lab focuses on understanding and targeting the somatic mutations driving hematologic malignancies. Given the frequent identification of somatic mutations in genes encoding regulators of transcription in leukemia and lymphoma, the Abdel-Wahab is especially focused on understanding the functional implication of mutations in spliceosomal proteins and epigenetic regulators in hematologic malignancies. Several areas of current investigation in the lab include:

• Functional understanding of the effect of mutations in spliceosomal proteins in myelodysplastic syndromes and chronic lymphocytic leukemia
• Investigation of therapeutic approaches for selective targeting of spliceosomal mutant cancers
• Understanding the role of the Addition of Sex Combs Like gene family (ASXL1 and ASXL2) in normal and malignant hematopoiesis
• Characterizing the epigenome of chronic lymphocytic leukemia
• Translational studies in MAP kinase mutant hematopoietic malignancies including hairy cell leukemia, systemic histiocytic neoplasms, and other leukemias and lymphomas bearing activating mutations in the MAP kinase pathway