Impact
Titia de Lange studies telomeres, the protective structures at chromosome ends that shorten with cell division and are central to cellular ageing, replicative senescence and cancer. Her laboratory at The Rockefeller University identified shelterin, the six-subunit protein complex that binds telomeric DNA, and showed that without shelterin cells treat their natural chromosome ends as damaged DNA. The lab has mapped how individual shelterin subunits repress distinct DNA damage response pathways, including ATM and ATR signalling and both homology-directed and non-homologous end-joining repair, and identified the telomeric t-loop structure that hides chromosome ends. More recent work covers how the CST-polymerase alpha-primase complex maintains telomeric DNA, including a 'second end-replication problem' (Nature, 2024), how telomere crisis drives chromothripsis in cancer, and evidence that telomere shortening acts as a tumour-suppressor mechanism. She is the Leon Hess Professor, heads the Laboratory of Cell Biology and Genetics, and has directed Rockefeller's Anderson Center for Cancer Research since 2011. Her honours include the Canada Gairdner International Award (2014) and membership of the US National Academy of Medicine and the Royal Society.
Metrics
No public metrics available.
Research output
241 works · 53,098 citations · h-index 107 OpenAlex ↗
Selected publications
- Shelterin: the protein complex that shapes and safeguards human telomeres ↗ 2005 · 3,088 citations
- Mammalian Telomeres End in a Large Duplex Loop ↗ 1999 · 2,459 citations
- How Shelterin Protects Mammalian Telomeres ↗ 2008 · 1,825 citations
- TRF2 Protects Human Telomeres from End-to-End Fusions ↗ 1998 · 1,729 citations
- DNA Damage Foci at Dysfunctional Telomeres ↗ 2003 · 1,433 citations
Research funding
50 NIH awards · USD 29M total NIH RePORTER ↗
- Genome instability in cancer: telomeres and DNA repair National Cancer Institute · 2020 · USD 1M
- Genome instability in cancer: telomeres and DNA repair National Cancer Institute · 2018 · USD 1M
- Genome instability in cancer: telomeres and DNA repair National Cancer Institute · 2017 · USD 1M
- Genome instability in cancer: telomeres and DNA repair National Cancer Institute · 2023 · USD 1M
- Genome instability in cancer: telomeres and DNA repair National Cancer Institute · 2025 · USD 999K