The Catholic University of America · BiologyRao Gene Therapy Lab
Venigalla B. Rao · Washington, District of Columbia
Research Focus
Dr. Venigalla Rao's lab focuses on developing innovative therapies to combat HIV, particularly for vulnerable populations such as substance users. They are engineering a unique type of virus called bacteriophage T4 to deliver genetic changes to patients' own stem cells, making them resistant to HIV. This exciting approach could lead to affordable and effective treatments for HIV that work by replacing infected cells with healthy, HIV-resistant cells.
HIVgene therapybacteriophagestem cellsCRISPRdrug deliverynanoengineeringviral vectorsimmunology
Research Aims
3AIM 01Engineer bacteriophage T4 to target hematopoietic stem cells and deliver genetic modifications.
AIM 02Identify and select high-affinity ligands for targeting stem cells from human umbilical cord blood.
AIM 03Optimize the delivery system to ensure efficient genetic modification in vivo.
Skills the Lab Values
bacteriophage engineeringgene editing techniquescell culturemouse modelsRNA extractionDNA packagingflow cytometrymolecular cloningbioinformatics
Output against the department
Publications182top 36% of dept.373rd of 1,033
this lab
most publishedleast published
Citations7.3ktop 50% of dept.514th of 1,033
this lab
most citedleast cited
Career totals from OpenAlex, compared against labs that share a department. A department spans everything from one paper to tens of thousands, so bar heights are on a log scale — otherwise the largest lab would flatten every other bar to a line.