Deepak Rao MD PhD, Associate Professor of Medicine (BWH) is a rheumatologist in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Rao is Co-Director of the Center for Cellular Profiling at BWH. His work uses high-dimensional analyses, including single cell RNA-seq and mass cytometry, to define lymphocyte populations that are pathologically expanded in autoimmune diseases. He led studies that described and characterized T peripheral helper (Tph) cells in patients with RA and SLE, as well as distinct T cell populations expanded in scleroderma and in immune-related adverse events induced by checkpoint inhibitor therapies. Ongoing studies in his laboratory use CRISPR screens and functional studies to identify key regulators of Tph cells and other activated T cell populations. Additional studies in his laboratory are using detailed immunoprofiling to identify cellular features associated with disease progression and treatment response in patients with RA, SLE, and undiagnosed inflammatory diseases. He has received career development awards from the Burroughs Welcome Fund and Doris Duke Foundation and in 2022 received the Edmund DuBois Memorial recognition, awarded to junior faculty researcher for excellence in lupus research.