Ekaterina Dadachova, Ph.D., awarded $200,000 Research Grant

Project Cure CRC, the breakthrough research fund of the leading nonprofit Colorectal Cancer Alliance (Alliance), has announced five new awardees of funds to advance urgent science in the colorectal cancer space. To date, 10 research grants have been awarded for a grand total of almost $5 million in critically needed funding. 

Recipients of the most recent grants totaling almost $1 million include investigators from the University of California, San Francisco, Indiana University, University of Saskatchewan, Georgetown University, and Anglia Ruskin University. Researchers will focus on various topics in colorectal cancer, including radioimmunotherapy, circulating tumor cells (CTCs), CRISPR technology, and the protein drug ProAgio.  

Ekaterina Dadachova, Ph.D., was awarded $200,000 for research on Targeted Radioimmunotherapy. Dr. Dadachova will investigate combining targeted radiation with immunotherapies for a novel and synergistic approach to treat advanced colorectal cancer, improving clinical outcomes. She joined U of S in November 2016. She is a Professor of Pharmacy at the College of Pharmacy and Nutrition and the Fedoruk Centre for Nuclear Innovation Chair in Radiopharmacy. 

Dadachova’s laboratory has pioneered the treatment of infectious diseases including fungal and bacterial infections and HIV with radiolabeled antibodies (so called radioimmunotherapy). Her other research interests are radioimmunotherapy of melanoma, blood cancers and osteosarcoma as well as the development of melanin-based radioprotectors for cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy, soldiers on the battlefield and astronauts in space. She has an active research program which is  funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Saskatchewan Health Research Fund (SHRF),  Canadian Space Agency (CSA), United States Department of Defense, National Institutes of  Health (NIH),  and pharmaceutical industry. In 2020 she was recognized with a Distinguished Researcher Award by U of S.