Rachel Patton McCord, associate professor of biochemistry and cellular and molecular biology and UT-ORII’s radiopharmaceutical therapies convergent research initiative (CRI) team co-leader has received $3 million in federal funding for genomic research in cancer treatment.
McCord’s team works on DNA damage in cancer cells in collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to research how low doses of radiation affect cells and their chromosomes. For McCord, this award is a step towards larger collaboration with the CRI team to reach their goal of targeted radiotherapy – sending radioactive particles specifically to the right place to treat cancer.
The radiopharmaceutical CRI team focuses its research on a new generation of theranostics – a combination of therapy and diagnostic imaging drugs – that utilizes targeted alpha-emitting radioisotope constructs to precisely kill cancer cells with minimal side effects.
