Dr. Bishoy Faltas is among the inaugural recipients of the American Association for Cancer Research’s (AACR) Grant for Innovative Bladder Cancer Research. The award is a $50,000 one-year grant meant to encourage the development of novel approaches to treat bladder cancer.
Dr. Faltas’s project is focused on CDADC1, a little-understood gene involved in the cellular machinery that helps maintain the nucleotide supply needed for DNA replication and repair. Because cancer cells rely on these processes to survive and continue dividing, disrupting them may expose an important therapeutic vulnerability.
The team has also found that excessive CDADC1 activity can itself be damaging. Forcing bladder cancer cells to overexpress CDADC1 disrupts nucleotide balance and triggers DNA damage during cell division. These results suggest that CDADC1 may play a central role in how bladder cancer cells tolerate stress, making it an intriguing new target for treatment development.
His research suggests that bladder cancer cells become especially fragile when both RB1, a major tumor suppressor, and CDADC1 are lost. Under these conditions, the cells struggle to maintain the DNA building blocks they need, accumulate DNA damage, and lose the ability to repair that damage effectively. This raises the possibility of developing therapies that selectively exploit this weakness in cancer cells.
“ We are very grateful for the AACR’s support. This grant will accelerate our investigation of CDADC1 as a therapeutic target and support development of novel strategies for bladder cancer,” Dr. Faltas said.