Caius Gabriel Radu

Caius Gabriel Radu is a Professor in the Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology and the Department of Surgery at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Medicine. His research program focuses on understanding fundamental biological processes at the interface between metabolic and signal transduction networks in cancer, immune cells, and stromal cells, with the goal of developing new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches.

Dr. Radu's research expertise spans cancer immunobiology, immunotherapy, nucleotide metabolism, and molecular imaging. His laboratory has established a highly integrated research program that includes state-of-the-art instrumentation for Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Mass Spectrometry platforms for metabolomics, proteomics, and phosphoproteomics. His interdisciplinary team collaborates with experts across UCLA and other institutions in molecular imaging, cancer metabolism, immunobiology, signal transduction, structural biology, radiochemistry, medicinal chemistry, and virology.

Dr. Radu's research has led to significant discoveries, including uncovering a new role for the nucleoside salvage pathway in hematopoiesis, developing new PET probes for nucleotide metabolism (some of which have been translated to clinical use), and discovering novel small molecule inhibitors of metabolic kinases. One of these inhibitors has entered Phase I clinical trials (NCT05055609) for selected solid tumors and autoimmune disorders. His work also focuses on the immunobiology of pancreatic and prostate cancers, seeking to identify novel immunometabolic checkpoints that could be pharmacologically modulated alone or in combination with other therapies.

• Challenge Award, Prostate Cancer Foundation, 2017-2019
• Challenge Award, Prostate Cancer Foundation, 2019-2021

Dr. Radu is currently Principal Investigator or Multiple Principal Investigator on multiple NIH-funded research projects, including studies on innovative mRNA vaccines for solid tumors, adenosine signaling in pancreatic cancer, PSMA-targeted radiopharmaceutical therapy, and targeting KRAS and adenosine-mediated immunosuppression. In collaboration with Dr. Norbert Pardi at UPenn, he has established a platform for evaluating mRNA lipid nanoparticle platforms for cancer immunotherapy.