# BLRD Research Career Scientist Award Application

> **NIH VA IK6** · OMAHA VA  MEDICAL CENTER · 2024 · —

## Abstract

Although CRC endangers males and females of all the population, the US (the United States of
America) Veterans show a higher incidence rate of colon cancer than the general population. It
is estimated that each year the Veterans affairs manages and treats ~175,000 CRC patients. It is
therefore an urgent necessity to find novel therapeutic strategies to curb CRC-malignancy to
increase the overall survival for the U.S. Veterans diagnosed with CRC as well as improve their
quality of life. Characterization of the key molecules involved in the processes critical for CRC
progression to develop novel and promising therapeutic approaches not only holds the promise
of decreasing the patient mortality amongst VA-CRC patients but also reduce the associated
financial burden for the Veterans Administration. The applicant’s lab program is focused on
understanding the molecular mechanism/s involving dysregulation of specific tight junction and
cell cycle proteins in Colon cancer progression and metastasis and developing targeted
therapeutics. Her laboratory is internationally known for its contributions in this area, especially in
understanding the role of Claudins in regulating CRC progression to metastasis and resistance
to conventional therapy. In this regard, extensive preclinical and clinical studies from her
laboratory, have validated a casual role for upregulated claudin-1 expression in promoting CRC
metastasis. Her laboratory is also the 1st lab which has developed a novel inhibitor for inhibiting
claudin-1 for inhibiting CRC. Her laboratory further demonstrated that claudin-7, yet another
claudin family protein, is a tumor suppressor in colon cancer. Her laboratory is also developing
patient-derived organoids, tumor xenografts from known disease stages and variable therapeutic
response, or have access to such reagents through her collaborations. The applicant has a broad
background in cancer biology, with published expertise in the regulation of colon carcinogenesis
and metastasis using in vivo and in vitro mouse, organoid and cell culture models. As a Research
Career Scientist, she will oversee this research program by coordinating the work done; designing
the experiments, delegating the work and monitoring the work to ensure that it progresses in a
timely fashion. She will also be involved in preparing manuscripts of the work performed and
presenting the results at conferences in this area of cancer biology, therapeutics in CRC patients.
Applicant’s research program has been continuously funded by VA Merit Award and multiple NIH-
grant awards for ~17 years. She has extensively published her laboratory work in over 75 original
peer reviewed research articles in prestigious journals in the field including Gastroenterology
(impact factor 33), GUT (Impact Factor 31) and J Clin Invest (19.4). In addition, one of the key
hallmarks of her program has been a multidisciplinary and collaborative nature of the research
enterprise with a deep focus on mentoring ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10801656
- **Project number:** 1IK6BX006481-01
- **Recipient organization:** OMAHA VA  MEDICAL CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** Punita Dhawan
- **Activity code:** IK6 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** VA
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** —
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2023-10-01 → 2028-09-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10801656

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10801656, BLRD Research Career Scientist Award Application (1IK6BX006481-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10801656. Licensed CC0.

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