Vijayakrishna Gadi, MD, PhD

Dr. VK Gadi was named the Cancer Center’s Deputy Director in 2022. Gadi, whose laboratory and clinical research has focused primarily on breast cancer, joined the Cancer Center in 2020 as Associate Director of Translational Medicine when he came to the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) after 20 years in Seattle at the University of Washington, where he did his postgraduate training, and the Fred Hutch Cancer Center. Since coming to Chicago, Gadi has worked to stabilize, expand and diversify the clinical and research workforce focused on solid tumor malignancies in the Cancer Center’s catchment area of Cook County, the second most populous county in the US and one of the most diverse catchment areas in the nation. Working closely with Cancer Center leadership, Gadi continues to lead efforts to identify and recruit novel molecular assets for clinical trials testing from both big pharmaceutical companies and smaller biotechs. His efforts have increased national-level engagement for cooperative group studies and provided access to Cancer Center disease team leaders for clinical trial development opportunities to ensure trials are written to address the needs of diverse patient populations. In collaboration with several groups of investigators and UIC technology transfer, Gadi also is accelerating the process of commercialization of multiple diagnostic and therapeutic intellectual properties to build a sustainable licensing revenue stream to support Cancer Center activities.