Carolyn Anderson received her BS in Chemistry from UW-Superior, and her PhD in Inorganic Chemistry at Florida State University. After completing her PhD, she moved to Washington University in St. Louis as a postdoctoral fellow for two years in the laboratory of Professor Michael J Welch. She began her first faculty appointment at WU as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiology. Her research at WU laid the foundation for the growth of radiometal-based agents for imaging and therapy (“theranostics”). After 20 years at WU, she moved to the University of Pittsburgh as a Professor of Radiology to establish a small animal imaging shared resource at the Hillman Cancer Center. In 2016 she became a Professor in the Department of Medicine at Pitt. In 2020, Prof. Anderson moved to the University of Missouri (MU) to be the Simón-Ellebracht Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Professor of Radiology. She is also an Associate Director of the Ellis Fischel Cancer Center. Her unique expertise in radiochemistry and medical applications in cancer and other diseases was a natural fit with the ongoing research and emphasis on theranostics.  With a team of investigators at MU, she created the Molecular Imaging and Theranostics Center (MITC) to be a hub for radiopharmaceutical researchers and collaborators throughout the MU campus and beyond to discover novel radiolabeled agents that can see and/or treat cancer. In the MU Department of Chemistry, Prof. Anderson is highly active as a mentor to undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows. She has received numerous honors, including the Michael J. Welch Award (2012), the Paul C. Aebersold award (2020), and the Georg de Hevesy Nuclear Pioneer Award (2024) from the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI), a Distinguished Investigator Award from the Academy of Radiology Research (2014), and the Glenn T. Seaborg award in Nuclear Chemistry from the American Chemical Society (2022).

At the University of Missouri, Dr. Anderson’s research involves structure-activity relationships to optimize radiopharmaceutical therapy agents radiolabeled with reactor-produced radionuclides in conjunction with development of companion PET diagnostic agents. Through her NIH R01 on radiopharmaceutical therapy to treat metastatic melanoma, she began investigating albumin-binding strategies, along with ¹⁶¹Tb (beta minus and low energy electron emitter) as an alternative to ¹⁷⁷Lu. She is also expanding into working with alpha emitters that include ²²⁵Ac and ²¹²Pb.  Through her ongoing collaboration with Lumiphore, she has established the versatility of their lead chelator, Lumi804, for ⁸⁹Zr(IV), ¹⁶¹Tb(III), and ¹⁷⁷Lu(III), and favorable comparisons to gold standard chelators DOTA (radiolanthanides) and DFO (⁸⁹Zr(IV)).  Future studies will involve working with alpha-emitting ²²⁷Th(IV).