Dianhydrogalactitol (VAL-083) is a unique bi-functional alkylating agent causing N7-guanine-methylation and inter-strand DNA crosslinks. VAL-083 readily crosses the blood-brain barrier, accumulates in brain tumor tissue and has shown activity in prior NCI-sponsored clinical trials against various cancers, including glioblastoma (GBM) and medulloblastoma. VAL-083 is also active against GBM cancer stem cells and acts as a radiosensitizer independent of O6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase activity (in contrast to e.g. temozolomide and BCNU). Here we report new insights into VAL-083 mechanism of action by showing that VAL-083 induces irreversible cell-cycle arrest and cell death caused by replication-dependent DNA damage. In lung (H2122, H1792, H23, A549) and prostate (PC3, LNCaP) cancer cell lines VAL-083 treatment caused irreversible S/G2 cell-cycle arrest and cell death (IC50 range 3.06-25.7 µM). VAL-083 pulse-treatment led to persistent phosphorylation of DNA double-strand breaks (DSB) sensors ATM, single-strand DNA-binding Replication Protein A (RPA32), and histone variant H2A.X, suggesting persistent DNA lesions. After 10 months in culture with increasing VAL-083 concentrations, H1792 and LNCaP cells survive at concentrations up to 9.4 µM and 7.4 µM, respectively, suggesting that efficient resistance mechanisms are not easily acquired by the cancer cells. Taken together with previous results showing that VAL-083 circumvents cisplatin-resistance and is less dependent on p53 activity than cisplatin, these results suggest a molecular mechanism for VAL-083 that differs from both TMZ, BCNU and cisplatin. They further suggest that irreparable DNA damage induced by VAL-083 is impervious to common strategies employed by cancer cells to escape effects of alkylating drugs used in GBM treatment.