Gad (Gaddy) Getz, PhD
Chuan He, PhD
Aviv Regev, PhD
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) has named three investigators as recipients of this year’s Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research. The award recognizes promising investigators aged 45 years or younger at the time of nomination for their efforts in advancing cancer research.
The winners are Gad (Gaddy) Getz, PhD, of the Broad Institute of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, and Harvard Medical School; Chuan He, PhD, of the University of Chicago; and Aviv Regev, PhD, also of the Broad Institute of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Each recipient has received an award of $50,000 and gave a scientific presentation at a symposium held at MSK in late November 2017. The award was created to honor Paul Marks, MD, President Emeritus of MSK, for his contributions as a scientist, teacher, and leader during the 19 years he led the institution. Since it was first presented in 2001, the biennial prize has recognized 28 young scientists and has awarded more than $1 million.
Dr. Getz
Dr. Getz is an Institute Member and Director of Cancer Genome Computational Analysis at the Broad Institute. He is also Director of Bioinformatics at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and Department of Pathology. In addition, he is Associate Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School and the Paul C. Zamecnik Chair in Oncology at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center. He uses computational biology to study the genomic changes that allow normal cells to evolve and become cancerous.
Dr. He
Dr. He is the John T. Wilson Distinguished Service Professor in Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Molecular Biology at the University of Chicago; Director of University of Chicago’s Institute for Biophysical Dynamics; and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. He is also Director of the Synthetic and Functional Biomolecules Center at Peking University in China. He is an expert in the field of cancer epigenetics and RNA modification biology.
Dr. Regev
Dr. Regev is Director of the Klarman Cell Observatory at the Broad Institute, Professor in the Biology Pepartment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. She is also one of the leaders of Human Cell Atlas, an international effort to build a collection of maps to describe and define the cellular basis of health and disease.
Dr. Regev has been a pioneer in developing experimental and computational methods for the genomic analysis of single cancer cells, especially using RNA sequencing. ■
