The Trailblazer Prize for Clinician-Scientists (Trailblazer Prize) recognizes the outstanding contributions of early career clinician-scientists whose work has the potential to or has led to innovations in patient care. This $10,000 honorarium and prize is made possible by a generous donation from John I. Gallin, MD, and Elaine Gallin, PhD, to the FNIH.
2024 Award Recipient
Vijay G. Sankaran, MD, PhD
Hematologist/Oncologist and the Jan Ellen Paradise, MD, Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School; Division of Hematology/Oncology at Boston Children’s Hospital; Attending Physician in the Dana-Farber/ Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center; Associate Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Recently Selected Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator
Dr. Sankaran’s work has focused on the genes and mechanisms underpinning blood cell development and disorders. He discovered the function of a particular gene involved in blood production that, when suppressed using specific techniques, could treat sickle cell anemia. He identified thousands of gene variants involved in multiple diseases, including blood cancers, and described the role of individual mutations in Diamond-Blackfan anemia, a life-threatening blood disorder. Additionally, Dr. Sankaran’s lab devised a method that can triple the production of red blood cells, which could lead to better, cheaper methods of manufacturing these cells for transfusion.
Selection Committee
Dr. Sankaran was selected as the 2024 Trailblazer Prize recipient by a jury of distinguished biomedical research leaders:
-
Michael J. Welsh, MD, PhD, Chair
Director, Pappajohn Biomedical Institute, University of Iowa
-
Howard Y. Chang, MD, PhD
Howard Y. Chang, M.D., Ph.D., Virginia and D. K. Ludwig Professor of Cancer Research, Professor of Dermatology and Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine
-
John I. Gallin, MD
Chief Scientific Officer and Scientific Director of the NIH Clinical Center
-
Helen H. Hobbs, MD
Director of the Eugene McDermott Center for Human Growth and Development, Professor of Internal Medicine and Molecular Genetics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
-
Timothy J. Ley, MD
Lewis T. and Rosalind B. Apple Chair in Oncology, Professor of Medicine and of Genetics, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis
-
Steven M. Paul, MD
Chair, FNIH Board of Directors, President of Research & Development and Chief Scientific Officer at Karuna Therapeutics, Inc., and Venture Partner at Third Rock Ventures
-
Christine E. Seidman, MD
Thomas W. Smith Professor of Medicine and Genetics, Director, Cardiovascular Genetics Center, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School (SFARI) and Simons Foundation Neuroscience Collaborations
Previous Recipients
-
2023Vinod Balachandran, MD
Physician-Scientist in the Immuno-Oncology Service of the Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program and Surgical Oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) Cancer Center; Immunology Group Leader in the David M. Rubenstein Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research at MSK
Dr. Balachandran’s pioneering work in personalized mRNA vaccines has the potential to transform the treatment of pancreatic cancer and provide proof of concept for future cancer vaccines.
Learn more -
2022Eliezer M. Van Allen, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Chief of the Division of Population Sciences at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Associate Member of the Broad Institute, and a medical oncologist at Dana Farber/Partners Cancer Care.
Dr. Van Allen used innovative computational approaches to help determine the impact of both inherited and environmental factors on cancer and the influence of genes on an individual’s response to cancer treatment.
Learn more -
2022Nikhil Wagle, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Institute Member of the Broad Institute, and an oncologist specializing in breast cancer at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Dr. Wagle developed novel gene sequencing approaches to profile cancer mutations that affect treatment response and drug resistance.
Learn more -
2021Piro Lito, MD, PhD
Associate Member and Attending Physician at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Dr. Lito received the Trailblazer Prize for catalyzing breakthroughs in the understanding of oncoprotein signaling and the development of novel therapeutic approaches for cancers driven by the mutant KRAS protein.
Learn more -
2020Michael Wilson, MD
Associate Professor of Neurology in the Division of Neuroimmunology and Glial Biology at the University of California San Francisco Weill Institute for Neurosciences
Dr. Wilson received the Trailblazer Prize for pioneering a next-generation diagnostic approach to pinpoint infectious causes of inflammatory conditions of the central nervous system.
Learn more -
2019James Kochenderfer, MD
Investigator, Surgery Branch, Center for Cancer Research, NCI
Dr. Kochenderfer received the Trailblazer Prize for developing immunotherapies that leverage chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cells to treat blood cancers, including lymphoma and multiple myeloma.
Learn More -
2018Michael Fox, MD, PhD
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School
Dr. Fox received the Trailblazer Prize for developing innovative techniques to map human brain connectivity that can be translated into new treatments for neurological diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease and depression.
Learn More
Previous Finalists
-
2019Ami S. Bhatt, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Medicine and Genetics School of Medicine, Stanford University
Dr. Bahatt developed genomic and metabolomic tools to track how the microbiome affects the clinical outcomes of cancer patients.
Learn More -
2019Evan Macosko, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
Dr. Macosko developed Drop-seq and Slide-seq technologies that analyze genes expressed at the single-cell level and provide a deeper understanding of the molecular and cellular biology of the brain and other organs
Learn More -
2019Giovanni Traverso, M.B, BChir, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Division of Gastroenterology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School
Dr. Traverso developed orally administered delivery systems of medications that reside in the gastric cavity for prolonged periods, as well as systems that enable the delivery of biologics, like insulin, orally.
Learn More -
2018Daniel Bauer, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, Harvard Medical School
Dr. Bauer pioneered research on genetic editing that can be translated into therapies for blood disorders, such as sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia.
Learn More -
2018Jaehyuk Choi, MD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Dermatology, and of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics (BMG), Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University
Dr. Choi used genomics to identify mutations in skin cells that can lead to autoinflammatory diseases and cancer, and inspiring novel therapeutic approaches for these diseases.
Learn More
Donate
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.
Partner With Us
Work with the FNIH to accelerate medical breakthroughs for patients