The Paul-Gallin Trailblazer Prize for Physician-Scientists recognizes the outstanding contributions of early career physician-scientists whose work has the potential to transform patient care.

The award is named for two important physician-scientists, Steven Paul, MD, and the late John Gallin, MD. Dr. Paul is the Chair of the FNIH Board of Directors and has made a generous $1 million gift to initiate the endowment. Dr. Gallin was the longest-serving director of the NIH Clinical Center. He and his wife, Elaine Gallin, PhD, created the Trailblazer Prize in 2018 in partnership with the FNIH.

Donate in Memory of Dr. Gallin

2024 Award Recipient

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

  • Director
    2023
    Vinod 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.

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  • Director
    2022
    Eliezer 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.

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  • Director
    2022
    Nikhil 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.

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  • Director
    2021
    Piro 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.

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  • Director
    2020
    Michael 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.

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  • Director
    2019
    James 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.

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  • Director
    2018
    Michael 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.

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Previous Finalists

  • Director
    2021
    Courtney DiNardo, M.D., MSCE
    Associate Professor, Department of Leukemia, Division of Cancer Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

    Dr. DiNardo developed innovative research into acute leukemia involving evaluation of novel small molecule and targeted therapeutics leading to three new FDA-approved acute myeloid leukemia (AML) therapies. Dr. DiNardo also founded the MDACC hereditary leukemia clinic for detection of inherited cancer predispositions.

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  • Director
    2021
    Ian Myles, M.D.
    Chief, Epithelial Therapeutics Unit, Laboratory of Clinical Immunology and Microbiology, Division of Intramural Research, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at NIH

    Dr. Myles explored the skin condition atopic dermatitis, allergy and microbial dysbiosis—an imbalance of the body’s microbial communities that cause inflammation—leading to the development of the first-in-human trial of topical microbiome transplantation using Roseomonas mucosa in treating atopic dermatitis.

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  • Director
    2019
    Ami 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.

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  • Director
    2019
    Evan 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

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  • Director
    2019
    Giovanni 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.

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  • Director
    2018
    Daniel 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.

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  • Director
    2018
    Jaehyuk 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.

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