The 2024 Damon Runyon Clinical Investigators

The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation has announced six new recipients of the Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator Award. These early-career physician-scientists, recognized for their excellence, are conducting patient-oriented cancer research at prominent research institutions, guided by leading scientists and clinicians.

The Clinical Investigator Award program aims to increase the number of physicians who can translate scientific discoveries into new cancer treatments. Each recipient will receive $600,000 over three years, along with funding for research expenses, including equipment purchases.

The 2024 Clinical Investigators are:

• Steven M. Corsello, MD

Steven M. Corsello is an Assistant Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine. He previously served as an Instructor in Medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. His research focuses on developing more effective and less toxic therapies for pancreatic cancer.

• Megan L. Insco, MD, PhD 

Megan L. Insco is an Independent Laboratory Investigator in the Molecular and Cellular Oncology Division at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Previously, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Leonard Zon’s Lab. Her current research is focused on targeting abnormal RNA to develop new cancer treatments.

• Mary M. Mullen, MD

Mary M. Mullen is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Gynecologic Oncology, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research focuses on chemotherapy resistance and developing new ovarian cancer treatments that target the DNA damage response, aiming to improve outcomes for patients with gynecologic cancers.

• Erin M. Parry, MD, PhD

Erin M. Parry is a physician at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Her laboratory research focuses on the transformation of indolent lymphoma into aggressive lymphoma and the mechanisms of immune evasion in lymphoma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

• John R. Prensner, MD, PhD

John R. Prensner is a pediatric neuro-oncologist and physician-scientist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He leads an academic laboratory focused on the molecular biology of cancer, with a particular interest in pediatric brain tumors. His research investigates aberrant RNA translation and the role of non-canonical open reading frames in these tumors.

• Lachelle D. Weeks, MD, PhD

Lachelle D. Weeks is a physician at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and an Instructor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Her research focuses on refining leukemia risk prediction models and developing screening programs to identify individuals with clonal hematopoiesis who are at the highest risk of progressing to cancer.

On this occasion, Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation shared a post on X:

“Congratulations to the newest Damon Runyon Clinical Investigators! The six recipients of this prestigious award are outstanding, early-career physician-scientists conducting patient-oriented cancer research.

Steven Corsello is investigating how to simultaneously activate inflammatory signaling and cell death pathways, with the goal of developing less toxic therapies for pancreatic cancer.

After discovering that melanoma can arise from so-called ‘junk RNA,’ Megan Insco is working to activate immune cells against melanoma cells that have high levels of this aberrant genetic material.

Maggie Mullen plans to test a new targeted therapy in combination with chemotherapy to treat therapy-resistant ovarian cancer.

Erin Parry is investigating how slow-growing follicular lymphomas morph into more aggressive lymphomas, with the goal of improving recognition and diagnosis of this transformation.

John Prensner aims to determine the cause of imbalanced protein-RNA ratios in medulloblastoma, a lethal pediatric brain cancer, and investigate therapeutic options that may target this imbalance.

Lachelle Dawn plans to develop computerized models that can review images of blood cells and predict a patient’s risk of developing acute myeloid leukemia.”

Steven Corsello shared this post on X, adding:

“Honored and grateful to receive support from Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation to advance new GI cancer therapies towards the clinic! Congratulations to all awardees, including lab mate John Prensner. Thanks to my mentors and collaborators at Stanford Cancer Institute, Stanford Department of Medicine, Stanford Chemical and Systems Biology, Sarafan ChEM-H.”

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