Current Funded Investigators
2025 Recipients
Allison Portnoy, MSPH, ScD
Assistant Professor of Global Health
“lmpact and cost-effectiveness of self-collected human papillomavirus (HPV) testing among under-screened persons with a cervix in the United States: a modeling study”
Thomas Clarke, PhD
Assistant Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
“Investigating a novel DNA repair factor as a driver of therapy resistance in colorectal cancer”
Ignaty Leshchiner, PhD
Assistant Professor of Medicine
“Resolving cancer sub-clonal expression variation”
Alaina Geary, MD, MHPE
Clinical Instructor of Surgery
“Value and economic sustainability of a centralized cancer screening program for hard to reach patients eligible for breast cancer screening at a safety net hospital”
2024 Recipients
Michelle Teplensky, PhD
Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering
“Nanoscale-mediated Modulation of Melanoma STING Signaling for Antitumor Immunity”
Chao Zhang, PhD
Assistant Professor of Medicine
“Parallel and divergent regulatory targets of YAP and TAZ in melanoma”
Liangliang Hao, PhD
Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering
“Mapping spatial proteolytic activities in tumor metastasis to engineer precision oncology solutions”
Erica Pratt, PhD
Moorman-Simon Interdisciplinary Career Development Assistant Professor
“Molecular profiling of ctDNA in pancreatic cancer”
2023 Recipients
Daniel Dempsey, PhD
Assistant Professor of Dermatology and Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics
“Chemical approaches to understand protein deubiquitination in cancer”
Ruben Dries, PhD
Assistant Professor of Medicine
“Dissecting the spatiotemporal mechanisms underlying breast cancer progression”
Pawel Przytycki, PhD
Assistant Professor of Faculty and Computing Data Sciences
“Network-based algorithms for identifying the cell-state-specific effects of non-coding somatic mutations”
Erica Pratt, PhD
Moorman-Simon Interdisciplinary Career Development Assistant Professor
“Molecular profiling of ctDNA in pancreatic cancer”
2020 Recipients
Christopher Heaphy, PhD
Assistant Professor of Medicine
“Modeling Alternative Lengthening of Telomeres (ALT) As A Distinct Molecular Subclass of Cancer”
Hadi T. Nia, PhD
Assistant Professor
“Tools for Probing Solid Stresses in Fibrotic Tumors”
Jessica L. Petrick, PhD
Assistant Professor of Medicine
“Helicobacter Pylori and Colorectal Cancer in African American Women”
2019 Recipients:
Dennis Jones, PhD
Assistant Professor, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
“Understanding the role of cancer-associated fibroblasts in immune suppression and growth of lymph node metastases”
Gareth Morgan, PhD
Research Assistant Professor, Hematology/Oncology
“Development of genomic methods for AL amyloidosis”
Jennifer Rider, ScD, MPH
Assistant Professor, School of Public Health, Epidemiology
“Patterns in long-term prescription opioid use in patients with cancer who are HIV-infected and HIV-uninfected”
2018 Recipients:
Elizabeth Duffy, MA
Assistant Professor, Pathology & Laboratory Medicine
Joshua Campbell, PhD
Assistant Professor, Division of Computational Biomedicine
“Histological and genomic characterization of premalignancy in prostate cancer from men with African Ancestry”
Christine Gunn, PhD
Research Assistant Professor, Medicine/General Internal Medicine
“Developing Educational Materials for Women with Dense Breasts Using a Multi-Stakeholder Approach”
Kimberly Mak, MD, MPH
Assistant Professor, Radiation Oncology
“Establishing Routine Measurement of Patient-Reported Outcomes for Radiation Oncology Patients at a Safety Net Hospital”