Young Investigator Awards
MRA Young Investigator Awards aim to attract early career scientists with novel ideas into melanoma research, thereby recruiting and supporting the next generation of melanoma researchers. Young Investigators are scientists within four years of their first academic faculty appointment. A mentorship commitment from a senior investigator is required.
Loss of CD226 In T Cells Drives Resistance to Melanoma Immunotherapy
Aims to understand CD226 signaling and function in immune cells to improve
melanoma immunotherapy.
Bristol Myers Squibb – MRA Young Investigator Award
Tobias Bald, PhD, University of Bonn
Identification of Druggable Transcriptional Drivers in Melanoma
Will develop chemical tools to target two key drivers responsible for melanoma growth and identify new mechanisms to inhibit melanoma growth.
MRA Young Investigator Award, Collaboratively Funded by Massachusetts General Hospital
Liron Bar-Peled, PhD, Massachusetts General Hospital
Understanding Immunotherapy-Tolerant Melanoma Persister Cells
Will characterize immunotherapy-tolerant persister cells, identify their therapeutically targetable vulnerabilities, and evaluate the findings in preclinical models.
Bristol Myers Squibb – MRA Young Investigator Award
Matthew Hangauer, PhD, University of California San Diego
Activating dsRNA Sensing in Melanoma to Overcome
Immunotherapy Resistance
Aims to define the mechanism by which targeting the ADAR1 molecule overcomes resistance to immunotherapy and to identify the patients that will benefit from this new approach.
Bristol Myers Squibb – MRA Young Investigator Award
Jeffrey Ishizuka, MD, PhD, Yale University
Targeting Interactions Between Melanoma Metabolism and Radiation Therapy
Aims to understand the fundamental response of melanoma metabolism to radiation therapy, and will combine drug therapy and radiation therapy with the goal of improving radiation response.
MRA Young Investigator Award, Collaboratively Funded by Emory University
Aparna Kesarwala, MD, PhD, Emory University
Examining the Role of Blebs in Melanoma Metastasis
Aims to understand the molecular mechanisms used in melanoma cells undergoing fast amoeboid migration, with the goal to provide new therapeutics for metastatic melanoma.
MRA Young Investigator Award in Memory of Leon Sapsuzian, Jr.
Jeremy Logue, PhD, Albany Medical College
Microenvironmental Regulators of Melanoma Brain Metastases
Will investigate the contribution of microenvironmental regulators to melanoma brain metastasis progression and response to immunocheckpoint inhibitors.
The Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder – MRA Young Investigator Award
Berta Lopez Sanchez-Laorden, PhD, Universidad Miguel Hernandez de Elche
Targeting 1-Carbon Metabolism in Melanoma Brain Metastases:
Identifying the metabolic adaptations that cancer cells need to survive and proliferate in the brain, and develop therapeutics to target these metabolic vulnerabilities.
Tara Miller Melanoma Foundation – MRA Young Investigator Award
Michael Pacold, MD, PhD, New York University
Ablative Radiotherapy as Consolidation for Oligoprogressive Melanoma
Aims to understand the variability between multiple sites of melanoma in individual people and the extent to which radiation targeted to one area of cancer can affect other areas of cancer in the body that are not being targeted with radiation.
ASTRO-MRA Young Investigator Award in Radiation Oncology
Reid Thompson, MD, PhD, Oregon Health & Science University
The Impact of Tumor Progression Trajectory on Immunotherapy Treatment
Aims to build a better prediction model for melanoma immunotherapy and to improve treatment regimens.
Michael and Jacqueline Ferro Family Foundation – MRA Young Investigator Award