The Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance Is Now Accepting Applications for its 2022 Prize for Early-Career, Radically Innovative Cancer Researchers

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance (PSSCRA) today announced the opening of applications for the 2022 Pershing Square Sohn Prize for Young Investigators in Cancer Research. The prize of $200,000 per year for three years is awarded annually to at least six New York City area-based scientists. The prize empowers researchers to pursue novel, high-risk/high-reward cancer research at a stage when traditional funding is lacking.

“With cancer genomics and single-cell technologies becoming a reality, along with advances in immunotherapy, metabolic targets and next-generation sequencing data, the pursuit of basic science alongside applied engineering has never been so opportune. Novel treatment strategies will in this way yield biological discoveries, and vice versa. We are proud to support early-career scientists driven by research which has the potential to activate state-of-the-art clinical treatment while revealing new scientific insights,” said Pershing Square Foundation Trustee Neri Oxman. “We look forward to reviewing the applications as we continue to grow our PSSCRA community.”

Applicants must have between two and six years of experience running their own laboratories by the award start date (July 2022), hold a PhD, MD, or MD-PhD (or degree equivalent), and be affiliated with a research institution in the greater New York City area. The greater New York City area includes New York City’s five boroughs, Long Island, Westchester County, New Jersey, and Western Connecticut (Fairfield and New Haven Counties). The deadline to submit a Letter of Intent is November 8, 2021. For more details on PSSCRA and the application process, including the full eligibility criteria, please visit: https://psscra.org/application/.

Now providing funding and support for 52 investigators at twelve academic research institutions, the highly competitive Pershing Square Sohn Prize underwrites the bold research of cancer scientists at a formative stage in their careers. In order to facilitate collaboration and innovation, each Prize winner is given access to leaders in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries and the opportunity to present his or her work to scientific, business, and philanthropic audiences.

“As we embark on the ninth year of the Prize, we continue to be extremely impressed by the remarkable scientific talent in the New York City area. It is our goal to build a community of creative and skilled individuals and to support their exploration of the most exciting and revolutionary ideas, especially during a time when scientific discovery remains vital,” said Olivia Tournay Flatto, PhD, President of The Pershing Square Foundation and Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance. “The continued growth of the New York area’s life science research and industry relies on our ability to discover and support such new talent.”

“The Pershing Square Sohn Prize will allow me to take big risks with my research and further our goal of finding novel therapies against pancreatic cancer,” said Lilian Kabeche, PhD, a 2021 Prize winner who is an Assistant Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale School of Medicine. “This award will also give me the ability to challenge our understanding of cell biology. I’m excited to explore how classic pathways that we learned in textbooks are intertwined throughout the cell cycle to ensure that cells replicate and segregate their DNA faithfully.”

“What the Pershing Square Sohn Prize gave me was scientific freedom, which is perhaps the most important aspect of making novel discoveries,” said Richard White, MD, PhD, a recipient of the 2017 Prize, physician-scientist, and Associate Member at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. “Whereas many grant programs are very restricted in what they will support, this award builds in the unexpected avenues that we all take as scientists, and fully allows us to go where the data takes us. Sometimes that is far away from what we first proposed, and that’s ok. Because of this, the Prize has played an instrumental role in my lab’s ability to make important and impactful discoveries in cancer.”

“The PSSCRA was a pivotal catapult to my early career, and has led to pioneering work in a range of blood cancers, computational algorithms, and new therapeutic directions for engineered cellular therapies,” remarked 2016 Prize winner Chris Mason, PhD, Professor of Physiology and Biophysics and Director of the WorldQuant Initiative for Quantitative Predication at Weill Cornell Medicine. Dr. Mason concluded his project in 2019 and has since then participated in PSSCRA’s application process as a guest reviewer.

About the Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance

The Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance was formed in 2013 by The Pershing Square Foundation, which has since committed more than $30 million to 52 scientists, in partnership with The Sohn Conference Foundation. The Alliance is dedicated to playing a catalytic role in accelerating cures for cancer by supporting innovative cancer research and by facilitating collaborations between academia and industry. Annually, the Alliance awards the Pershing Square Sohn Prize to early-career, New York area scientists who are engaged in cutting-edge cancer research. For more information, visit http://psscra.org/.

About The Pershing Square Foundation

The Pershing Square Foundation (PSF) was established in 2006 to support exceptional leaders and innovative organizations that tackle important social issues and deliver scalable and sustainable impact across the globe. PSF has committed $500+ million in grants and social investments across a number of fields, including health and medicine, education, economic development and social justice. Bill Ackman and Neri Oxman are the co-trustees of the Foundation.

About The Sohn Conference Foundation

The Sohn Conference Foundation is dedicated to the treatment and cure of pediatric cancer and supports cutting-edge medical research, state-of-the-art research equipment, and innovative programs. The Foundation raises its funds through the renowned Sohn Investment Conference in New York City and a number of premier investment conferences around the world.

The Sohn Conference Foundation honors the memory of Ira Sohn, a talented Wall Street professional whose life was cut short when he passed away from cancer at the age of 29. Ira’s friends and family founded The Sohn Conference Foundation in New York City in 1995. Since then, investment leaders from across the globe have been inspired to launch partner Sohn conferences and unite the financial community to support a number of charitable causes. To date, The Sohn Conference Foundation has raised more than $90 million. More information on The Sohn Conference Foundation is available at www.sohnconference.org.

Press Contact
Christy Barrow
Program Manager, Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance
The Pershing Square Foundation
cbarrow@persq.org