This year’s black-tie event, held at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, gathered over 200 distinguished guests, including members of academia, business, and media.
Published September 12, 2016
By Diana Friedman
On Monday, September 12, 2016, the Blavatnik Family Foundation hosted its second annual celebration of the Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists, honoring the scientific excellence and innovation of the 3 National Laureates and 28 National Finalists.
The evening formally began as the brass ensemble of the renowned Juilliard School played a processional of Triumphal March from Aida by G. Verdi and New York City high school students with a passion for science served as flag holders for the grand entrance of the Finalists and Laureates into the museum’s famed Milstein Hall of Ocean Life.
Ellis Rubinstein, President and Chief Executive Officer of The New York Academy of Sciences opened the evening with the introduction of the National Laureates and Finalists and welcomed them to the Blavatnik Science Scholars alumni community. He acknowledged the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists celebrating its 10–year anniversary, as well as the continuing support of the exceptional judges and Blavatnik Awards Scientific Advisory Council that help make the Awards possible. The remainder of the event was presented by the evening’s master of ceremonies, Dr. Andrew Hamilton, President of New York University.
An Impressive List of Notable Guests
2016 Blavatnik National Laureates: Dr. David Charbonneau, Dr. Phil Baran, and Dr. Michael Rape were introduced during the evening by their mentors Dr. Sara Seager, Dr. Ronald Breslow, and Dr. Marc Kirschner, respectively. Each Laureate received a custom gold-plated medal from Len Blavatnik and followed with a presentation about their award-winning work.
The event was attended by Blavatnik Awards winners and finalists from previous years, members of the National Jury, and members of the Blavatnik Awards Scientific Advisory Council, including Dr. Ruslan Medzhitov. Other notable guests included:
Dr. George Q. Daley, Dean of Harvard Medical School
Kenneth Bialkin, Secretary of the Carnegie Hall Corporation
Stephen Cooper, CEO of Warner Music Group
Richard Plepler, CEO of HBO
Julie Greenwald, Chairman and COO of Atlantic Records Group
Alan Dershowitz, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School
Peter Schultz, CEO of The Scripps Research Institute
Dr. Joseph Klafter, President of Tel Aviv University
C. L. Max Nikias, President of the University of Southern California
Lindsey Graham, US Senator of South Carolina
Robert Darnell, Founding Director of New York Genome Center
On Monday November 9th, The New York Academy of Sciences and the Blavatnik Family Foundation honored the three winners and six finalists of the 2015 Blavatnik Regional Awards for Young Scientists during the Academy’s 12th Annual Gala.
Published December 4, 2015
By Diana Friedman
The 2015 Blavatnik Regional Awards received 130 outstanding nominations from 24 academic and research institutions in the New York tri-state area. Winners and finalists were selected by a distinguished jury of senior scientists and engineers.
During the ceremony, Blavatnik Regional honorees awarded in the Chemistry category were introduced by Mr. Pablo Legorreta, Founder and CEO of Royalty Pharma; Dr. Paul Walker, Co-Head of the Technology Division in Goldman Sachs introduced the winners and finalists in the Physical Sciences & Engineering category; and Dr. Nancy Cantor, Chancellor of Rutgers University in Newark introduced honorees in the Life Sciences category. All were presented with their medals by Peter Thoren from the Blavatnik Family Foundation and each of the three winners gave a brief presentation about their award-winning work.
The evening before the Gala, on November 8th, the Blavatnik Family Foundation hosted a cocktail reception in honor of this year’s regional winners and finalists and regional judges. The event was attended by the Blavatnik Awards alumni, members of the Blavatnik Awards Regional jury, and supporters of the Awards.
To learn more about the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists, visit blavatnikawards.org.
2015 Blavatnik Regional Winner Nicolás Young and Alejandra BorundaBlavatnik judges Dixie Goss and Pamela StanleyJohn Haggerty; Berndt Mueller; David Morrison; William Zajc; and Blavatnik honoree Szabolcs Márka2015 Blavatnik Regional Finalist Ziv Shulman with wife Sivan Ben Avraham Shulman2015 Blavatnik Regional Finalist Allyson Friedman and Peter Thoren2015 Blavatnik Regional Winner Arash NikoubashmanPaul Walker and Peter Thoren with 2015 Blavatnik Regional honorees Yang Liu, Dennis Perepelitsa, and Nicolás Young2015 Blavatnik Regional honorees Yang Liu, Jinzhong Lin, and Xiang Gao
On Monday, September 28, 2015, the Blavatnik Family Foundation hosted its second annual celebration of the Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists, honoring the scientific excellence and innovation of the 3 National Laureates and 29 National Finalists.
Published September 28, 2015
By Diana Friedman
This year’s black-tie event, held at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, gathered over 200 distinguished guests, including members of academia, business, media, and film.
2015 National Finalists and Laureates with Len Blavatnik and Eric Lander
The evening formally began as the brass ensemble of the renowned Juilliard School played a processional of Fanfare for the Common Man and New York City high school students with a passion for science served as flag holders for the grand entrance of the Finalists and Laureates into the museum’s famed Milstein Hall of Ocean Life.
Ellis Rubinstein, President and Chief Executive Officer of The New York Academy of Sciences, opened the evening with the introduction of the National Laureates and Finalists and welcomed them to the Blavatnik Science Scholars alumni community.
He then introduced the evening’s master of ceremonies, Dr. Eric Lander, Founding Director of the Broad Institute and member of the Blavatnik Awards Scientific Advisory Council.
2015 Blavatnik National Laureates: Dr. Edward Chang, Dr. Syed Jafar, and Dr. Christopher Chang were introduced during the evening by their mentors Dr. Stephen Lisberger, Dr. Andrea Goldsmith, and Dr. Stephen Lippard, respectively. Each Laureate received a custom gold-plated medal from Len Blavatnik and followed with a presentation about their award-winning work.
The event was attended by Blavatnik Awards winners and finalists from previous years, members of the National Jury, and members of the Blavatnik Awards Scientific Advisory Council including Drs. Szabolcs Márka, Ruslan Medzhitov, and Marc Tessier-Lavigne. Other notable guests included:
Kenneth Bialkin, Secretary of the Carnegie Hall Corporation;
Stephen Cooper, CEO of Warner Music Group;
Dr. Brian Greene, Chairman of the World Science Festival;
Dr. Yann LeCun, Director of Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research;
Ron Prosor, Israel’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations;
Dr. Richard Roberts, CSO of New England Biolabs;
Dr. Bruce Stillman, President and CEO of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory;
Dr. Harold Varmus, Nobel Prize Laureate;
Dr. Jan Vilcek, Founder and President of the Vilcek Foundation;
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber; and
Dr. Nancy Zimpher, Chancellor of the State University of New York.
To learn more about the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists, visit blavatnikawards.org.
Eric Lander with Ellis Rubinstein2015 National Laureate Christopher Chang2015 National Laureate Syed Jafar with Len Blavatnik2007 Blavatnik honoree Antonio Giraldez with wife Valentina Greco2015 National Laureate Edward Chang with wife Michele Arnold2015 National Laureates Edward Chang, Christopher Chang, and Syed JafarBlavatnik National Judge Elaine Fuchs with Keith YamamotoBlavatnik National Judges Stew Smith and James Broach with Michael PurdyLen Blavatnik
The second annual Blavatnik Science Symposium was a celebration of scientific excellence and achievement in the United States.
Published August 6, 2015
By Diana Friedman
The 2015 Blavatnik Science Symposium hosted at The New York Academy of Sciences.
The second annual Blavatnik Science Symposium took place on August 5th and 6th 2015 at The New York Academy of Sciences (the Academy). This two-day event was hosted by the Blavatnik Family Foundation and the Academy and convened more than 50 past Blavatnik Awards honorees and 2015 National Finalists. The Symposium was attended by Len Blavatnik and other representatives of the Blavatnik Family Foundation, scientific luminaries, representatives of the Blavatnik Biomedical Accelerator and the Blavatnik Fellowship in Life Science Entrepreneurship program from Harvard University, and members of the press.
Building on the success of the inaugural 2014 Blavatnik Science Symposium, this year’s event was expanded to a two-day program to accommodate the growing Blavatnik Science Scholars Community of past and current honorees. Ellis Rubinstein, President and CEO of the Academy, and Dr. Mercedes Gorre, Executive Director of the Blavatnik Awards, opened the event with their welcoming remarks and were followed by a keynote address by 2010 Blavatnik Regional Award winner Michal Lipson, professor of Electrical Engineering at Columbia University, who spoke about the latest advances in nanophotonics.
Networking, Panel Discussions, and More
Blavatnik Awards honorees and 2015 National Finalists had the opportunity to network and present their work in front of their peers. A number of participants gave brief talks highlighting their research accomplishments in a broad variety of areas ranging from genomics to quantum materials to devices for portable diagnostics. A special session featured 2014 Blavatnik Regional Award honorees, who, having been recognized for their stellar postdoctoral work, have received faculty appointments in leading universities in the US and Europe.
Several panel discussions took place around topics of particular interest to the Blavatnik Science Scholars, including:
“Reinvention, Building Cross-Disciplinary and Multi-Faceted Research Programs” moderated by New York Times columnist Carl Zimmer
“Latest Developments and Top Unsolved Problems in Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning” with participation by Yann LeCun (Director of AI Research, Facebook/NYU), 2007 Blavatnik Regional Award winner Léon Bottou (Facebook), and 2013 Blavatnik Regional Award winner David Blei (Columbia University)
“Commercialization and Entrepreneurship in the Blavatnik Science Scholars Community,” moderated by Ellis Rubinstein;
And a special presentation by 2014/2015 National Finalist Rob Knight (UCSD) and 2011 Blavatnik Regional Award winner Szabolcs Márka (Columbia University) on collaboration between their groups that had emerged from their meeting at a Blavatnik Science Scholars event.
On the evening of the first day, Carl Zimmer delivered his keynote address: “Cross-Talk: Telling Stories about Science” where he shared with the guests his rich experience of successfully communicating scientific research to diverse audiences via a variety of media channels.
To learn more about the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists, visit blavatnikawards.org.
2010 honoree Michal Lipson.Len Blavatnik at 2015 Symposium.National Finalists Yueh-Lin Loo and Ali Khademhosseini.2015 National Finalist Yueh Lin Loo.Panel on Building cross disciplinary research programs.
Lewis Cantley’s discoveries in the laboratory are changing the way we think about and treat cancer.
Published June 1, 2015
By Siobhan Addie, PhD
Lewis C. Cantley, PhD
The 2015 Ross Prize in Molecular Medicine was awarded to Lewis C. Cantley, PhD, who serves as the Margaret and Herman Sokol Professor in Oncology Research and the Meyer Director of the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medical College and New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Dr. Cantley received the award at a scientific symposium held at the Academy on June 8, 2015, in his honor.
Early in his career, Dr. Cantley discovered phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI-3K), an enzyme that is important for cell growth, insulin signaling, and immune cell function. Dr. Cantley’s discovery has led to one of the most promising avenues for the development of personalized medicine. Currently, Dr. Cantley’s lab is investigating new treatments for diseases that result from defects in PI-3K and other genes in this important metabolic pathway. He shared his thoughts on this prestigious award as well as the past, present, and future of cancer treatment.
What is the current focus of your laboratory?
My laboratory is trying to understand why cancer cells have altered metabolism and take up significantly more glucose than normal cells. I initially became interested in this area following our discovery of phosphoinositide-3-kinase (PI-3K), an enzyme that is important for cell growth. We came to the realization that when PI-3K is activated, cells consume glucose at significantly higher rates, which is consistent with the Warburg Effect, first described decades earlier by Otto Heinrich Warburg. [The Warburg Effect is the observation that cancer cells produce the majority of their energy by glycolysis and lactic acid fermentation, as opposed to oxidation of pyruvate in mitochondria, as is observed in healthy cells.]
Mutations in PI-3K and other metabolic genes can cause cancer cells to take up increased amounts of glucose, and understanding this process will hopefully reveal new targets for cancer therapies. Together with Craig Thompson and Tak Mak, I co-founded a company called Agios Pharmaceuticals to further explore this concept. Independent of Agios Pharmaceuticals, my lab continues to investigate the mechanisms of altered cancer cell metabolism, and it is our goal to develop cancer drugs for the targets that we discover.
Who were your role models in science and how did they inspire you?
Harold Varmus and Michael Bishop were two of my major role models because of their elegant studies on how viruses cause cancer. It was this work that led to the realization that cancer is caused by mutations in human genes. It was paradigm-shifting science because it made us understand that cancer is driven by sporadic mutations in DNA and that the changes in metabolism that Otto Warburg originally observed were a consequence of mutations in genes (like PI-3K) that control metabolism through complex signaling networks.
What led to your discovery of PI-3K?
The discovery of the Warburg Effect made scientists examine changes in cancer cell metabolism. Much of the 20th century was spent trying to understand how cancers change their metabolism, specifically how they perform anabolic processes at a higher rate. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, work from a number of labs led to the discovery of important oncogenes. In our early work we used viral oncogenes to discover PI-3K.
By immunoprecipitating oncoproteins we were able to isolate PI-3K, and at first we believed PI-3K was producing the well-known lipids, PI(4,5)P2 or PI(4)P. However, once we characterized the product, we found out it was chemically distinct from the two well-known phospholipid forms in that the phosphate was on the 3 position of the inositol ring rather than the 4 or 5 position. We were extremely excited since this species had never previously been described.
Upon your discovery of PI-3K, did you realize how complex the signaling cascades were?
Our work revealed that PI-3K phosphorylates the 3 position of phosphatidylinositol; however, after that initial discovery we realized that many other phosphorylation combinations could be generated by PI-3K. Sure enough, in subsequent years, a whole new group of lipids was discovered, including PI(3)P, PI(3,4)P2, PI(3,5)P2 and PI(3,4,5)P3, although at the time it was not clear what they were doing. Now we know that many of these lipids are important in cells for controlling protein kinase cascades and actin rearrangement, which is critical for cell movement.
I was extremely excited by the importance of PI-3K for human disease. Initially our team was mainly focused on insulin signaling rather than on cancer, but soon we realized that there were commonalities between insulin signaling and the evolution of cancers. The story of PI-3K has certainly turned into a bigger story than I could have ever anticipated.
PI-3K inhibitors work quite well in blood cancers, but show more variable results in solid tumors. Why do you think that is?
The PI-3K gene that is mutated in solid tumors (PIK3CA) encodes the same enzyme that insulin activates so inhibitors of this enzyme cause insulin resistance resulting in hyperglycemia, which limits the dose of drug that can be used for therapy. In contrast the PI-3K inhibitor that was approved for treating B cell lymphomas, idelalisib, targets the enzyme encoded by PIK3CD, which does not mediate insulin responses. Thus there is less toxicity and higher doses of drug can be achieved, allowing more effective killing of tumor cells.
I also think that the total number of cancer cells in the body at the time a patient goes on therapy has a major role in explaining resistance to therapy. We now know that there is tremendous heterogeneity in the mutational events in most solid tumors and the more cells present, the more likely that a few cells in the tumor will be resistant to the therapy. That is why we are exploring the usefulness of neo-adjuvant therapy, the delivery of an anticancer drug prior to surgery. Another option for improving patient outcome is adjuvant therapy, the delivery of an anticancer drug immediately following surgery, even before recurrence is detected.
Generally, when metastatic cancer is diagnosed, the total number of cells in the body can be massive. Bert Vogelstein aptly pointed out that every time a cell divides there is a chance for an error in DNA replication, resulting in genetic aberrations, and the more times that happens the greater the diversity of mutations in the tumor and the lower the probability that a single agent will kill all cells in the tumor. Initial clinical trials in solid tumors are typically done in patients who have metastatic disease and have failed multiple therapies—it’s a high bar to achieve complete responses in this setting.
Why do certain cancer drugs look quite promising in pre-clinical models yet do not perform as well in humans?
New cancer drugs are often tested in mice that have a single, small tumor. Since the tumors in mice contain relatively few cells, the odds that we can kill all those cells are rather good. The clinical setting with human patients is far more challenging and complex because, as I indicated before, human cancer cells have greater genetic diversity and there are at least 100 times more cells than in a mouse tumor.
That is not to say that mouse models are bad, but we need to pay better attention to the mathematics. In normal preclinical studies we give seven mice the experimental drug and seven mice receive the placebo. As pointed out by Bert Vogelstein, these numbers are far too low. We need to increase the number of animals used in preclinical studies and focus on therapies that cure all the mice, then we are far more likely to find drugs or drug combinations that are also effective in humans.
If you had a crystal ball that showed you the future of cancer research and treatment, what would you like to know right now?
That’s a tough question! One of the things I would like to know is whether we will have technologies available in the future to detect circulating mutant DNA at very early stages of disease. I think it would be great to have a test that would allow us to intervene with therapies potentially even before a tumor can be felt by a patient or detected by standard imaging techniques.
A test like this would have to be extremely sensitive so that we could detect extremely low levels of circulating mutant DNA. We know that we can pick up circulating mutant DNA in the case of metastatic disease, but it would be fantastic to do this for very early stages of cancer.
Your clinical test sounds like a fantastic idea—what are the pros and cons?
If we were able to develop a test like this and it were cost-effective, it could very well become a routine clinical procedure that takes place during the annual physical every year after the age of 50. If people are at high risk for cancer, they could have the test done starting at age 30. These test results could potentially tell you that you have circulating copies of oncogenic mutant DNA. I believe that if clinicians administered targeted cancer therapy at these early stages of disease, we would have a much higher likelihood of a cure.
The success of this whole plan depends on the development of targeted cancer drugs that are safe and have few off-target effects. Developing these drugs and testing their safety could take as long as 5–10 years. Most of the drugs we currently use for cancer therapy would not be acceptable to use in this setting since they could cause more harm than good and even cause new cancers to occur.
Another caveat to this blood test is the possibility of false positive results, where patients may show the mutant DNA but never actually progress to full-blown disease. I think that personalized medicine is the future. If we truly want to cure cancer, we need to target the cancer cells more effectively and hit them earlier with safe, non-toxic drugs.
PI-3K is at the interface of insulin signaling and cancer; what is the relationship between these two?
Many types of cancer cells express higher levels of insulin receptor (IR) or insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor (IGF1R) than the tissue from which they evolved. If a patient with this type of cancer becomes insulin-resistant, as could happen from a high-sugar, high-carbohydrate diet, there will be high levels of circulating insulin and IGF1in the blood.
his is a very dangerous situation because if the tumor expresses IR or IGF1R, it will be getting a strong signal for activating PI-3K all the time, even if PI-3K is not mutated. This will drive tumor growth and may render the tumor less vulnerable to chemotherapy. If I had a cancer that expressed high levels of IR or IGF1R I would go on a low-carbohydrate diet the very next day.
High levels of dietary sugar can cause insulin-resistance, which results in near-constant elevation of circulating insulin. We know that insulin activates PI-3K, which is almost certainly driving a large fraction of cancer growth. In the United States there is a very high fraction of people who are insulin-resistant, but many of them are undiagnosed. It is a frightening possibility that we will retrospectively regret making sugar cheap and broadly added to foods the same way we now regret making cigarettes cheap and broadly available 70 years ago.
What does winning the Ross Prize in Molecular Medicine mean to you?
I am tremendously honored and excited to win the Ross Prize. I am particularly grateful for this award because it is not given for a single discovery, but rather a body of work where a discovery has been translated into a clinical outcome. That is difficult to do; but I certainly did not do that alone. Hundreds of people collaborated with me at various stages—from the mouse models, to the biochemistry, all the way to carrying out a clinical trial. I have been very fortunate in my career to work closely with passionate people who are focused on a common goal of identifying new cellular targets for cancer drugs.
About the Ross Prize in Molecular Medicine
The annual Ross Prize in Molecular Medicine was established in conjunction with the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research and Molecular Medicine. The winner is an active investigator who has produced innovative, paradigm-shifting research that is worthy of significant and broad attention in the field of molecular medicine. This individual is expected to continue to garner recognition in future years, and their current accomplishments reflect a rapidly rising career trajectory of discovery and invention. The winner receives an honorarium of $50,000.
On Monday November 10th, the New York Academy of Sciences and the Blavatnik Family Foundation honored the three winners and six finalists of the 2014 Blavatnik Regional Awards for Young Scientists during the Academy’s annual Gala.
Published November 10, 2014
By Diana Friedman
2014 Blavatnik Regional Award honorees
The 2014 Blavatnik Regional Awards honorees were selected for their exceptional research from a pool of over 220 outstanding nominations from 32 institutions across New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Winners and finalists received unrestricted cash prizes and were presented with medals.
Regional honorees awarded in the Chemistry category were introduced by Dr. Laurie Glimcher, Dean at Weill Cornell Medical College; Dr. Paul Horn, Sr. Vice Provost for Research and Sr. Vice Dean for Strategic Initiatives and Entrepreneurship at the NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering introduced the winners and finalists in the Physical Sciences & Engineering category; and Dr. Marc Tessier-Lavigne, President of The Rockefeller University introduced honorees in the Life Sciences category. All were presented with their medals by Peter Thoren from the Blavatnik Family Foundation and each of the three winners gave a brief presentation about their award-winning work.
This year’s Gala themed “The Beautiful Mind: New York Neuroscience Burns Bright” brought together the best and brightest in neuroscience research from across New York, Academy supporters from industry, philanthropy, and government, Blavatnik Awards alumni, members of the Regional Jury, and members of the Blavatnik Awards Scientific Advisory Council.
“On behalf of the Blavatnik Family Foundation, I would like to thank the judges for all of the hard work they put in over the past year, and to congratulate this evening’s honorees as well as the honorees from previous years. I would also like to thank our partners at the Academy who, over the past few years, have put together this wonderful program. We look forward to many future years of discovery and celebration,” said Peter Thoren, Representative of the Blavatnik Family Foundation and Executive Vice President of Access Industries.
The evening before the Gala, on November 9th, the Blavatnik Family Foundation hosted a cocktail reception in honor of this year’s regional winners and finalists and regional judges. The event was attended by the Blavatnik Awards alumni and supporters of the Awards.
To learn more about the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists, visit blavatnikawards.org.
2014 Blavatnik Regional Award honoreesClément Hongler, 2014 Blavatnik Regional Award WinnerNancy Zimpher, Chancellor, The State University of New York
This event gathered over 200 guests, including members of academia, business, and media. The guests, in black tie, were treated to an elegant evening at one of the most celebrated museums in the world, the American Museum of Natural History.
The evening formally began as the brass ensemble of the renowned Juilliard School played a processional of Fanfare for the Common Man and New York City high school students with a passion for science served as flag holders for the grand entrance of the Finalists and Laureates into the museum’s famed Milstein Hall of Ocean Life.
Ellis Rubinstein, President and Chief Executive Officer of The New York Academy of Sciences opened the evening with the introduction of the National Finalists and later spoke about the history of the Awards and the long-term partnership between the Academy and the Blavatnik Family Foundation. Mr. Rubinstein then proceeded with the formal introduction of the master of ceremonies, Dr. Eric Lander, Founding Director of the Broad Institute and member of the Blavatnik Awards Scientific Advisory Council.
The three National Laureates: Dr. Rachel Wilson, Dr. Marin Soljačić, and Dr. Adam Cohen were introduced during the evening by Dr. Cornelia Bargmann, Dr. Robbert Dijkgraaf, and Nobel Prize Laureate, Dr. Martin Chalfie, respectively. Each Laureate received a gold-plated custom medal from Len Blavatnik and followed with a presentation about their award-winning work.
“I am extremely happy with the success of the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists. We have created the support system and the selection process to recognize the best and brightest. My hope is that the awards and the Blavatnik National Laureates will make a huge impact on our society and the life of everyone in the 21st century,” said Len Blavatnik, Founder and Chairman of Access Industries and head of the Blavatnik Family Foundation.
The audience was also treated to two surprise announcements: the new Soljačić Prize for Gifted Croatian Children, established with a donation of prize money from Physical Sciences & Engineering Laureate Dr. Marin Soljačić; and a donation of prize money from Chemistry Laureate Adam Cohen to his alma mater Hunter College High School to support math and science activities.
The event was attended by Blavatnik Awards winners and finalists from previous years, members of the National Jury, and members of the Blavatnik Awards Scientific Advisory Council including Drs. Ron Breslow, Ruslan Medzhitov, and Marc Tessier-Lavigne. Other notable guests included Edgar Bronfman Jr.; Stephen Cooper, CEO of Warner Music Group; Dr. Joseph Goldstein, Nobel Prize Laureate; Ron Prosor, Israel’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations; Dr. Bruce Stillman, President and CEO of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory; Dr. Craig Thompson, President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; Dr. Jan Vilcek, Founder and President of the Vilcek Foundation, and Jeff Zucker, President of CNN.
To learn more about the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists, visit blavatnikawards.org.
Inside the American Museum of Natural History2014 National Finalist Harmit MalikOutside the American Museum of Natural HistoryLen Blavatnik and Ellis Rubinstein with 2014 National Laureates Adam Cohen, Rachel Wilson and Marin SoljačićMr. and Mrs. Blavatnik2014 National Finalists Ruben Gonzalez, Patrick Hopkins and Sinisa Urban
In the eight years since its launch, the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists has built an exceptional collection of past and current honorees, who together represent one of the most dynamic, innovative, cross-disciplinary networks in the world – the Blavatnik Science Scholars Community.
Published July 9, 2014
By Diana Friedman
In response to Blavatnik Awards honorees interested in meeting and interacting with each other, and to showcase the high caliber of research of the Community members, the Blavatnik Family Foundation and The New York Academy of Sciences hosted the first annual Blavatnik Science Symposium to encourage networking, exchanging of ideas, and potential collaborations.
The inaugural event began with a dinner on July 8th featuring keynote speaker Dr. Marcia McNutt and was followed by a full day of presentations on July 9th. The Symposium gathered nearly 50 members of the Blavatnik Regional Awards alumni and this year’s National Finalists. The event was attended by Len Blavatnik and other representatives of the Blavatnik Family Foundation, scientific luminaries, and representatives of the press.
Below are some of the comments from the Blavatnik Science Scholars who attended the event:
“It was inspirational to learn about the breakthroughs undergoing in leading labs around the US spanning physics, chemistry biology and medicine, going from malaria to black holes, from novel technologies in energy storage and microscopes in a cell phone, to the secret codes in the cell.” —Antonio Giraldez, 2007 Blavatnik Regional Award Finalist, Professor of Genetics at Yale University.
“As a young scientist, we are often too busy trying to ‘survive’ the academic life to be able to meet and discuss science with other young scientists from different fields. In fact, such cross-fertilization of disciplines is where major discoveries are made. The event has enabled me to discuss new collaborative projects with other attendees, which will generate new directions of research.” —Ali Khademhosseini, 2014 Blavatnik National Award Finalist, Associate Professor at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences & Technology, Harvard University.
“The event was an inspiring display of scientific talent exploring some of the most important questions in the natural sciences, and a very unique opportunity to interact with peers, colleagues at the Academy, and the Blavatnik team.” —Sarkis Mazmanian, 2014 Blavatnik National Award Finalist, Professor of Microbiology at the California Institute of Technology
“Arriving at this stage of my scientific career, travel days to attend scientific conferences are a precious commodity, which are mostly spent interacting with colleagues in my own field, or even sub-field. I would never get an opportunity to spend a whole day listening to amazing talks on topics as diverse as black holes, DNA bricks and origami, materials science that is pushing limits of technology, and new frontiers of biomedicine. Being at the science symposium and interacting with colleagues I would otherwise never interact with, was like being a young science geek all over again, which is why I got into this business in the first place. I feel recharged.” —Harmit Malik, 2014 Blavatnik National Award Finalist, Member, Basic Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
“This unique Symposium brought together an incredible constellation of top young scientists with expertise ranging from black holes to human genome. Before the meeting started, the only connection between the participants was the Blavatnik Awards. By the end of the Symposium one couldn’t help but feel to be a part of a scientific family. For me personally, it was a humbling experience to be surrounded by so much talent.” —Ruslan Medzhitov, 2007 Blavatnik Regional Award Winner, Professor of Immunobiology at Yale University
“The symposium was inspiring in terms of the depth and breadth of the presentations as well as the focus on young scientists. I was thrilled and humbled to be among such a distinguished crowd of researchers and scientists.” —Aydogan Ozcan, 2014 Blavatnik National Award Finalist, Chancellor’s Professor in the Electrical Engineering Department & Bioengineering Department at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“I attended the Symposium to meet the Blavatnik Awards finalists and to learn about the new developments in life sciences – a field which is outside of my general research area. The reason for my interest as a physicist and mathematician in life sciences is that having progress in certain problems in this field may require combining scientific knowledge from various disciplines such as quantum mechanics, chemistry, mathematics, and biology. The symposium was most valuable because, besides the fact that all presenters were selected among most talented researchers in the field, the requirement for all was to present their results in a way that is understandable for scientists working outside of their normal domain. This goal was fully achieved.” —Alexander Pechen, 2009 Blavatnik Regional Award Winner, Academic Secretary and Leading Researcher at Steklov Mathematical Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences.
“It was very stimulating to see so many creative and accomplished young scientists from so many different disciplines!” —Michael Rape, 2014 Blavatnik National Award Finalist, Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of California, Berkeley.
“The Blavatnik Symposium was one of the most intellectually stimulating gatherings I have attended in some time. It was amazing fertile ground for the cross pollination of ideas. I really enjoyed it.” —Michael Strano, 2014 Blavatnik National Award Finalist, Professor of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
To learn more about the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists, visit blavatnikawards.org.
John O’Shea turned his passion for clinical care into a successful research career focusing on understanding the molecular basis of cytokine action, with the aim of providing better treatment options for patients.
Published June 1, 2014
By Diana Friedman
John O’Shea, MD, Director, National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases Intramural Research Program, NIH, has pushed the frontiers of molecular medicine during his career through research that has led to new treatments for immune diseases. He was named the 2014 winner of The Ross Prize in Molecular Medicine, which honors researchers whose discoveries change the way medicine is practiced.
How did you get involved in studying immunology?
I was drawn to immunology after admitting a veteran to the hospital, who had vasculitis and, sadly, died of this illness. At the time, the NIH was the center for research on vasculitis, so that’s what ultimately led me to join the NIH for training beyond internal medicine.
I initially worked on complement receptors and then the T cell receptor in my postdoctoral training at the NIH. When I set up my own lab, the importance of tyrosine phosphorylation as a first step in signal transduction was becoming increasingly apparent. We therefore set out to find kinases expressed in lymphocytes and cloned one of the Janus kinases, right around the time it was becoming clear that this family of kinases was critical for cytokines.
Why are cytokines so exciting as a research focus?
Cytokine signaling is of particular interest to me because it is a very basic problem: how cells respond to external cues. What is exciting is that the pathway is an evolutionarily ancient one employed by Dictyostelium and everything from insects to mammals. Advances from all these diverse organisms and models are valuable in understanding the basic problem. Equally, though, these insights often are directly relevant to patients with immune-mediated disease.
What questions are you currently trying to answer?
We remain very interested in how cytokine signals cause cells to grow and differentiate. What that means to us now is how external cues impact epigenetic changes and how this relates to control of gene expression. Of course, “genes” means more than just classical protein coding genes, so we are also interested how microRNAs, lncRNAs, and eRNA are all regulated by cytokines.
We are also interested in how Jak inhibitors do or do not work in patients with autoimmune disease. Will second generation selective inhibitors be as effective and be safer or not? What is the best way to use these new drugs, and for which diseases?
How has the field of molecular immunology changed since you started—and how will it continue to change?
What is most different about doing science now versus a decade or two ago is that today many experiments are set up in a way that the denominator is often the entire genome or products of the entire genome. More and more this will be the case, and as such the analysis of the data becomes increasingly complex. We will be perturbing cells in many of the same ways, but the analysis will be vastly more complex and comprehensive. We will also use single cells and not heterogenous populations of cells, adding yet more complexity to the analysis.
But the basic question we are still trying to answer—how cell behavior is changed by external cues—is not so different from the one we began asking decades ago. What is astonishing is how these questions can now be answered.
How important is collaboration in the field of molecular medicine?
I have had very edifying interactions with industry scientists over the last 20 years with the outcome that patients with rheumatoid arthritis have a new treatment option. These people are experts in making treatments a reality and they are essential to moving the field forward.
Additionally, the NIH has been an extraordinary place to work. From my first experiences, the support from so many colleagues has been astonishing. One really feels like the only limitation to discovery is one’s creativity and ability. It is troubling at a time when so much could be done to really understand basic biological processes and mechanisms of human disease that funding is limited. This is a loss on many levels, but most of all a loss for patients with debilitating diseases.
The other big plus of place like the NIH is the ability to move from very basic problems directly to the bedside and back again. This was a common occurrence during my training—physicianscientists moved from one realm to the other.
Do you think that medical education currently has enough of an emphasis on research?
I worry that at a time like this, when there is so much opportunity, that we are not doing everything we can to foster the development of physician-scientists and translational basic researchers. At the same time, physicians-in-training have so much to learn these days—the amount of knowledge that students in medical school have access to now, and need to absorb, is just astronomical compared to what it was in my day; not to mention there is also the technology they have had to become proficient in using, and complex societal changes that have taken place. So working as a team, with people with different specialties and knowledge sets becomes increasingly important.
What does winning The Ross Prize mean to you?
Being that the prize is focused on molecular medicine, it is very gratifying—this is exactly how I think about myself in terms of my career focus. It’s very humbling, but also very exciting because that’s sort of what I was hoping to accomplish from the start —to make discoveries that are important scientifically, but also directly help people. For me, it doesn’t really get any better than that.
About The Ross Prize in Molecular Medicine
The Ross Prize in Molecular Medicine was established in conjunction with the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research and Molecular Medicine. The Ross Prize recognizes biomedical scientists whose discoveries have changed the way medicine is practiced. The prize is awarded to midcareer scientists who have made a significant impact in the understanding of human disease pathogenesis and/or treatment and who hold significant promise for making even greater contributions to the general field of molecular medicine.
On November 18th, The New York Academy of Sciences celebrated regional institutions and individuals who have made New York the newest, most vibrant international hub for groundbreaking science and technology, and honored the seven winners and five finalists of the 2013 Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists.
Published November 18, 2013
By Diana Friedman
The 2013 Blavatnik Awards honorees were selected for their exceptional research from a pool of over 160 nominations submitted by 43 research institutions in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Winners and finalists received unrestricted cash prizes and were awarded with medals.
During the Academy’s Science & the City Gala, where the Awards ceremony was held, Richard Roberts, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1993), Chief Scientific Officer of the New England Biolabs, and Blavatnik Awards judge announced the national expansion of the Blavatnik Awards. Dr. Roberts spoke about the importance of recognizing and supporting young scientists.
“I am a great believer in and advocate for young people. In the current funding situation at NIH they often have a difficult time getting a grant to pursue independent research until they are past their prime. This is a great tragedy and one we need to correct. I hope the Blavatnik Awards will help young scientists get funding since it is a mark of their excellence that they otherwise wouldn’t have,” says Dr. Roberts.
Check out these photos from the gala:
2013 Blavatnik Awards honoree Bi-Sen Ding receiving his awardLen Blavatnik, head of the Blavatnik Family Foundation, with the 2013 Blavatnik Awards honoreesMercedes Gorre, Executive Director of the Blavatnik Awards, congratulating 2013 honoree Xiankai SunRuslan Medzhitov, Professor of Immunobiology at Yale University; Ellis Rubinstein, President & CEO at the New York Academy of Sciences; and Len Blavatnik, head of the Blavatnik Family FoundationRuslan Medzhitov, winner of the 2007 Blavatnik Awards and member of the Scientific Advisory Council, congratulating 2013 honoree Mariangela Lisanti
On Sunday evening, November 17th, the Blavatnik Family Foundation hosted a cocktail reception in honor of the winners and finalists (past and present), and judges of the Blavatnik Awards at The Metropolitan Club.
Check out these photos from the reception:
(From left to right) 2013 Blavatnik Awards honorees Kristjan Haule and Frans Pretorius with judge Mark Trodden(From left to right) Blavatnik Awards judge Charles Schmuttenmaer, Dara Mao, and Blavatnik Awards honorees Andreas Keller (2008), Andrey Feklistov (2012), and Xiankai Sun (2013)(From left to right) Ron Blei, Ann Marie Perl, with 2013 Blavatnik Awards honorees Assaf Naor (2012) and David Blei (2013)Blavatnik Awards judges Dixie Goss and Pamela Stanley with Richard StanleyElza Erkip, 2010 Blavatnik Awards honoree and judge, with husband Mithat Gohen
To learn more about the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists, visit blavatnikawards.org.
