|
30th Annual Recipient
Joshua T. Mendell, M.D., Ph.D.
Early-Career Scientist
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Associate Professor
The McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine
Pediatrics and Molecular Biology & Genetics
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Baltimore, MD
|
Dr. Joshua T. Mendell (center) delivered his Award Lecture entitled "MicroRNA reprogramming in cancer: mechanisms and therapeutic opportunities," at the AACR 101st Annual Meeting 2010 in Washington, D.C. He received his Award from AACR President, Dr. Tyler Jacks (right) and Dr. Scott W. Lowe, Selection Committee Chairperson. Watch the webcast of the Award lecture.
Learn more about the 2010 recipient of this Award.
View the list of all prior Award winners.
The Award and Lecture
Through the generous contribution of an anonymous donor, AACR established this Award in 1979 to give recognition to a young investigator on the basis of meritorious achievement in cancer research. In accordance with the wishes of the donor, the recipient must be no more than 40 years of age by the time the award is received.
The winner of the 31st Annual AACR Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cancer Research will receive an honorarium of $5,000, present a 50-minute lecture, and be given full support for the winner and a guest to attend the AACR Annual Meeting 2011, in Orlando, FL USA (April 2-6, 2011.)
Eligibility
- Candidacy is open to all cancer researchers who are affiliated with any institution involved in cancer research, cancer medicine, or cancer-related biomedical science anywhere in the world. Such institutions include those in academia, industry, or government.
- The Award will be presented to an individual investigator.
- Institutions or organizations are not eligible for the Award.
- Candidates must not be more than 40 years of age by the time the Award is received. For the 2011 Award, a candidate's date of birth must be on or after April 2, 1970.
Nomination Process
Nominations for the 2011 Award opens September 2010.
Nominations may be made by any scientist, whether an AACR member or nonmember, who is now or has been affiliated with any institution involved in cancer research, cancer medicine, or cancer-related biomedical science. Candidates may not nominate themselves.
Nominations must be submitted electronically to https://proposalcentral.altum.com, no later than 4:00 p.m. United States Eastern Standard Time on Friday, October 15, 2010. Paper nominations will not be accepted.
The following materials must be submitted:
Nomination Letter, which must:
- be addressed to the Selection Committee; be written in English; and not exceed 1,000 words;
- specify the AACR Award for which the candidate is being nominated;
- a concise description of the candidate's meritorious achievement in cancer research, with the publications supporting these accomplishments directly referenced within the letter; and
- a concise description of the impact of these accomplishments on the field.
Candidate's CV. The candidate's curriculum vitae in English, including a complete list of the candidate's publications.
Summary Statement. A statement, no more than 50 words, summarizing the candidate's research accomplishments for which he or she is being nominated.
Preferred file formats are *.doc. The candidate's CV may be submitted as a .pdf file. Your nomination is not considered fully submitted until you receive a confirmation e-mail from the AACR; confirmations will be sent within two business days.
Nominators are asked to maintain the confidentiality of the nomination process and to refrain from informing the candidate about the nomination.
There is no restriction on the number of candidates that may be nominated by any individual scientist. There is no restriction on the number of nominators that may write nomination letters or that may sign a single nomination letter on behalf of a candidate.
Nomination Instructions
Will be available in August 2010.
Selection
Candidates for the Award will be considered by a prestigious international Selection Committee of renowned cancer leaders appointed by the President of the AACR. The Committee will consider all nominations as they have been submitted; the Committee may not combine submitted nominations, add a new candidate to a submitted nomination, or otherwise make alterations to the submitted nominations. After careful deliberations by the Committee, its recommendations will be forwarded to the Executive Committee of the AACR for final consideration and determination.
Selection of the Award winner will be made on the basis of the candidate's meritorious achievements in cancer research. No regard will be given to race, gender, nationality, or religious or political view.
Questions?
Monique P. Eversley, Program Coordinator
+1 (267) 646-0576; monique.eversley@aacr.org
American Association for Cancer Research
17th Floor, 615 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106-4404
SPOTLIGHT
Joshua T. Mendell, M.D., Ph.D.
Early-Career Scientist
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Associate Professor
The McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine
Departments of Pediatrics and Molecular Biology & Genetics
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Baltimore, MD
Dr. Mendell is recognized for his outstanding work in the identification and characterization of the role of microRNAs in cancer. Since his initial observations merging microRNA and cancer biology, he has remained at the forefront of this captivating field.
His first seminal discovery in the field showed that microRNAs play an unexpected role in the signaling pathways that influence the behavior of cancer cells. This discovery revealed an important relationship between microRNAs—short pieces of single-stranded RNA that do not encode a protein but control the expression of genes—and a protein called Myc.
Dr. Mendell showed that high levels of the Myc protein, a common attribute of cancer cells, result in activation of a specific group of microRNAs. These microRNAs, in turn, can drive cellular proliferation and prevent cell death, thereby contributing to tumor formation. He has since shown that excessive amounts of the Myc protein also lead to repression of a large set of microRNAs whose activity normally slows tumorigenesis.
After starting his independent research group at Johns Hopkins in 2004, Dr. Mendell began to study microRNA (miRNA) regulation and function in normal physiology and disease. His laboratory provided one of the first demonstrations that miRNAs are functional components of critical oncogenic and tumor suppressor pathways and his group has identified specific miRNAs with potent pro- and anti-tumorigenic activities.
The Mendell laboratory was also one of the first to show that due to their ability to strongly inhibit tumorigenesis, select miRNAs represent potent and non-toxic anti-cancer therapeutic agents when delivered systemically. The Mendell laboratory has also characterized novel mechanisms of miRNA regulation, including the unique demonstration that miRNA stability and intracellular trafficking can be regulated in a sequence-specified manner.
In addition to his work on microRNAs, Dr. Mendell has studied nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD), a ubiquitous pathway in eukaryotic cells through which messenger RNAs containing premature translation termination codons are targeted for degradation. He made important contributions to this field including the identification and functional characterization of core mammalian components of the NMD pathway and the demonstration that mammalian NMD functions not only as a quality control checkpoint during gene expression, but more broadly as a physiologic regulator of thousands of natural transcripts.
Dr. Mendell completed his undergraduate education in biology at Cornell University in 1996 where he graduated with honors and was awarded membership to Phi Beta Kappa. He then joined the Medical Scientist Training Program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and was awarded an M.D./Ph.D. degree in 2003. Dr. Mendell further completed a year of postdoctoral research with Hal Dietz at Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. Mendell has received several prestigious awards including being named the Outstanding Young Scientist in the State of Maryland by the Maryland Academy of Sciences in 2007. In 2009, Dr. Mendell was appointed to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute as an Early-Career Scientist.