The AACR Trailblazer Cancer Research Grants for Mid-career Investigators support cancer researchers at this critical juncture in their careers and enable them to make impactful advances against cancer. Projects may be exploratory, developmental, or proof of concept. By funding innovative and paradigm-shifting research, these grants aim to advance the understanding of cancer biology, drive groundbreaking translational discoveries, and/or improve patient outcomes.

2026 Grantees

Scientific Statement of Research

While enhancer dysregulation is a hallmark of tumorigenesis and therapy resistance, the complexity and redundancy of enhancer–promoter networks hinder the identification of key regulatory elements. Building on their discovery of hyperconnected 3D hubs —regulatory elements that interact with and coordinate the expression of multiple cancer-associated genes— Dr. Apostolou will investigate the functional role of these hubs in breast cancer and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. By integrating 3D genomics, computational modeling, and Perturb-seq CRISPRi screening, she will identify regulatory hubs that exert disproportionate control over tumorigenic programs and distinguish shared versus cancer-specific networks. In parallel, she and her team will characterize transcription factors and chromatin regulators that nucleate and maintain these hubs as potential therapeutic targets. Together, this work aims to establish a new framework for understanding and targeting the regulatory architecture of cancer.

Biography 

Dr. Apostolou completed her doctoral studies in Greece, where she studied stochastic gene expression, and her postdoctoral training at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard, where she dissected epigenetic mechanisms of cellular reprogramming. She is currently Associate Professor of Molecular Biology at Weill Cornell Medicine. Since 2014, her group has focused on how transcription factors and 3D chromatin architecture regulate cell identity, making key contributions to understanding mitotic bookmarking, mechanisms of epigenetic and imprinting maintenance, and the organization and function of 3D enhancer hubs. She is a member of the 4D Nucleome Consortium.

Acknowledgement of Support 

“The AACR Trailblazer Award will catalyze our efforts to define and target central regulatory nodes in cancer, enabling high-risk, high-impact studies at the interface of 3D genomics and functional perturbation. It will strengthen my leadership in this emerging field and accelerate new strategies targeting cancer regulatory architecture.”

Scientific Statement of Research 

Central nervous system (CNS) metastases are an increasingly common complication of cancer that result in disproportionate neurologic disability and death. Cancer outside the CNS can alter CNS fibroblast gene transcription and function. Dr. Boire hypothesizes that CNS fibroblasts receive soluble signals from primary tumors and that these reactive CNS fibroblasts direct cancer cells to the CNS and orchestrate their growth at the metastatic site. Using immune-competent mouse models of CNS metastasis from breast, lung and melanoma primaries, as well as human spinal fluid, plasma and tumor tissues, she will carry out genetic and biochemical experiments to examine CNS fibroblast responses to malignancy both within the CNS and outside the CNS. Pathways conserved across mouse models and human tissues will be interrogated in relevant mouse models. Together, these experiments will capture cancer cell-fibroblast communication across blood-brain-barriers, paving the way for rational strategies to prevent CNS metastasis.

Biography

Dr. Boire completed her graduate studies at Tufts University, medical degree at the University of Chicago, and a Neurology residency at Columbia Presbyterian. She then completed a neuro-oncology fellowship and postdoctoral training at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where she is now a Geoffrey Beene Junior Faculty Chair. As a neuro-oncologist, she cares for patients with metastasis to the CNS. As a scientist, she leads a laboratory-based research program focused on the leptomeningeal space and the metastases that inhabit the interface between the CNS and the systemic circulation.

Acknowledgement of Support

“Receiving the 2026 AACR Trailblazer Cancer Research Grant for Mid-Career Investigators enables my team to pursue high-risk, high reward research that is not supported by more traditional sources of funding. We are delighted to follow this exciting line of investigation with the ultimate goal of preventing CNS metastases.”

Scientific Statement of Research 

Women with HIV (WWH) face high rates of persistent/recurrent cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN2/3) following standard surgical treatment, increasing their risk of progression to cervical cancer. This study extends follow-up of participants from the ACT 2 Phase 2b randomized controlled trial (NCT05413811), which evaluated loop electrosurgical excision procedure (LEEP) combined with adjuvant intravaginal 5-fluorouracil (5FU) in 180 South African WWH. At 24 weeks, the intervention achieved 96% disease regression versus 82% in the placebo arm, with retention exceeding 95% and adherence exceeding 90%. In the proposed extension, participants will be re-enrolled at 36 months to evaluate long-term efficacy of LEEP combined with adjuvant 5FU. Cervicovaginal lavage samples will be analyzed for HIV-1 RNA shedding and cytokine expression, and vaginal microbiome profiling will identify signatures associated with differential treatment response. These findings will inform a future Phase 3 trial of this combination approach.

Biography

Dr. Chibwesha earned her undergraduate degree from Brown University, her master’s degree in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and her medical degree from Brown University. An obstetrician-gynecologist, she is a tenured Associate Professor in the Division of Global Women’s Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with a joint appointment at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. She serves as Director of the UNC-Wits-Right to Care Partnership for Women’s Cancer Prevention in South Africa. Her research focuses on cervical cancer screening and precancer treatment in high-burden, low-resource settings, with particular expertise in the intersection of HPV and HIV.

Acknowledgement of Support

“This AACR Trailblazer Award will accelerate my efforts to establish combination treatment for cervical precancer as a standard of care for women with HIV. My project will provide critical safety and efficacy data to inform Phase 3 trial design and amplify the global impact of this work.”

Scientific Statement of Research

SUMOylation regulates transcription, DNA repair, and cellular stress responses, and its dysregulation contributes to tumor progression. Dr. Merbl seeks to introduce a novel therapeutic strategy based on targeted SUMOylation to modulate oncogenic protein function in cancer. Based on preliminary results, she will develop an induced SUMOylation modality to recruit the SUMO machinery to specific proteins, enabling precise control of protein activity. Using integrated biochemical, chemical biology, genomic, and proteomic approaches, she will define how induced SUMOylation reshapes transcriptional programs and tumor-associated signaling pathways. Together, this work aims to lay the foundation for next-generation cancer therapies that address the major unmet need of targeting transcription factors with improved efficacy and reduced toxicity.

Biography

Dr. Merbl earned her doctoral degree in Systems Biology from Harvard Medical School. Her multidisciplinary research, integrating biochemistry, proteomics and computational biology, uncovers the cellular “epi-proteome” — the regulatory layer controlling protein function through post-translational modifications and protein degradation, with a focus on cancer and immune regulation. Her work in this space has uncovered novel mechanisms central to proteolysis-driven immunity and the shaping of tumor-immune interactions.

Acknowledgement of Support 

“Receiving the AACR Trailblazer Grant will enable me to advance my vision of targeting cancer vulnerabilities by modulating pathogenic protein activity and bridging my basic discoveries to therapeutic development. By pioneering induced SUMOylation as a precise approach to reprogram oncogenic transcriptional programs across cancers, I aim to strengthen the translational impact of my work.”

Scientific Statement of Research

Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have revolutionized cancer therapy for patients with advanced melanoma, yet approximately 50% of patients experience resistance. Currently, there is no reliable way to determine which patients will respond to ICIs —and why. Dynamic changes in the tumor microenvironment (TME) underpin response to immunotherapy but remain challenging to measure and profile clinically. To address this gap, Dr. Newman will evaluate a new AI-enabled noninvasive blood test for real-time profiling of TME cellular ecosystems. He and his team will determine whether noninvasive serial TME profiling can improve early assessment of ICI response, resolve diagnostic dilemmas such as pseudoprogression, and identify which patients with advanced melanoma will ultimately benefit from, or resist, ICI treatment.

Biography 

Dr. Newman earned his doctoral degree in the Biomolecular Science and Engineering program from the University of California, Santa Barbara and completed postdoctoral training in cancer genomics at Stanford University. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Data Science at Stanford University, where he is a member of the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine and the Stanford Cancer Institute.

Acknowledgement of Support

“I am honored to receive the 2026 AACR Trailblazer Cancer Research Grant for Mid-Career Investigators. This support will allow us to establish a new assay for real-time monitoring of the tumor microenvironment, with the potential to enable more precise and actionable decision making in patients with melanoma and other malignancies.”

Scientific Statement of Research

Cancer cell plasticity—the ability to switch phenotypes—drives tumor progression and treatment resistance, yet remains clinically untargetable because its mechanisms are poorly understood. Dr. Tammela previously identified a minority high-plasticity cell state (HPCS) in solid tumors and demonstrated that it is essential for lung adenocarcinoma progression, maintenance, and drug resistance. An HPCS-like state also appears across multiple human carcinomas, suggesting a shared plasticity program in lethal cancers. In this project, Dr. Tammela will define upstream regulators of cancer cell plasticity. His preliminary data link highly plastic carcinoma cells to epithelial wound-repair pathways, including unexpectedly systemic factors such as coagulation components that are activated within the tumor niche. This work aims to reveal broadly applicable strategies to suppress plasticity, tumor progression, and therapy resistance.

Biography 

Dr. Tammela is an Associate Member in the Cancer Biology & Genetics Program at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. The Tammela Lab studies phenotypic heterogeneity and plasticity of cancer cells in vivo using genetically engineered mouse models, single-cell approaches, lineage tracing and ablation of distinct tumor cell lineages, CRISPR-mediated gene regulation, and advanced imaging techniques. In addition, emerging efforts in the Tammela laboratory focus on how aging and other changes in organismal physiology impact cancer evolution and tissue regenerative capacity.

Acknowledgement of Support

“The AACR Trailblazer Award will enable our team to pursue the biology and therapeutic targeting of a cancer cell state that drives cancer progression and drug resistance. Supported by this award, our group will be able to launch a new research direction focused on system-wide drivers of cancer progression.”