AACR Announces Recipients of AACR Trailblazer Cancer Research Grants

AACR’s largest-ever grant program will award 15 early-stage and mid-career investigators with $1 million each over 3 years

SAN DIEGO – The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) today announced the recipients of the AACR Trailblazer Cancer Research Grants during the Opening Ceremony of the AACR Annual Meeting 2026. Nine early-stage investigators and six mid-career investigators have been awarded grants of $1 million each to support meritorious and promising cancer research. The grants will be distributed over three years.

“Addressing the challenges of tomorrow in cancer incidence and mortality requires building and supporting a scientific workforce that rises to the occasion,” said Margaret Foti, PhD, MD (hc), Chief Executive Officer, AACR. “We are grateful to Pfizer for its extremely impactful gift and thrilled that it will provide funding for 15 innovative scientists through the AACR Trailblazer Cancer Research Grants program. AACR is proud to equip these investigators, many of whom are just starting their careers, with the resources they need to execute novel, highly creative projects that will revolutionize our understanding of cancer biology, drive groundbreaking translational science, and improve patient outcomes.”

In December 2023, Pfizer announced that it had chosen to donate the rights of its royalties from the sale of Bavencio® (avelumab) in the United States to AACR because of the science AACR brings to therapeutic development and patient care. AACR’s mission is to prevent and cure all cancers through research, education, communication, collaboration, science policy, and funding for cancer research. Grant application review and selection were conducted by AACR, with funding for the AACR Trailblazer Cancer Research Grants made possible through Pfizer’s donation.

“At Pfizer, we believe that meaningful progress against cancer begins with investing in scientists and physicians whose ideas have the potential to transform patient care,” said Jeff Legos, Chief Oncology Officer, Pfizer. “Through partnership, we can turn discovery into impact, and we’re proud to work with AACR to help accelerate bold, innovative research.”

This historic $15 million investment is intended to provide investigators with the resources and time to establish innovative, emerging research projects. By funding paradigm-shifting research, these grants will aim to advance the understanding of cancer biology, drive groundbreaking translational science, and improve patient outcomes.

The 15 grant recipients and their projects are:

Early-Stage Investigators

• Ana Luísa Correia, PhD, Champalimaud Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal
  Neuro-immune regulation of metastatic breast cancer dormancy

• Karen Dixon, PhD, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
  Identifying and disrupting neuro-immune circuits in lung cancer

• Justin Milner, PhD, The University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
  Engineering synthetic T-cell states to treat solid cancers

• Nathan Parker, MPH, PhD, Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, Florida
  Exercise prehabilitation to improve chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy outcomes

• Theodore Roth, MD, PhD, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California
  Universal discovery of patient-specific cellular immunotherapies

• Jonathan Tsai, MD, PhD, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
  Therapeutic alteration of androgen receptor chromatin dynamics

• Jessalyn Ubellacker, PhD, MD, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts
  Inducing lipid peroxidation in lymph node cancer cells to promote systemic immunogenicity

• Natalie Vokes, MD, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas
  Dissecting mechanisms of therapeutic resistance and vulnerabilities in CDKN2A/MTAP-deleted non-small cell lung cancer

• Samir Zaidi, MD, PhD, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut
  Mechanisms of cellular plasticity in neuroendocrine prostate cancer initiation

Mid-Career Investigators

• Effie Apostolou, PhD, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, New York
  Targeting three-dimensional regulatory nodes to rewire cancer programs

• Adrienne Boire, MD, PhD, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York
  Cancer communication across blood-brain barriers

• Carla Chibwesha, MD, MSc, The University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
  Improving cervical precancer treatment outcomes in women with HIV

• Yifat Merbl, PhD, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
  Induced SUMOylation as a novel approach for cancer treatment

• Aaron Newman, PhD, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California
  Real-time profiling of tumor microenvironment dynamics to decode immunotherapy response in melanoma

• Tuomas Tammela, MD, PhD, Sloan Kettering Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York
  Interrogating epithelial injury-associated tissue programs in cancer plasticity