Johns Hopkins Medicine
Office of Corporate Communications
Media Contact: Vanessa Wasta
410-955-1287; wastava@jhmi.edu
June 8, 2004
Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation Clinical Investigator Award
A Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center clinician-scientist was one of only five physicians worldwide selected as a recipient of a 5-year, $1.2 million grant from the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation. The Foundation announced its Damon Runyon-Lilly Clinical Investigator Award on June 4, 2004, at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in New Orleans.
The award was established to encourage young, gifted physicians to dedicate their careers to clinical research and, in turn, accelerate cancer research breakthroughs.
Charles Drake, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of Oncology at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center in Baltimore was selected for his translational studies designed to advance immunotherapy for prostate cancer.
Drake’s award provides research funds for him and his mentor, Drew Pardoll, M.D., Ph.D. In addition, upon successful completion of the program, the Fund will retire up to $100,000 of his medical school debt.
“The clinical research model has yielded some of the most significant advances in cancer research by transforming laboratory findings into treatment advances,” says Martin D. Abeloff, M.D., director of the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and Eli Kennerly professor of oncology. “Providing much needed financial support for the best and brightest young clinical investigators, as this grant does, is certain to further this progress and attract more great minds to cancer research.”
Since its founding in 1946, the Cancer Research Fund has recognized outstanding young scientists by providing them with financial support for their research. To date, the Fund has raised more than $100 million to support scientists in top universities and research centers around the world. The Clinical Investigator Award is supported by Eli Lilly & Company, which has pledged $15 million.
Drake joined the Hopkins faculty in 2002. He received his medical degree from the University of Colorado health Sciences Center in 1997. He also holds a master’s degree in engineering from Rutgers University College of Engineering in New Jersey and his doctoral degree in immunology from the National Jewish Center for Immunology in Colorado.
Past award winners from Johns Hopkins are: Maura Gillison, M.D., Ph.D. for "Establishing a casual association between human papilloma virus (HPV) and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC);” Vered Stearns, M.D., for “Surrogate markers as endpoints: Novel clinical design for combining standard and novel therapies in breast cancer;" and Joseph A. Califano, M.D., for "Molecular screening in a population at risk for head and neck cancer."
Related Web sites:
Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center
www.hopkinskimmelcancercenter.org
Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation Clinical Investigator Award
http://www.cancerresearchfund.org/apClinical.html
