The International Biomedical Research Alliance Distinguished Alumni Award recognizes achievements of an exceptional nature in scientific and medical inquiry, professional practice, and enhancing the lives of others both personally and professionally. This Award is not given in recognition of a single remarkable achievement but is reserved for an NIH-OxCam alumnus who has attained and maintained extraordinary impact throughout their career in their chosen fields of endeavor and in their service to society at large. The ceremony to honor the 2022 winner was held during the NIH Global Doctoral Partnerships Research Workshop Gala Dinner in Keble College, at the University of Oxford on the evening of July 28, 2022.
It was a distinct honor to have the 2021 Distinguished Alumni Award recipient, Dr. Paul Tesar, nominate the 2022 award recipient. Dr. Tesar made the following sentiments. “It is with my highest level of respect and admiration that I submit this nomination for Dr. Justin Lathia to be considered for the Distinguished Alumni Award. In short, Dr. Lathia is a dynamo and a star among stars. Since completing his Ph.D., he has published over 210 research papers which, combined, have been cited over 20,000 times. Dr. Lathia has already garnered an impressive $20 million in research funding to support his innovative studies including a recent highly prestigious R35 grant from NINDS/NIH. Since starting as a new faculty member in 2012, Dr. Lathia has quickly risen through the ranks at Cleveland Clinic where he now has many leadership positions including Department Vice Chair, Scientific Director of the Brain Tumor Center, co-leader of the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center Molecular Oncology Program, and Director of Faculty Development. Dr. Lathia has also been honored with a prestigious Endowed Chair, the Melvin H. Burkhardt Endowed Chair for Neuro-Oncology.
Impact is generated through groundbreaking discoveries, inspirational mentoring, or leadership of large initiatives. Few excel in even one of these areas but almost none excel in all. Dr. Lathia is among this rarified group. He is an internationally accomplished scientist whose discoveries have already translated to the clinical care of patients. He has built and led large programs to advance understanding of brain cancer. Most importantly, he is an exceptional mentor leading the next generation of scientists. Dr. Lathia and his team are reshaping the brain tumor field. In particular, Dr. Lathia has made major advances to understand and treat the most lethal brain cancer, glioblastoma. The lab has identified a specialized cell type found in glioblastoma tumors that helps them evade the immune system to enhance progression. Remarkably, Dr. Lathia showed that these cells exhibit sex-specific variation and underlie critical differences in how male and female glioblastoma patients respond to treatments. This work has garnered him international recognition and led directly to two current clinical trials.”
“We are truly honored to receive this recognition. This reflects our laboratory’s progress in understanding the complexities of malignant brain tumors and the creativity and drive of our laboratory members. I am grateful to the International Biomedical Research Alliance for all their support, starting from when I was a PhD student and their commitment to supporting an exceptional training program for the next generation of scientists,” remarked Dr. Lathia.
Dr. Lathia was appointed to the Board of Directors of the International Biomedical Research Alliance as an Alumni Director in June.
The recipient of the Roy and Diana VagelosLeadership Award is a role model for their peers and possesses the ability to inspire others to be better and do better by encouraging creativity, cooperation, promoting respect for others, emphasizing collaboration, demonstrating initiative, and adapting to new and changing needs and circumstances. This outstanding leader has a keen sense of organization and embodies leadership in all that they endeavor, combining clarity in thought with humility of character. Scholars in the NIH Oxford-Cambridge/Wellcome Trust Scholars Program who demonstrate exceptional leadership are nominated by their peers making this award a particularly special honor to receive. The ceremony to announce the winner was held during the NIH Global Doctoral Partnerships Research Workshop, titled Global Team Science: Bridging Borders from Bench to Bedside at Keble College, the University of Oxford July 26-28, 2022.
This year, the inaugural Roy and Diana Vagelos Leadership Award was bestowed upon Katherine Masih. Katherine Masih is an NIH-Cambridge MD/PhD Scholar in the Class of 2019. Her mentors are Dr. Javed Khan at the National Cancer Institute and Prof. Richard Gilbertson at the University of Cambridge. She is a medical student at the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine. Katherine was nominated for this award by three of her peers. One nominator wrote “Katherine has done a wonderful job as a student leader. She demonstrates the utmost professionalism in how she handles situations and in how she communicates, and she is also very kind and welcoming to all students. She creates a strong sense of community in the program.” Katherine served as the Chair of the Student Leadership Board from 2021-2022, Vice Chair from 2020-2021, and Logistics Director for the Workshop Committee from 2019-2020. She has worked with her peers and the Scholars Program administration and faculty to advance several important initiatives including MD/PhD communication with medical schools, creating an alumni professional mentorship program, serving as an editor of the student handbook, and the reorganization of the Student Leadership Board. Katherine’s research accomplishments are in parallel with her exceptional leadership qualities. In 2021, Katherine was recognized with the Translational Science Award endowed by Dr. Richard and Vera Siegel. This award recognizes advances in the field of medical science that move fundamental discoveries from bench to bedside. Katherine’s work uncovered a novel epigenetic signature that has the potential to be used as a clinical pre-treatment biomarker to predict response to CD19-targeting CAR T-cells in children with leukemia.
The International Biomedical Research Alliance was pleased to share the announcement of the renaming of this award to honor Alliance Emeritus Director Roy Vagelos and his wife, Diana, for their combined accomplishments as visionary leaders in education, science, and industry. Dr. Vagelos’ contributions to biomedical research have transpired over the course of a wide-ranging career where he excelled as an NIH researcher, Chair of Washington University’s Biological Chemistry Department, and Chair and CEO of Merck & Co., – a company recognized as America’s most admired under his leadership. He is currently the Chair of the Board of Directors of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and an Emeritus Director of the International Biomedical Research Alliance.
Diana, a force for good in her own right, is an accomplished philanthropist and community leader. She has worked as a catalyst for improvement in the areas of scholarships, financial aid, the arts, and facilities improvement in higher education. She serves as Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of Barnard College. While they are unable to be on hand at the Gala Dinner for the announcement of the award renamed in their honor, they were humbled to have this award re-named in their honor. Dr. Vagelos commented: “I have tried to help capable people who demonstrate special talents throughout my career. Diana has done similar things since the time she was in high school. We are honored and delighted to be associated with this award.”
Katherine said, “I was incredibly surprised and honored to have been selected for the inaugural Roy and Diana Vagelos Leadership Award. The OxCam Program has gone through significant change and growth during my tenure, and I am grateful to the faculty for being so receptive to and implementing new programs and changes presented by scholars. The progress we’ve accomplished would not be possible without the other brilliant, dedicated, and enthusiastic student leaders I’ve had the pleasure of working with and learning from over the past three years. Thank you to Dr. and Mrs. Vagelos, the OxCam Program, the Alliance, my mentors, Javed and Richard, and fellow scholars for the unwavering support and this honor.”
Katherine is currently writing up her thesis work aimed at understanding interactions between tumors and immune cells in childhood malignancies. After graduating from Cambridge in Spring 2023, she will return to Miami for her final year of medical school and will apply to residencies in pediatrics. She aspires to be a physician-scientist specializing in pediatric oncology, using multi-omic approaches to gain insight into the mechanisms driving these tumors in the laboratory and to translate these discoveries into novel therapeutic strategies for children with cancer.
First awarded in 2016, the International Biomedical Research Alliance’s Innovation Award recognizes novel solutions in biology or medicine and acknowledges discoveries of unusual importance, application, or magnitude that make use of new or unusual methods, paradigms, or approaches to solve important problems in biology or medicine. Once again, this year, the Innovation Award was generously sponsored by BioHealth Innovation Inc. This award was presented to Sooraj Achar, an NIH-Oxford D.Phil. Scholar in the Class of 2020 who is mentored by Dr. Gregoire Altan-Bonnet at the National Cancer Institute (NCI/NIH) and Prof. Mike Dustin at the University of Oxford.
Sooraj combined robotic sampling of mouse and human T cell responses over time with machine learning and modeling to gain insights into how T cells process information derived from the particular antigens to which they are exposed. The analysis showed that patterns of cytokine release carried information about the type of antigen encountered and distinguished six distinct cellular responses rather than the three types usually recognized. The universality of the model should prove useful for quantifying and fine-tuning the strength of antigens for immunotherapies and vaccine development. Thus, robotic platforms combined with machine learning and mathematical modeling provide quantitative tools with which to study high-dimensional biological dynamics and may help to optimize therapeutic strategies. Such understanding is likely to enhance strategies for immunotherapies that rely on altered and designed T cell responses.
This work was published in Science on May 19th, 2022, with Sooraj as the first author. “This study showed how we can use robotics and high dimensional data analysis to reverse engineer how T cells respond to a single type of antigen. I am now examining how a type of T cell used in immunotherapy, named a CAR-T cell, responds when interacting with multiple types of antigen simultaneously, first at a functional level at the NIH, then from a mechanistic level at Oxford. We hope to be able to use the insights we gain from these projects to design more targeted forms of CAR-T based immunotherapy,” remarked Sooraj.
About BioHealth Innovation, Inc.
BioHealth Innovation, Inc., is a regional innovation intermediary which supports the transformation of research projects into new business opportunities in partnership with the region’s rich assets, institutions, and entrepreneurial community. BHI achieves this goal by being a catalytic partner in the economic development ecosystem. Learn more at www.biohealthinnovation.org.
The International Biomedical Research Alliance congratulates the Class of 2020 NIH-Cambridge Ph.D. Scholar Jacob Gordon on being named the 2022 recipient of the Gregory Paul Lenardo Basic Science Award for Discoveries in Cellular and Molecular Biology, endowed by NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program Co-Founder, Dr. Michael Lenardo, in loving memory of his brother, Gregory Paul Lenardo. This award recognizes discoveries of fundamental cellular, molecular, or genetic processes using model systems that advance scientific understanding of biological processes in higher organisms. This award was presented by Dr. Iain Fraser, Deputy Scientific Director of the Scholars Program, at the AnnualNIH Global Doctoral Partnerships Research Workshop at the University of Oxford. Jacob is mentored by Dr. Robin Stanley of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS/NIH) and Prof. Alan Warren at the University of Cambridge.
Jacob is honored with this award due to his fundamental structural and functional studies on the Rixosome Complex. The Rixosome Complex is a large multi-protein RNA processing assembly that is essential for ribosome synthesis and heterochromatin maintenance. By reconstituting the Rixosome from several model organisms including fungi and humans, Jacob has reshaped our understanding of the assembly and function of this molecular machine. Recently, he solved the first cryo-EM structure of part of the human Rixosome revealing how two members of this protein assembly form a central scaffold to support the Rixosome’s diverse cellular roles. Moreover, Jacob has discovered how the Rixosome is directly recruited to pre-mature ribosome particles and histones through cell-based assays. This work is currently under final consideration for publication in a high-impact journal. His nominator noted that Jacob’s work has broad applications for understanding how RNA processing by the Rixosome mediates both degradation of RNA associated with heterochromatin and essential processing of the pre-ribosomal RNA.
“I would like to express my gratitude to the Alliance, the OxCam program, and my co-mentors Robin and Alan, for their immense support and for providing me the opportunity to receive this award. My Ph.D. research on the Rixosome has been extremely exciting to work on and has left us with more questions than answers (which is certainly a good thing). This protein machine has only recently been discovered and its significance in cellular function and human disease is starting to be of greater interest in the scientific community. That is part of what makes this project exciting to work on as a Ph.D. student. It is truly uncharted territory where our biochemical and structural studies are establishing key features of the Rixosome that will hopefully inform many future studies”. In the Fall of 2022, Jacob will be moving his research location from NIEHS in Durham, NC to the University of Cambridge in the UK. He will be continuing work on the human Rixosome with an emphasis on learning more about how the Rixosome interacts with its biological RNA substrates. Jacob is on track to complete his Ph.D. at Cambridge in 2024.
The Workshop prioritizes rigorous empirical research on the frontiers of biomedical science and medicine. The aim is for Scholars to have an opportunity to share their work through elevator pitches, poster sessions, and oral presentations which concurrently stress the importance of public speaking, networking, and preparing data for a diverse audience. Alongside Scholars’ research talks, keynote speakers and panelists were invited to prepare presentations keeping on the theme of “Global Team Science: Bridging Borders from Bench to Bedside.”
On Day 2 of the NIH Global Doctoral Partnerships Workshop, the morning discussion touched upon neuroscience, cancer research, and cell and molecular biology through oral presentations prepared by the Class of 2019. Following these talks, Dr. Jess Wade, an Imperial College Research Fellow investigating spin selective charge transport through chiral systems in the Department of Materials, was invited to give the Science Communication Address. Science Communication is necessary to make scientific research accessible to non-specialist audiences and to build an ecosystem of response to global, societal needs. This is exactly what Dr. Wade does. She tapped into the needs of society – the lack of visibility of women and underrepresented minorities (URM) in STEM – and challenged herself to write one Wikipedia article a day to combat this problem. Wikipedia receives 32 million page views daily and less than 20% of the English-language biographies on Wikipedia are about women, with even fewer about women in STEM. By contributing female and URM profiles, Dr. Wade was determined to fight the negatively impacted narrative of women and URM that diminishes the ability of people like them to see themselves as scientists, engineers, technologists, and mathematicians. This work encourages females, children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, and people of color to see past social stereotypes and provide role models in STEM. Dr. Wade is committed to improving diversity in science, both online and offline, and has tremendous momentum to ensure representation and equity in retaining, promoting, and honoring women and URM in STEM. During her “Science and Storytelling” presentation, Dr. Wade discussed the platforms available to share science and encouraged the audience to investigate classroom visits, hands-on workshops, offline/online talks, social media, online content, books, TV, podcasts, and radio to bring research beyond the bench. This session showcased how these varied platforms incorporate public engagement in knowledge exchange, teaching, and social responsibility of doctoral students and researchers.
Prior to the Alumni Panel, Dr. Paul Tesar, a Professor and Director of the Pluripotent Stem Cell Facility at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, was invited as the International Biomedical Research Alliance’s 2021 Distinguished Alumni Award recipient to give the introductory address. Scholars were eager to hear insights as doctoral students to succeed both in the NIH OxCam Program and in life afterward. Dr. Tesar’s talk “19 years after starting the NIH OxCam Program” highlighted how his time in the NIH OxCam Program led to the science that his lab is doing today. He shared his experiences founding a biotech company and provided wisdom and advice for the Scholars as they embark on the journey of becoming the next generation of leaders in biomedical science. The Alumni Panel invited Dr. Sabrina Heman-Ackah, Neurosurgery Resident at Penn Medicine, Dr. Megan Dennis, Assistant Professor at UC Davis, Dr. Andrew Ishizuka, SVP for Translational Research at Vaccitech, Dr. Matt Maciejewski, VP of Data Science at Korro Bio, Inc., and Dr. Jason Mellad, CEO/Co-founder of Start Codon to lead a question-and-answer session with the audience. The Workshop Planning Committee prepared questions based on Scholar feedback, while also encouraging Workshop attendees to ask questions about career paths, life choices, and experiences in medicine, research, biotech, and entrepreneurship.
Workshop Planning Committee co-chair Alex Waldman moderated the final discussion, the Reflections Panel with the NIH OxCam Class of 2018 panelists, John Shannon, Emily Kolyvas, Madeline Epping, and Taylor Farley. Panelists were asked to share their experiences, impart wisdom, and provide mentorship to the new Scholars. With a reputation of being a very honest and open look in the rearview mirror, both the Alumni and Reflections panels draw some of the most interesting questions from current Scholars and this year was no exception.
Following the Panel Discussions, the Champagne Reception in the Liddon Quad encouraged Scholars to assemble for their Class photos, and for the traditional photograph of all Workshop attendees on the grand and sprawling Keble lawn. Scholars, mentors, leadership, as well as Alliance Board Directors, were invited to attend the Gala Reception. Dr. Michael Dustin, the Oxford Director of the NIH OxCam Program, opened the elegant dinner reception with a warm welcome to attendees and invited Alliance Board Director Dr. Kathryn Zoon to give the Welcome Address. Following Dr. Zoon’s speech, Workshop Planning Committee co-chairs Kritika Singh and Alex Waldman moderated the much-anticipated annual science recognition Awards Ceremony. Details on the winners can be found in separate articles on the Alliance website.
Congratulations to Scholars Emily Beltran, Jacob Gordon, and Mario Shammas for being named the first, second, and third place winners of the 2022 Photo Contest Winners for their “My Cool Science” submissions.
The Board of Directors of the International Biomedical Alliance would like to acknowledge the following individuals and organizations whose steadfast support makes a meaningful difference for the next generation of scientists: Arsenal Capital Partners, BioHealth Innovation, Bluestreet Productions, Cleveland Foundation, Emergent BioSolutions, the Foundation for Advanced Education in the Sciences, Institute for the Future of Medical Education, Korro Bio, Lasker Foundation, MacroGenics, Michael Lenardo, M.D., National Institutes of Health, London Foundation, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Richard Siegel, M.D. and Vera Siegel, University of Cambridge, University of Oxford and WCG. They would also like to extend their gratitude to the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program Leadership Team and Workshop Planning Committee Members, Alex Waldman (Committee Co-Chair), Kritika Singh (Committee Co-Chair), Emily Beltran, Cristie Contreras, Kelsey Lowman, Jocelyne Rivera, Ray Smith, Stephanie Williams, and Mathieu Perez for their hard work and determination that made the 2022 Global Doctoral Partnerships Research Workshop a great success.
