Yuk Ming Dennis Lo was the featured speaker at the Spring 2024 Lasker Lessons in Leadership event. Lo discussed his scientific training in the UK, establishing a lab in Hong Kong, and crossing the boundaries between academia and industry. He was joined by Yasemin Cole, Kritika Singh, and Henry Taylor, students in the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars program.
Yuk Ming Dennis Lo was the featured speaker at the Spring 2024 Lasker Lessons in Leadership event. Lo discussed his scientific training in the UK, establishing a lab in Hong Kong, and crossing the boundaries between academia and industry. He was joined by Yasemin Cole, Kritika Singh, and Henry Taylor, students in the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars program.
The October 17, 2023, Lasker Lessons in Leadership featured an interview with MacArthur Fellow Michelle Monje-Deisseroth and Lasker Laureate Karl Deisseroth, both professors at Stanford University and Howard Hughes Investigators. The NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program students specifically requested this pair because they are successful physician-scientists who have a family together. Although balancing a demanding career with family life can be hard, the couple strives to remain flexible and to work as a team. They emphasized that although seeing patients on top of conducting research takes more time, it helps them focus their scientific research.
The International Biomedical Research Alliance, in collaboration with the Lasker Foundation, invited six doctoral candidate students from the NIH Oxford-Cambridge/Wellcome Trust Scholars Program to attend the 2019 Lasker Awards in New York City.
The Scholars attended Breakfast at Lasker, an intimate gathering of the 2019 Lasker Laureates moderated by Jordan Gutterman, M.D. The breakfast provided a roundtable discussion for the group to ask questions ranging from career paths, making new discoveries, and how their discoveries are impacting human health today.
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, CEO Dr. Seth Berkley, discussed with the breakfast attendees the essential aspect of their mission: empowering the countries with which they work. He shared that this was not something science has included in the past but, by doing so, allows these countries’ people to have an even greater impact. Lasker Laureate Dr. Max Cooper shared that it is not always clear whether or not a research question has the potential for medical impact. However, he advised that researchers should follow their interests because many clinical advances started from curiosity driven research. Throughout the course of the roundtable discussion, each of the laureates gave thoughtful responses to questions posed by the group and provided some very personal insights and pearls of wisdom.
Following breakfast, the Scholars took photographs with the 2019 winners and attended a reception that included current and past Lasker Laureates, as well as renowned scientists and notable guests arriving to attend the awards ceremony.
The Lasker Basic Research Award honored Max D. Cooper of the Emory School of Medicine and Jacques F.A.P. Miller of The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Parkville, Australia, for their discovery of the two distinct classes of lymphocytes, β and T cells, an achievement that provided the organizing principle of the adaptive immune system. Their pioneering and historic work over fifty years ago launched the course of modern immunology, inspiring major advances in basic and medical science.
The Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Research Award honored H. Michael Shepard, Dennis J. Slamon, and Axel Ullrich for their invention of Herceptin, the first monoclonal antibody that blocks a cancer-causing protein, and for its development as a life-saving therapy for women with breast cancer. Shepard, currently with BetterOutcomes4Cancer, and Slamon, now at Max Planck Institute of Biochemisry, Martinsried, Germany, did their Herceptin work at Genentech. Slamon’s research was conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he continues to work. The influence and impact of the Herceptin story extends beyond the development of a major new therapy. For example, stratifying patients based on expression/amplification of a gene and using a monoclonal antibody to block a cancer-causing protein are now being applied to other proteins in other cancers as well.
The Lasker-Bloomberg Public Science Award honored Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, for providing sustained access to childhood vaccines around the globe, saving millions of lives, and for highlighting the power of immunization to prevent disease. Gavi is a public-private global partnership that brings together the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank, the vaccine industry, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and several other philanthropic organizations. Thanks to Gavi, more than 600 million children in 73 of the poorest countries have been vaccinated, with an estimated 8 million deaths averted. Over the last 16 years, Gavi has raised global immunization rates by bringing vaccines available to developing countries, by financially supporting the development of new vaccines, and by building stronger health care systems.
For full descriptive information on the 2019 Lasker Award winners, video viewing of award overviews, and expectance speeches, please visit: The Lasker Foundation. We gratefully thank the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation for the opportunity to allow the Scholars to attend the prestigious Lasker Awards.
What brought the NIH OxCam/Wellcome Trust Scholars to New York City this September? With a coveted invite to the Lasker Awards on Friday, September 21st, the Alliance hosted six students for the week leading up to their awards attendance on Friday. This experience started off with educational and social events, focusing on developing and educating them on their career paths. This initiative was created to expose scholars to a variety a career options as well as providing the opportunity to conduct formal presentations on their research. The scholars attending these special events included Megan Ansbro, Brian Caffrey, Justin Demmerle, Joseph McAbee, Juan Pablo Ruiz and Lynda Truong who are all in the final stage of gaining their PhDs, with some returning to medical school shortly to finish their MD. The Alliance organized field trips that focused on academia, industry, investing, and medicine.
We kickstarted the trip on Wednesday, September 19th with a visit to PointState Capital to meet Dr. Kenan Turnacioglu. Dr. Turnacioglu is responsible for portfolio management of healthcare investments at PointState. Dr. Turnacioglu graduated from Rutgers University with a B.A. in History and Biology, and obtained a PhD from University of Pennsylvania in Cell and Molecular Biology. Thereafter, Dr. Turnacioglu conducted postdoctoral work in pancreatic cancer at Johns Hopkins Medical Center.
During his PhD, Turnacioglu learned important skills which accelerated his career in healthcare investing. These skills included critical thinking and problem solving, as well as collecting and analyzing data. Because there are not many people in investing that hold PhD’s, Dr. Turnacioglu described how it was useful and unique, especially in his own career path. Dr. Turnacioglu provided the scholars with a look at the day-to-day activities of PointState. He also discussed how an internship during the PhD would be extremely valuable and would provide the tools and experience necessary to determine if a career in investing would be right for the scholars. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Our next visit was to see Dr. Martin Blaser, who warmly welcomed the scholars to his historic home at the Washington Mews. He spent time getting to know everyone by learning about their background and interests, as well as their research projects. Dr. Blaser is a physician and microbiologist who has published extensively on how changes in the human microbiome impact the development of several of the illnesses that have increased in recent years, including esophageal diseases, obesity, diabetes, and asthma. His work over thirty years focused on particular organisms, including Campylobacter species and Helicobacter pylori, which also are model systems for understanding the interactions of residential bacteria with their human hosts. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy for Arts and Sciences. He holds twenty-five U.S. patents relating to his research and has authored over 530 original articles.
Dr. Blaser’s career path excited the scholars and they were fascinated by the journey and decisions he made which led him to where he is today. The majority of time the scholars spent with Dr. Blaser focused on antibiotic resistance, discussing which socioeconomic groups where most are affected and why, along with how he is trying to combat this soon-to-be epidemic. The scholars learned about the importance of microbial diversity and how society is slowly losing the microbiome because of antibiotics. The scholars also loved discussing Dr. Blaser’s book Missing Microbes. They were able to get their book copies signed and could not be more excited to read it when they returned home. Following our educational events, the scholars then attended dinner at Gallow Green and saw Sleep No More, an interactive play based on Macbeth at the McKittrick Hotel.After a walk through Washington Square Park, the group found themselves at the New York Genome Center (NYGC). Alliance Director Emeritus Dr. Harold Varmus (also a Lasker and Nobel Laureate) invited the scholars to tour the NYGC. Dr. Nicolas Robine, a member of the faculty who works on their cancer initiative, showed the scholars the laboratories and brought them to see the high-tech sequencers to learn about how they sequence high throughput human data. They learned about how the NYGC was founded and how it functions as a collaboration between major institutions in New York City and Long Island. Bright and early the next morning, the scholars visited Regeneron Pharmaceuticals to learn about biomedical research careers in industry. The day at Regeneron included an overview of the company, tour of the facilities, scientific presentations by their staff scientists and presentations made by the scholars about their research projects. NIH Gates-Cambridge Scholar Joseph McAbee said, “I really enjoyed the tour of Regeneron and hearing from some of the leaders from various departments and learning about what they are working on and so indirectly learning about career opportunities.”
NIH Gates-Cambridge Scholar Megan Ansbro said, “At Regeneron I thought it was very nice that they encouraged post-docs who matched some of our research interests to join us for the day. I also enjoyed learning about their post-doc program – which sounds unique and very cool! And finally, I liked learning about all of the genome projects they’re doing at the Regeneron Genetics Center.” NIH Wellcome Trust Scholar Brian Caffrey also commented on how much he enjoyed getting a feel for the work they did and how they “streamlined the velocimouse system,” which he found to be very cool! Later that evening, the Scholars were the guests of honor at a cocktail reception held in the home of Alliance board member Ann W. Jackson. Guests included individuals representing science, business, academia, private industry, philanthropy, and the Lasker Foundation and their 2018 essay contest winners, as well as New York City area alumni of the NIH OxCam program.
We gratefully thank Dr. Turnacioglu, Dr. Blaser, Dr. Varmus, Dr. Robine and staff at the New York Genome Center, Dr. Yancopoulos and his colleagues at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, along with the supporters of the International Biomedical Research Alliance for their contributions to the experiences and events that provided an invaluable visit to New York for the Scholars.
on Friday. This experience started off with educational and social events, focusing on developing and educating them on their career paths. This initiative was created to expose scholars to a variety a career options as well as providing the opportunity to conduct formal presentations on their research. The scholars attending these special events included Megan Ansbro, Brian Caffrey, Justin Demmerle, Joseph McAbee, Juan Pablo Ruiz and Lynda Truong who are all in the final stage of gaining their PhDs, with some returning to medical school shortly to finish their MD. The Alliance organized field trips that focused on academia, industry, investing, and medicine.