Each year, the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in San Diego offers the cancer research community a platform to share the latest breakthroughs and celebrate progress in the fight against cancer.
At this year’s meeting, the growing impact of The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research was clear, as the Foundation’s grantees and advisors presented or chaired more than 60 oral sessions.
We were especially proud to celebrate 15 members of our community, representing a range of career stages and disciplines, who were recognized for their scientific achievements and their leadership in the field.
Ten Grantees and Advisors Inducted into the AACR Academy
Election as a Fellow of the AACR Academy is a significant honor in the cancer research community, recognizing individuals whose scientific contributions have meaningfully advanced the field. Of the 24 individuals inducted into the Class of 2026, ten are members of the Mark Foundation community:
- Cory Abate-Shen, PhD (Columbia University), principal investigator of The Mark Foundation Center for Lineage Plasticity
- Christina Curtis, PhD (Stanford University), recipient of the 2026 Mark Foundation-AACR-Lustgarten Foundation-Break Through Cancer Early Detection Award
- Rebecca Fitzgerald, MD (University of Cambridge), recipient of the 2026 Mark Foundation-AACR-Lustgarten Foundation-Break Through Cancer Early Detection Award
- Stephen Jackson, PhD (University of Cambridge), ASPIRE Awardee
- Anthony Letai, MD, PhD (National Institutes of Health), ASPIRE Awardee
- Ross Levine, MD (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center), Mark Foundation Board member and chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee
- Anil K. Rustgi, MD (Columbia University), member of The Mark Foundation Center for Lineage Plasticity
- Alice Shaw, MD, PhD (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute), an original member of the EXTOL Project
- Kimberly Stegmaier, MD (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute), Drug Discovery Awardee
- Jennifer Wargo, MD (MD Anderson Cancer Center), ASPIRE and Endeavor Awardee
These inductees join more than two dozen other Mark Foundation researchers in the AACR Academy.
Three Grantees Recognized As “Trailblazers”
During the meeting, the AACR announced the inaugural recipients of its new AACR Trailblazer Cancer Research Grants, a $15 million initiative designed to support early- and mid-career investigators pursuing paradigm-shifting projects. Three of the fifteen recipients previously received Mark Foundation awards for early-career scientists:
- Effie Apostolou, PhD (Weill Cornell Medicine), a 2021 Emerging Leader Awardee, was selected for her work targeting 3D regulatory nodes to rewire cancer programs.
- Tuomas Tammela, MD, PhD (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center), a 2021 Emerging Leader Awardee and the recipient of an ASPIRE Award and an Aging and Cancer Award (delivered in partnership with the Samuel Waxman Foundation and the American Cancer Society), will pursue research interrogating epithelial injury-associated tissue programs.
- Natalie Vokes, MD (MD Anderson Cancer Center), a former Damon Runyon-Mark Foundation Physician-Scientist Awardee, received a grant to dissect mechanisms of therapeutic resistance in non-small cell lung cancer.
Three Grantees Celebrated for Clinical and Translational Impact
Several Mark Foundation grantees received individual and team awards for outstanding work in their areas of focus:
- Eliezer Van Allen, MD (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute), an Emerging Leader Award winner and ASPIRE Awardee, received the AACR-Waun Ki Hong Award for Outstanding Achievement in Translational and Clinical Cancer Research. Van Allen was recognized for advancing personalized oncology through his pioneering use of AI, genomic data, and biomarker discovery to understand how cancer responds to and resists treatment.
- Kimberly Stegmaier, MD (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute), a Drug Discovery Awardee, was honored with the AACR-St. Baldrick’s Foundation Award for Outstanding Achievement in Pediatric Cancer Research. Her work using systematic functional genomic screening and chemical biology strategies has advanced new therapeutic strategies in pediatric oncology, and her work on the Pediatric Cancer Dependency Map has provided an essential tool for identifying potential targets.
- Bill Sellers, MD (Broad Institute), a Drug Discovery Awardee, was a key member of the Broad Institute Cancer Dependency Map (DepMap) Team, which received the AACR Team Science Award. The DepMap project, which systematically maps genetic dependencies across cancer cells, has become a foundational global resource for identifying vulnerabilities in cancer cells that can be targeted by new drugs.
“What struck me most at this year’s AACR Meeting wasn’t just the number of Mark Foundation researchers on the program, but the trajectory of their work,” said Ryan Schoenfeld, PhD, CEO of The Mark Foundation. “We aim to find brilliant scientists at pivotal moments and give them the resources to chase big ideas. Seeing our grantees receiving major awards and being inducted into the AACR Academy is a powerful reminder of the momentum our community is building.”