Gairdner Foundation
TORONTO, April 11, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Gairdner Foundation is happy to announce the 2024 Canada Gairdner Award laureates, recognizing a few of the world’s most vital biomedical and international well being analysis and discoveries.
“Canada is a world chief in science and innovation, and it’s essential to acknowledge the arduous work accomplished by its scientific group to make the world round us higher. The 2024 Canada Gairdner Awards recipients’ contributions to science and analysis are really exemplary, standing out on the worldwide stage. The work of those laureates will most positively enhance the well being of individuals in Canada and around the globe. Congratulations to this yr’s recipients!”
– The Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry
“Congratulations to the recipients of the 2024 Canada Gairdner Awards who’re being acknowledged for scientific discoveries which have remodeled biomedical science, medication, and international well being. I’d like to present particular point out to the Canadian recipients of this yr’s Canada Gairdner Momentum Awards, Dr. Meghan Azad and Dr. Christian Landry. The excellent work of those researchers could have a profound and lasting impression on the well being of individuals in Canada and around the globe.”
– The Honourable Mark Holland, Minister of Health
“The Gairdner Awardees showcase the world’s greatest science and innovation to enhance human well being. This yr isn’t any exception. Join us to get to know these distinctive people and their passions.”
– Rémi Quirion, Scientifique en chef du Québec Président des CA des Fonds de recherche du Québec, partenaires de la Fondation Gairdner
2024 Canada Gairdner International Award
The 5 2024 Canada Gairdner International Award laureates are acknowledged for
seminal discoveries or contributions to biomedical science:
Zelig Eshhar, PhD
Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
Michel Sadelain, MD, PhD
Director, Center for Cell Engineering, Stephen and Barbara Friedman Chair, Sloan Kettering Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, USA
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Awarded “For seminal contributions to the conception, growth and software of CD19-CAR T cell remedy for most cancers.”
The Work:
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell remedy is a sort of most cancers immunotherapy. It makes use of immune cells, referred to as T cells, which can be genetically altered within the lab to allow them to find and destroy most cancers cells.
Both Eshhar’s and Sadelain’s trailblazing analysis into CAR T cell engineering spans many many years. Their mixed efforts outlined the pathway for the way forward for mobile immunotherapy to deal with most cancers.
Eshhar has centered his profession across the genetic engineering of T cells. These research led him to foretell that combining the killing equipment of cytotoxic T cells with an antibody’s specificity and excessive affinity to a goal, would result in new T cell-based therapies. He developed the primary chimeric antigen receptor system within the Eighties and launched it into T cells armed with an anti-tumor specificity. Eshhar went on to exhibit the flexibility of such CAR T cells to efficiently deal with most cancers in animal fashions. Sadelain started investigating what would finally be known as CAR T cell remedy within the late Eighties, publishing his first summary on profitable T-cell engineering in 1992. Over the subsequent decade, Sadelain and his group improved upon Eshhar’s design and by 2002 constructed the primary really efficient CAR T cells, paving the best way for his or her medical use. Key to this breakthrough was the demonstration that CD19, a molecule on white blood cells, might function an efficient goal for CAR T cells in blood-borne cancers.
These second-generation CAR T cells had been capable of survive, proliferate and kill most cancers cells within the lab, which established the feasibility and proof of idea for producing genetically instructed, focused immune responses. In 2003, Sadelain and his colleagues printed a seminal analysis paper exhibiting that human CD19-directed CAR T cells might eradicate leukemia cells in a mouse mannequin. Soon afterwards, medical trials led by completely different teams, together with Dr. Sadelain’s, demonstrated that the tumor burden in refractory continual lymphocytic leukemia and grownup and pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia may very well be efficiently diminished and finally turn into undetectable. The first CAR T cell therapies, concentrating on CD19, had been accredited by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2017 to be used in youngsters and younger adults with refractory acute leukemias and sure refractory lymphomas.
The Impact:
Currently, CAR T cell merchandise have been accredited worldwide for a number of indications, together with massive B-cell lymphoma, B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, mantle cell lymphoma and follicular lymphoma. CAR T cell remedy has revolutionized the therapy panorama of relapsed and refractory B-cell malignancies. In distinction to traditional cytotoxic chemotherapy or immunotherapy with monoclonal antibodies, CAR T-cell remedy can induce sturdy and full responses after a single therapy course. Such responses stem from the flexibility of CAR T cells to broaden in vivo and persist for a number of months or years, which results in steady therapeutic efficacy and tumor management.
Efforts are underway to broaden the repertoire of cancers that may be handled by CAR T cells by way of figuring out new goal antigens in stable tumors. The success of CAR T cells has additionally fueled curiosity in increasing their software past most cancers. CAR T cells are demonstrating excessive response charges in autoimmune ailments and are being investigated as potential remedies for added issues, together with fibrosis, senescence-associated pathologies and infectious ailments.
The subsequent set of 2024 Canada Gairdner International Award laureates are:
Shankar Balasubramanian, FRS
Herchel Smith Professor of Medicinal Chemistry, Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge
David Klenerman, FRS, FmedSci
Professor of Biophysical Chemistry, Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge
Pascal Mayer, PhD
CEO and Co-founder of Alphanosos; Honorary Chair on the Institute for Advanced Study of the University of Strasbourg (USIAS)
Awarded “For the elemental and utilized analysis that led to a revolutionary and inexpensive technique to sequence DNA on an enormous scale, which has dramatically accelerated discoveries within the life sciences and medication”
The Work:
Balasubramanian, Klenerman and Mayer are acknowledged for growing the underlying methodologies that led to Solexa-Illumina Next Generation DNA Sequencing (NGS), a know-how that has enhanced our fundamental understanding of life, changing biosciences into ‘huge science’ by enabling quick, correct, low-cost and large-scale genome sequencing – the method of figuring out the entire DNA sequence of an organism.
Balasubramanian and Klenerman’s unique work concerned strategies to watch a single molecule of DNA polymerase incorporating fluorescently labelled DNA monomers onto a rising strand of DNA hybridised to an immobilised template. They had the imaginative and prescient to see how this science may very well be prolonged and utilized to sequencing an enormous array of immobilised DNA molecules in a approach that may convey large advantages of scale, velocity and price. They co-founded the corporate Solexa, later acquired by Illumina, to make the know-how obtainable to the world. Mayer conceived and carried out the preliminary growth of ‘DNA colony-based massively parallel sequencing by synthesis’, initially at Glaxo-Wellcome’s and Serono’s analysis institutes in Geneva, and at last at a spin-off firm, Manteia Predictive Medicine, the place he was Chief Scientific Officer. This cluster know-how is a key part of the Solexa-Illumina massively parallel sequencing know-how. Manteia and its mental property had been acquired in 2004 by Solexa. NGS has had – and continues to have – a transformative impression within the fields of genomics, biology and medication. It has allowed a million-fold enchancment in velocity and price when in comparison with the primary sequencing of the human genome. In 2000, sequencing of 1 human genome took over 10 years and price greater than a billion {dollars}; at present, your entire genome of a number of people could be sequenced in a single day at a value of lower than $1,000. More than 1,000,000 human genomes have been sequenced, and proceed to be sequenced at scale every year, in addition to genomes of animals, crops, micro organism and viruses, offering unprecedented insights into genome variation throughout the planet.
The Impact:
NGS has had an unlimited impression on life sciences. Many features of the fundamental analysis into mechanisms in dwelling techniques now routinely contain high-throughput sequencing of DNA or RNA as the first readout. Clinical analysis is present process a revolution through the appliance of genome sequencing, and genomic functions extra typically, to find the underlying causes and markers of ailments, together with substantial new data on the genetic causes and signatures of cancers. There is a wave of latest medical diagnostics rising for cancers, uncommon genetic ailments and infectious ailments enabled by NGS of affected person samples that now consists of minimally invasive blood sampling. During the COVID-19 pandemic, NGS was important to the fast understanding of the viral reason behind the illness, after which in figuring out and monitoring the unfold of latest variants. Without this system, progress in direction of growing vaccines and different interventions would have been gradual. It is troublesome to overstate the significance and impression of NGS. It has initiated a revolution in biology, enabling the revelation of unsuspected genetic variety in people and their pathogens, with main implications, from cell and microbiome biology to ecology, forensics and personalised medication.
2024 John Dirks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award
The 2024 John Dirks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award laureate is acknowledged for
excellent achievements in international well being analysis:
Gagandeep Kang, FRS
Adjunct Professor, Christian Medical College, Vellore, India; Director, Enteric, Diagnostics, Genomics and Epidemiology, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Awarded “For intensive cohort-based epidemiological, environmental and medical trial analysis on enteric ailments in youngsters and their results on life course, with vital impression on vaccine growth and well being coverage in India and internationally.”
The Work:
Gagandeep Kang acquired her coaching in medication and microbiology on the Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore, in southern India. She is Professor of Microbiology at CMC, the place her analysis group has established substantial community-based delivery cohort research addressing childhood enteric infections, progress, and growth for over 20 years. Using knowledge and insights from these research, alongside immunological, mechanistic, epidemiological and implementation analysis, Prof. Kang has generated intensive data on the advanced interactions between the surroundings and infections in youngsters, and the affect of prior infections on subsequent responses to vaccination. Through intensive, cross disciplinary work drawing on subject epidemiology, molecular understanding of infectious brokers and infections, medical trials and coverage implementation, she explored the advanced relationships between enteric ailments, intestine perform, and bodily and cognitive growth in affected youngsters. Prof. Kang performed the most important single delivery cohort research on rotaviral infections on the planet, demonstrating that safety after a pure an infection is decrease in India than in developed international locations, which has essential implications for the management of ailments by vaccination.
As a physician-scientist, Prof. Kang has led key research that contributed to the event and introduction of two Indian rotavirus vaccines into the nationwide immunization program. These vaccines are actually WHO prequalified and their introduction has begun in international locations past India. She has expanded her analysis and collaborations to work on different enteric pathogens, significantly cholera and typhoid, with a view to additional vaccine introductions; on dietary and pharmacological interventions geared toward enhancing oral vaccine efficacy; and on the transmission and impression of, and vaccine effectiveness for COVID-19 within the Indian context.
The Impact:
In addition to wonderful scientific analysis, Prof. Kang is an exemplary chief. Her method to medical and public well being analysis makes use of a group base to establish issues that have to be addressed by way of laboratory science in India, and as wanted, by way of worldwide collaborations. In addition to her work in Vellore, India, she took on the problem of main the Department of Biotechnology’s Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI) from 2016 to 2020 to ascertain the translational science techniques wanted within the Indian medical analysis ecosystem. The packages initiated on the Institute have been essential to supporting the a number of vaccine growth efforts of Indian vaccine producers and have acquired international recognition.
2024 Canada Gairdner Momentum Award
The 2024 Canada Gairdner Momentum Award laureates are mid-career investigators acknowledged for distinctive scientific analysis contributions with continued potential for impression on human well being.
Meghan Azad, PhD
Professor, Pediatrics and Child Health, University of Manitoba; Research Scientist, Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba; Director of Science & Knowledge Mobilization, THRiVE Discovery Lab; Co-Director, Manitoba Interdisciplinary Lactation Centre (MILC); Canada Research Chair, Early Nutrition and the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease
Awarded “For analysis on understanding how human breast milk contributes to shaping the toddler microbiome and lifelong well being.”
The Work:
Dr. Azad is main progressive analysis about breastfeeding, human breast milk and the microbiome. While earlier research have typically been underpowered, narrowly centered on single milk elements, inconsistent of their definition of “breastfeeding”, and restricted by confounding (e.g. the socioeconomic standing) points, Dr. Azad’s analysis is addressing these nuances and shortcomings to supply new insights on how toddler feeding practices and a whole bunch of various breast milk elements affect well being and illness all through the life cycle. Studying over 3,000 youngsters, Dr. Azad’s group has proven that longer and extra unique breastfeeding is related to more healthy physique composition and diminished threat of bronchial asthma. Further, their research have supplied novel proof that the strategy of feeding (i.e. pumping vs. nursing on the breast) issues – probably as a result of bioactive milk compounds degrade in storage. Indeed, her group discovered that pump extraction impacts the human milk microbiome and micro organism sharing between moms and infants.
The Impact:
Dr. Azad is a famend analysis chief whose groundbreaking work is pushing the boundaries of information era and translation within the essential areas of toddler diet, lactation, maternal-child well being, and the developmental origins of illness. Moreover, she is extremely devoted to enriching the scientific group in Canada by way of her dedication to recruiting and coaching new researchers, supporting science literacy amongst Canadian youngsters and most of the people, and fascinating Canadian policymakers to foster help for science and evidence-based policy-making.
Meghan Azad is Professor of Pediatrics and Child Health on the University of Manitoba. She holds a Canada Research Chair in Early Nutrition and the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease, and he or she co-directs the THRiVE Discovery Lab, the place her group research how adolescence diet shapes the toddler microbiome and youngster well being. She co-founded the Manitoba Interdisciplinary Lactation Centre (MILC) and leads a number of interdisciplinary analysis groups, together with the International Milk Composition (IMiC) Consortium (7 international locations, 18 investigators, 1200 mother-infant pairs). In addition, she is Deputy Director of the CHILD Cohort Study, an ongoing longitudinal Canadian delivery cohort of 3500 households. In 2022, she acquired the Steacie Prize for early profession researchers.
Christian Landry, Prof.
Professor of biology and biochemistry, Laval University; Canada Research Chair in Cellular Systems and Synthetic Biology
Awarded “For the event of novel approaches that mix artificial biology, experimental evolution, and techniques biology to handle basic questions on gene perform related to well being and human illness.”
The Work:
Prof. Landry’s analysis group is integrating cutting-edge approaches in genetics, genomics, techniques biology and bioinformatics to reply some of the long-lasting questions in biology and biomedical analysis: how mutations change the best way cells work and alter their efficiency. Understanding the ideas by which mutations translate into phenotypes is on the core of human genetics and different fields equivalent to evolutionary biology and biotechnology. The overarching purpose of Prof. Landry’s group is to probe the robustness and performance of mobile networks, with the long-term goal of higher understanding how particular person variation equivalent to mutations trigger modifications in advanced traits and, in the end, ailments. Over the previous six years, it has developed quite a few high-throughput instruments that permit the investigation of whole protein interplay networks, how these networks could be rewired by mutations, and the way their previous evolution might affect the outcomes of illness mutations.
The Impact:
Christian Landry has introduced a wholly new perspective to techniques biology, wherein networks, equivalent to protein-protein interactions, and mobile signaling, are investigated within the context of historic evolutionary forces with a purpose to higher perceive their basic properties. His work is of essential significance to well being and human illness since all organisms evolve by way of the identical ideas, together with pathogens impacting people. His latest analysis has ranged from investigations of the evolution of resistance to antifungal medication, host-pathogen arms races, and evolutionary trade-offs in mobile processes and networks, to techniques biology research of microbial interactions.
In the long run, systematic analyses of mutations inflicting variations in advanced phenotypes equivalent to drug resistance will allow the event of medicine which can be much less prone to result in resistance, which is vital within the context of restricted therapy choices. Prof. Landry was elected within the inaugural cohort of the College of the Royal Society of Canada; he acquired the NSERC EWR Steacie Memorial Award for early profession researchers in 2017 and the SMBE Mid-career Award for excellent contributions in 2020. In 2021, he acquired Laval University’s Excellence Prize for educating and mentoring to graduate college students and postdocs. He can also be contributing to altering the best way science is printed and communicated by way of his work as Senior Editor for eLife and editorial advisor for EMBO Review Commons, two organizations actively concerned in remodelling the scientific publication panorama to make it extra clear and equitable.
About the Gairdner Foundation
Established in 1957, the Gairdner Foundation is devoted to fulfilling James A. Gairdner’s imaginative and prescient to acknowledge main analysis contributions to the therapy of illness and alleviation of human struggling. Through the celebrated annual Canada Gairdner Awards, the Foundation celebrates the world’s most inventive and achieved researchers whose work is enhancing the well being and wellbeing of individuals around the globe. Since its inception, 418 awards have been bestowed on laureates from over 40 international locations, and of these awardees, 98 have gone on to obtain Nobel Prizes. The Gairdner Foundation believes in coming collectively to overtly focus on science with a purpose to higher have interaction the general public, perceive the issues we face, and work collectively to seek out options. Since its founding, plenty of outreach occasions and packages have been developed with the purpose of inspiring the subsequent era of scientific innovators and fostering an knowledgeable society.
https://www.gairdner.org/
For additional data, please contact:
Sommer Wedlock
Executive Vice President
Gairdner Foundation
sommer@gairdner.org
