(Press-News.org) Rockville, MD (8/9/2024) – The AIM-HI Accelerator Fund today announces Margaret Foti, PhD, MD (hc), Chief Executive Officer of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), is selected unanimously by the 2024 Blue Ribbon Selection Committee as the recipient of the 2024 Beacon Award for Women Leaders in Oncology, from a pool of outstanding global nominees.
The Beacon Award for Women Leaders in Oncology was established in 2022 by the AIM-HI Accelerator Fund and sponsored by the National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR). The Beacon Award recognizes outstanding women leaders in health and life sciences who have significantly impacted cancer treatment, detection, and diagnosis for patients worldwide.
Dr. Foti has served as the CEO of AACR for more than 42 years. During this time, she has led the growth and transformation of AACR from a relatively small professional association into the leading international scientific organization focused on basic, translational, and clinical cancer research. AACR currently has more than 59,000 members across 143 countries.
Throughout her career, Dr. Foti has been a powerful voice and advocate for women and underrepresented minority groups in science. As a result of her leadership, 45% of AACR members are women, 11% are from underrepresented minority groups, and 22% hail from countries with emerging economies.
In addition to expanding AACR’s membership to include a diverse base of scientific professionals, Dr. Foti has actively engaged with the public and private sectors to foster advances in cancer science and medicine for the benefit of patients worldwide. One of the critical programs Dr. Foti helped found is the AACR Scientist↔Survivor Program. Now in its 26th year, this unique program builds bridges and unity among the leaders of the scientific and cancer survivor and patient advocacy communities worldwide through communication and collaboration.
Under Dr. Foti’s guidance, AACR has significantly expanded its portfolio of high-impact journals from one to 10 journals, which are instrumental in disseminating cutting-edge cancer research to the global scientific community. Dr. Foti’s leadership was also instrumental in the publication of two landmark annual reports, the AACR Cancer Progress Report and the AACR Cancer Disparities Progress Report, which showcase how research continues to extend and improve lives and which highlight the critical need for increased federal funding to accelerate the pace of progress against cancer.
“As the CEO & Co-Founder of the AIM-HI Accelerator Fund, CEO of the National Foundation for Cancer Research, I have the unique privilege to work alongside some of the most accomplished, innovative, and respected leaders in cancer research and the fields of oncology. Dr. Foti epitomizes the attributes of impactful leadership and everything we at AIM-HI and NFCR seek to recognize in a Beacon Award recipient. I have known of the unwavering work of Dr. Foti for many years and have high respect for the impacts she has made on cancer research, science, and patient care worldwide,” said Dr. Sujuan Ba, Ph.D., President and CEO of the AIM-HI Accelerator Fund and National Foundation for Cancer Research and Co-Chair of the 2024 Beacon Award Selection Committee.
“Over the span of her career at AACR, Dr. Foti has become one of the most influential leaders in cancer science and research. As a former President of AACR, I have witnessed firsthand that she is an innovator, an advocate for patients, and a champion for under-represented scientists. Dr. Foti is tireless in her efforts to move the field, not only for AACR but also for the global cancer science and research community. No one deserves this award more than she does,” said Dr. Webster K. Cavenee, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of California San Diego and Co-Chair of the 2024 Beacon Award Selection Committee.
“I am deeply honored to be named the 2024 Beacon Award for Women Leaders in Oncology recipient. This recognition is a testament to the relentless dedication and groundbreaking work of our members and entire team at AACR, as well as our partners in the cancer research community. Together, we are committed to accelerating the pace of scientific discovery and translating these findings into effective treatments that improve the lives of patients worldwide. This award inspires us to continue pushing the boundaries of innovation and collaboration in our ongoing fight against cancer. I would like to thank the Beacon Award Selection Committee and extend my heartfelt gratitude to AIM-HI Accelerator Fund and the National Foundation for Cancer Research for this prestigious acknowledgment and for their unwavering support of cancer research,” said Margaret Foti, Ph.D., M.D. (h.c.), Chief Executive Officer of the American Association for Cancer Research.
Dr. Foti will be honored as the 2024 AIM-HI Beacon Award recipient at a luncheon ceremony at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, on October 18, 2024. The award ceremony is part of the 2024 Global Summit and Award Ceremonies for Cancer Research & Entrepreneurship, which brings together world-renowned leaders in cancer research and drug development, business leaders, investors, government officials, supporters, and patient advocates.
2024 Beacon Award for Women Leaders in Oncology Selection Committee:
Sujuan Ba, Ph.D., Co-Chair, CEO & Co-Founder, AIM-HI Accelerator Fund; President & CEO, National Foundation for Cancer Research
Webster Cavenee, Ph.D., Co-Chair, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of California San Diego
Bahija Jallal, Ph.D., CEO & Director of the Board, Immunocore
Raju Kucherlapati, Ph.D., Paul C. Cabot Professor of Genetics & Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Patricia Obermaier, MBA, Chief Growth Officer, Global Health and Life Sciences, Microsoft
Libia Scheller, Ph.D., MBA, Global Head Oncology-Cooperative Groups & Strategic Alliances, Bayer Health Care Pharmaceuticals
Thea Tlsty, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Pathology and Director of the Center for Translational Research in the Molecular Genetics of Cancer, UCSF
The Past Recipients of the Beacon Award for Women Leaders in Oncology:
Anna D. Barker, Ph.D., 2022 Awardee, Chief Strategy Officer, Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine, Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Complex Adaptive Systems, Arizona State University
Monica M. Bertagnolli, M.D., 2023 Awardee, Director, National Institutes of Health and Past Director, National Cancer Institute.
----------------------
About the AIM-HI Accelerator Fund
The AIM-HI Accelerator Fund (AIM-HI) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization established in 2019 with an initial capacity-building grant from the National Foundation for Cancer Research to accelerate the translation of cancer drug discoveries by investing in seed-stage oncology companies. AIM-HI Accelerator Fund bridges the gap between innovative cancer discoveries and high-impact cancer treatments and technologies and facilitates an ecosystem for early-stage companies and entrepreneurs. To learn more about the AIM-HI Accelerator Fund, visit AIM-HIAccelerator.org.
About the National Foundation for Cancer Research
The National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization co-founded in 1973 by Nobel Laureate Dr. Albert Szent-Györgyi and Attorney/Business Entrepreneur Franklin Salisbury, Sr. NFCR provides scientists in the lab with the critical seed funding they need to make game-changing discoveries in cancer detection, treatments, prevention, and ultimately, a cure for all cancers. NFCR has distinguished itself in the cancer research sector by emphasizing “high-risk, high-impact” long-term and transformative pioneering research fields often overlooked by other major funding sources. With the support of more than 5.3 million individual donors over the last 50+ years, NFCR has provided more than $415 million in funding to cancer research, prevention, and public education. NFCR-supported research has led to some of the most significant life-saving discoveries that benefit patients today.
END
AACR CEO Dr. Margaret Foti selected as the 2024 Beacon Award Winner for her significant impact in the fight against cancer
2024-08-09
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Abbruscato, Kang receive first Stocco Research Chair endowment appointments
2024-08-09
In a July 9 ceremony, Thomas Abbruscato, Ph.D., and Min Kang, Pharm.D., became the first recipients of the Douglas Stocco Research Chair, an endowment formerly known as the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center’s (TTUHSC) Research Endowment. The Texas Tech University System Board of Regents officially renamed the endowed chair in late November 2023 and made two appointments available.
Abbruscato, professor and chair in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the TTUHSC Jerry H. Hodge School of Pharmacy, said it is an honor to receive the endowment.
“Personally, I am humbled to have ...
From fungi to pharmaceuticals: a milestone for the production of eutyscoparol A and violaceoid C
2024-08-09
The natural world is rich in chemical compounds with remarkable medicinal properties. A notable example is penicillin, discovered by chance from the Penicillium mold. This discovery revolutionized the treatment of bacterial infections and highlighted the potential of natural compounds in medicine. Since then, the identification, isolation, and synthesis of novel bioactive compounds from plants, fungi, and bacteria have become fundamental to drug development.
Recently, two groups of naturally occurring bioactive compounds have garnered significant attention: violaceoids A–F ...
Glossy black-cockatoos prefer the fruits of ancient rocks
2024-08-09
New research from the University of Adelaide has shown that glossy black-cockatoos prefer to feed from trees growing in acidic soils.
Glossy black-cockatoos are seed-eating birds that feed almost exclusively on the cones of drooping sheoak trees. However, counterintuitively, they select trees that grow on the poorest soils found on ancient sedimentary rocks.
“Sheoak trees are three times more likely to be used as feeding trees if they are growing on non-limestone sedimentary rocks,” says Dr Gay Crowley, from the University of Adelaide’s School of Social Sciences.
Dr Crowley compared 6,543 feeding records with 23,484 ...
ADHD symptoms in autistic children linked to neighborhood conditions
2024-08-09
Autistic youth who were born in underserved neighborhoods are more likely to have greater attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms than those born in communities with more resources. This is one finding of a new study led by researchers at the UC Davis MIND Institute.
This is the first time researchers have investigated how neighborhood factors are associated with ADHD in autistic and non-autistic children. The study provides new insights into mental health conditions and has the potential to inform public policy changes to improve health equity.
It was published in the journal JCPP Advances.
“We found that some neighborhood ...
Many survey respondents rated seeking out sexually explicit ‘deepfakes’ as more acceptable than creating or sharing them
2024-08-09
Content warning: This post contains details of sharing intimate imagery without consent that may be disturbing to some readers.
While much attention on sexually explicit “deepfakes” has focused on celebrities, these non-consensual sexual images and videos generated with artificial intelligence harm people both in and out of the limelight. As text-to-image AI models grow more sophisticated and easier to use, the volume of such content is only increasing. The escalating problem led Google to announce last week that it will work to filter out these deepfakes in search results, and the Senate recently passed ...
Strike Force: Utah State leads collaborative $2.3M NSF grant to study earthquake critical zones
2024-08-09
LOGAN, UTAH, USA -- Utah State University geoscientist Alexis Ault recalls the devastating aftermath of back-to-back 7.8 and 7.6-magnitude earthquakes on Feb. 6, 2023, near the Turkey-Syria border that killed more than 50,000 people and displaced millions.
“We witnessed the destruction firsthand, as well as the resilience of the country and population trying to get their footing and rebuild,” says Ault, associate professor in USU’s Department of Geosciences, who traveled to the disaster site about six months after ...
Achieving quantum memory in the hard X-ray range
2024-08-09
Light is an excellent carrier of information used not only for classical communication technologies but also increasingly for quantum applications such as quantum networking and computing. However, processing light signals is far more complex, compared to working with common electronic signals.
An international team of researchers including Dr. Olga Kocharovskaya, a distinguished professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M University, has demonstrated a novel way of storing and releasing X-ray pulses at the single photon level — a concept first ...
Study shows donor kidneys with toxoplasma do not increase risks for transplant patients
2024-08-09
A new study from UC Davis Health could help to increase the supply of donor kidneys.
Researchers have found that transplant patients who receive kidneys infected with the parasite toxoplasma have virtually the same outcomes as those who receive toxoplasma-negative organs.
Despite longstanding concerns, those who received kidneys from toxoplasma antibody positive donors (TPDs) had almost identical mortality and rejection rates. The research was published in Transplant International.
“Organs from donors who were positive for toxoplasma did ...
Advanced MRI scans help identify one in three concussion patients with ‘hidden disease’
2024-08-09
Offering patients with concussion a type of brain scan known as diffusion tensor imaging MRI could help identify the one in three people who will experience persistent symptoms that can be life changing, say Cambridge researchers.
Around one in 200 people in Europe every year will suffer concussion. In the UK, more than 1 million people attend Emergency Departments annually with a recent head injury. It is the most common form of brain injury worldwide.
When a patient in the UK presents at an Emergency Department with head injury, they ...
Psychological bias links good deeds to a belief in God, research says
2024-08-09
Experiments conducted by UC Merced researchers find that people who perform good deeds are far more likely to be thought of as religious believers than atheists. Moreover, the psychological bias linking kindness and helpfulness with faith appears to be global in scale.
Research on the mental link between moral behavior and religious belief goes back more than a decade. Prior research, however, emphasized the dark side of this equation, with participants asked whether they assumed it was more probable that a serial killer believed in God or was an atheist (people in nations all over the planet thought the latter ...