Presented biennially to celebrate a cancer researcher who has the potential to make significant contributions to future cancer research progress.

We are delighted to announce the winner of the first Pezcoller Foundation-EACR Rising Star Award is Dr Sam Behjati (Wellcome Sanger Institute, UK).

About the Award

The Pezcoller Foundation-EACR Rising Star Award celebrates a cancer researcher who has the potential to make significant contributions to future cancer research progress. The award is presented biennially to a researcher of excellence who is within 1 – 4 years of having established their own laboratory in a European institution.  The award will be presented at the annual EACR Congress to a researcher of excellence who has spent the majority of their research career in Europe, and the winner receives a €5,000 honorarium.

The award lecture will be given at the EACR Congress, taking place from 9-12 June 2021. Dr Behjati will be presented with his award by The Pezcoller Foundation President, Enzo Galligioni.

About the 2021 Winner

Dr Behjati is a Group Leader and Wellcome Trust Intermediate Clinical Fellow working across cellular genetics and cancer. His research sits at the interface of cancer genomics and single cell transcriptomics. Dr Behjati’s team uses cutting edge single cell techniques to understand normal human development and how normal development relates to disease.  The focus is on understanding and quantifying the nature and origins of cancer cells, particularly childhood cancers.  To do this, the research combines the study of somatic genomic changes, bulk and single cell transcriptomics, and mathematical modelling of data.

2020    EMBO Young Investigator 

2019    Liddy Shriver Early Research Award, Connective Tissue Oncology Society
    
            Honorary Consultant Paediatric Oncologist, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Trust
    
            Dr Simon Newell Early Career Investigator of the Year (Sparks) award, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (UK)
    
2018    Group Leader in Cellular Genetics, Wellcome Sanger Institute
    
2016    Research Fellow, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

            AAAS & SciLifeLab Prize for Young Scientists
    
            Intermediate Clinical Fellowship, Wellcome Trust
    
            Robert J. Arceci Innovation Award, St. Baldrick’s Foundation (USA)
    
2015    Donald Paterson Prize, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health
    
2014    PhD / Wellcome Clinical Research Fellow, University of Cambridge
    
2006-2019 Post-graduate clinical academic training in paediatric oncology and haematology 

2006    BMBCh, University of Oxford

About the Pezcoller Foundation

The Pezcoller Foundation is a non-profit institution, whose goal is to promote scientific research against diseases which afflict mankind, specifically the fight against cancer. The Founder, Prof. Alessio Pezcoller, was Chief Surgeon at Santa Chiara Hospital in Trento, Italy. The Foundation was established in 1980.

The Foundation depends primarily on the substantial sum of money bequeathed by Professor Alessio Pezcoller, and by significant contributions from its sponsors: the Cassa di Risparmio di Trento e Rovereto Foundation, the Province of Trento, the Administrative Councils of Trento and of Rovereto and other occasional private donations.

Due to its ever increasing recognition within the international oncological community, the Foundation collaborates with some of the most important cancer institutions: the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and the European Association for Cancer Research (EACR). The Pezcoller Awards are officially recognised during the international conferences of the two above mentioned associations.