Celebrating academic excellence and achievements in the field of translational cancer research

We are delighted to announce the winner of the 2024 Pezcoller Foundation-EACR Translational Cancer Researcher Award is Elisa Oricchio (Swiss Institute of Experimental Cancer Research and EPFL, Switzerland).

About the Award and Award Lecture

The Pezcoller Foundation-EACR Translational Cancer Researcher Award celebrates academic excellence and achievements in the field of translational cancer research, which is defined as a fundamental research discovery that has the potential for future clinical development for the benefit of cancer patients. The award is presented annually to a researcher of excellence with no more than 15 years post-doctoral experience (or equivalent degree), with at least five years spent in Europe and presently employed in a European institution.

Elisa Oricchio will give the prestigious Pezcoller Foundation – EACR Translational Cancer Researcher Award Lecture at the EACR 2024 Congress. She will also be invited to give a lecture in Trento, Italy, at the Pezcoller Foundation, and will receive a €10,000 honorarium.  

About the Winner

Elisa Oricchio is the Director of the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC) and a professor at EPFL in Lausanne (Switzerland). She received her Ph.D. in 2008 and did her post-doctoral training at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where she gained expertise in cancer genomics, genetic manipulation of transgenic animal models, and pre-clinical treatment studies. Currently, research in her lab aims at systematically integrating genomic and functional analyses to identify oncogenic events in cancer and exploit this information for the design of novel therapies. 

Throughout her career, she has identified oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes as new therapeutic targets or as biomarkers to better classify cancer patients. She has integrated linear cancer genomic analyses with tridimensional analyses of the genome to better understand tumor development and evolution. 

Her work has been recognized with the Blavatnik Award for Young Scientist by the New York Academy of Science, the Lorini Award for Italian Scientist in Cancer Research, and in 2021 she received the Prix Leenaards for Translation Research.

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.