The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation in New York City has announced the recipients of the 2014 Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovation Awards.

The awards are given annually to early career scientists whose research has the potential to significantly affect the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer. The six recipients of this year's award will each receive $450,000 over three years in support of their research programs.

This year's recipients are Emily P. Balskus (Harvard University), who is working to uncover the mechanisms by which molecules produced by microbes inhabiting the human gut influence the development and progression of colorectal cancer; Arvin C. Dar (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai), who is using two novel approaches to better understand the Ras-MAPK signaling pathway; Summer L. Gibbs and Xiaolin Nan (Oregon Health & Science University), who are examining how cancer molecules work together within cells and tumors; Moritz F. Kircher (Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center), who is working to develop a new nanoparticle-based technology that will allow the detection and treatment of cancer based on in vivo tumor marker expression profiling; and Eirini Papapetrou (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai), who will use a novel approach to identify the specific genetic alterations involved in the development of myelodysplastic syndrome, which are not currently known.