The New York City-based Mark Foundation for Cancer Research has announced the 12 winners of its 2023 ASPIRE awards, who will receive grants totaling $4 million.

Launched in 2018, the awards program supports projects launched at academic institutions in Germany, Israel, Netherlands, Spain, and the United States that aim to answer key feasibility and proof-of-concept questions in an accelerated time frame or build on demonstrated proofs-of-concept. Recipients include Denes Hnisz (Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics), whose research targets androgen receptor condensates in castration-resistant prostate cancer; Nikhil Joshi (Yale University School of Medicine), in support of research to develop genetic models for studying cardinal features of human cancer; Tuomas Tammela (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center), for research investigating parallel molecular and functional dissection of cancer cell states in human solid tumors; and Daniel Nomura (University of California, Berkeley), whose research aims to develop next-generation therapies and therapeutic modalities for cancer using covalent chemoproteomic platforms.

“The Mark Foundation ASPIRE awards support innovative ideas worldwide that have the potential to solve high-impact problems in cancer research. The high-risk nature of these projects, often based on new ideas that have not generated extensive preliminary data, tends to place them outside the scope of other funding opportunities,” said Mark Foundation CEO Ryan Schoenfeld. “These latest grants utilize innovative technologies to enable research aimed at solving critical challenges across multiple cancer types including breast cancer, lung cancer, melanoma, and prostate cancer.”

For a complete list of the latest ASPIRE researchers, see the Mark Foundation website.

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