The Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) in New York City has announced a $25 million gift from Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. to establish an early-career physician research program in cancer science.

The Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. Physician Scholars Program is designed to support early-career lab-based physician-scientists, a subset of physicians who are uniquely positioned to blend clinical care with laboratory research. Scholars will be eligible to receive up to $150,000 per year for three years to advance their work, after which they will be eligible to receive additional support that is open to all MSK faculty to continue their research.

Gerstner is a long-serving member of MSK's board of trustees and board chair of MSK's Gerstner Sloan Kettering Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, which was established in 2004.

"The twenty-first century has seen accelerating progress in biomedical technology, making translational research extremely complex and scientific training more challenging and important than ever before," said Monika Shah, infectious disease specialist and deputy physician-in-chief, Education and Faculty Affairs at MSK. "The development of the Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. Physician Scholars Program is critically important to address the shortfall of cancer subspecialists who are highly trained as experts in both clinical care and scientific research, and who can translate their findings from the bench to the bedside, and back. During their time as Gerstner Physician Scholars and throughout their future careers, these scholars will achieve scientific and clinical breakthroughs that will improve the lives of cancer patients around the world."