Geoffrey Wahl, a professor at San Diego’s Salk Institute for Biological Studies, will receive the National Cancer Institute Outstanding Investigator Award, Salk announced this week. With the award comes $7.9 million in funding for cancer research over a seven-year period.
Wahl, a fellow of the American Association of Cancer Research, has been studying cancer for nearly 40 years. Currently, he is charting molecular growth of breast and other cancers in hopes of finding new and innovative treatments for these diseases. With the award money, Wahl will be able to further his study of basal-like breast cancer, a specific cancer that does not respond to chemotherapy or any other medications.
Dr. Dinah Singer, director of the National Cancer Institute’s Division of Cancer Biology, said the award is unique in that it both recognizes recipients’ current efforts in the cancer research field, as well as supports their future research.
“With seven years of uninterrupted funding, [the award] is providing investigators the opportunity to fully develop exceptional and ambitious cancer research programs,” she said.
The Outstanding Investigator Award is a new grant program, established in 2014. The National Cancer Institute anticipates funding 60 scientists from their first round of applications in 2015. Award recipients are cancer researchers, nominated by their institutions, who have worked on a National Cancer Institute grant for the last five years and have demonstrated outstanding cancer research productivity.