FEATURE
Interview
Long-Term Impact of the ASH Scholar
Award Program
The American Society of Hematology’s (ASH) longest-running award program,
the ASH Scholar Award, celebrates more than 30 years of financially supporting
fellows and junior faculty as they transition from training programs to careers
as independent investigators. Since 1985, ASH has contributed over $41 million
in Scholar Award grants and has provided 377 Scholar Awards. This is money
well-spent – award recipients have conducted research that has transformed
standards of care and furthered scientific knowledge. More than 1,200 National
Institutes of Health (NIH) grants received by awardees were classified as having
public health relevance.
The type of research funded by this program has
changed over the years. In 2002, the Wallace H.
Coulter Foundation collaborated with ASH to
include clinical/translational research awards
in addition to traditional basic science awards.
As the number of applications increased, so did
the size of the awardee cohorts. In 2008, ASH
doubled its support by accepting 25 scholars.
For many of the recipients, research started
with funding from the program has continued
throughout their careers. In a
list of scholars’ top five most
substantive non-NIH grants,
over half (55.8%) were related to
the research initially funded by
the ASH Scholar Award. This is
certainly the case for Maria E.
Maria E. Figueroa,
Figueroa, MD, who received
MD
ASHClinicalNews.org
the ASH Scholar Award in 2004 shortly after
joining the lab of Ari Melnick, MD, then at
the Albert Einstein College
of Medicine in New York.
Reflecting on her limited
prior training and the fact
that she had no publications
when she received the award,
Dr. Figueroa said, “ASH took
Ari Melnick, MD
a chance on us. They saw
the potential of what I think was a visionary
project.” Dr. Figueroa’s research with Dr. Melnick
focused on the characterization of epigenetic
deregulation in myeloid malignancies.
Dr. Figueroa is now an associate professor at
the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, where she has been able to continue her
work in the field of epigenetic regulation of nor-
mal and malignant hematopoiesis. “It certainly is
a follow-up to the ASH award,” she said.
The ASH Scholar Award allows people to
conduct high-risk or unusual research projects
that might not have been funded elsewhere. This
type of initial support often leads to continued
investigation. According to Ivan Maillard, MD,
of the University of Michigan
Center for Stem Cell Biology:
“With help from the ASH
Scholar Award, I uncovered and
characterized a new role for the
Notch signaling pathway in the
regulation of pathogenic T cells Ivan Maillard, MD
that mediate graft-versus-host
disease after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation. These findings have profound translational and immunobiologic significance, and
they have given rise to an innovative research
program that is currently in full swing.”
For many scholars, the award program shaped
their research and helped to
launch their careers.
Emmanuelle Passegué,
PhD, from the Hematology/
Oncology Division in the Eli
and Edythe Broad Center for
Regenerative Medicine and
Emmanuelle
Stem Cell Research at the
Passegué, PhD
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