Human Immunome Project and Michelson Medical Research Foundation Award $150,000 Grants to Three Early-Career Scientists Researching Immunology and Vaccines
The Human Immunome Project (HIP) and Michelson Medical Research Foundation (MMRF) have awarded Dr. Omar Abudayyeh (Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Harvard Medical School), Dr. Caleb Lareau (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center), and Dr. Yuzhong Liu (Scripps Research) the 2024 Michelson Prizes: Next Generation Grants.
The $150,000 research grants are awarded annually to support early-career scientists advancing human immunology, vaccine discovery, and immunotherapy research for major global diseases.
"Investing in bold, early-career scientists fuels the high-risk, high-reward ideas that push the boundaries of medicine and pave the way for lifesaving breakthroughs,” said Dr. Gary K. Michelson, founder and co-chair of Michelson Philanthropies and co-founder and chair of the board of directors of the California Institute of Immunology and Immunotherapy. "Cutting-edge immunology research is transforming the way we prevent and treat disease."
The three recipients, selected by a distinguished committee of internationally recognized scientists, represent the next generation of innovators in human immunology and vaccine research. Their proposals demonstrated novelty and potential to advance vaccines, immunotherapies, and our understanding of why humans respond differently to the same infection.
“The immune system is the epicenter of human health. The award-winning proposals of Dr. Abudayyeh, Dr. Lareau, and Dr. Liu are poised to impact how we understand infection and combat deadly diseases such as cancer,” said HIP CEO Dr. Hans Keirstead. “The Human Immunome Project is proud to support their innovative research.”
Dr. Abudayyeh, Dr. Lareau, and Dr. Liu are the seventh class of Michelson Prize laureates. They will be honored at a virtual award ceremony in collaboration with the Keystone Symposia to be announced later this year.
Meet the 2024 Michelson Prizes: Next Generation Grants Recipients
From Left: Dr. Yuzhong Liu, Dr. Caleb Lareau, and Dr. Omar Abudayyeh
Dr. Omar Abudayyeh is an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, investigator at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Mass General Brigham’s Gene and Cell Therapy Institute, and faculty member with the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard University. His proposal, “Development of Programmable RNA Sensors for Next-Generation Cancer Immunotherapies,” will leverage mRNA therapies and cell state targeting technologies (RADARS) to achieve mRNA tumor-specific therapies. RADARS enables the targeted expression of genetic payloads based on transcriptional state of tumor cells, reducing the risks of side effects and enhancing treatment efficacy with the potential to revolutionize cancer immunotherapy.
Dr. Caleb Lareau is an assistant member of the Computational and Systems Biology Program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He leads a hybrid experimental and computational lab focused on studying systems immunology in cancer and infection. With support from the Michelson Prize, Caleb and his team will study the blood virome— the billions of viruses that our immune system interacts with daily. This work will shine light on a basic question: how do humans have vastly different responses to the same infections? To tackle this, Dr. Lareau will study the intersection between variation in viral nucleic acids and genetic variation in the population of hundreds of thousands of individuals by mining petabyte-scale data.
Dr. Yuzhong Liu is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at Scripps Research. She leads a lab that combines natural product chemistry and synthetic biology to advance novel drug discovery. Her award-winning Michelson Prize proposal “Improved Saponin-based Adjuvants for Cancer Vaccines,” seeks to use synthetic biology to elucidate the structure-immunoactivity relationship of natural and new-to-nature glycosides to guide the design of more potent and safer vaccine adjuvant candidates for cancer vaccines.
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About the Human Immunome Project (HIP)
The Human Immunome Project (HIP) is maximizing the potential of advanced immunological data to transform health outcomes for everyone, everywhere. To achieve our mission, we are generating the world’s largest and most diverse immunological dataset and building publicly available AI models of the immune system.
About the Michelson Medical Research Foundation
Founded by Dr. Gary K. Michelson in 1995, the Michelson Medical Research Foundation accelerates solutions to global health challenges by fostering high-risk, high-reward approaches that disrupt the status quo to make innovative ideas a reality. Through convergent collaboration among engineers, scientists, and physicians, the foundation helps rapidly move bold concepts and technologies from the laboratory into clinics and communities around the world. Michelson Medical Research Foundation is a division of Michelson Philanthropies. For more information, visit: www.michelsonmedicalresearch.org.
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