Michel Sadelain, director of the Columbia Initiative in Cell Engineering and Therapy (CICET), was awarded an inaugural Broermann Medical Innovation Award for his groundbreaking research in the field of CAR-T cell therapy for cancer.
Sadelain shares the award with immunologist Carl June of the University of Pennsylvania.
The award recognizes the researchers' roles in the genetic modification of T cells with synthetic receptors, so-called chimeric antigen receptors (CARs), which enable T cells to seek and kill cancer cells. CAR-T cells achieve remarkable success rates in cancers such as leukemia, lymphomas, and myelomas; for other cancers, this new approach is still in the experimental phase.
"It fills me with profound gratitude to know that our research helps usher in a new era of cancer treatment and create hope for patients who were once considered incurable," Sadelain said in a press release from the Broermann Medical Innovation Award organization.
The Broermann Medical Innovation Award was established by Bernard große Broermann, founder of the Asklepios Clinics Group, one of the leading health care groups in Germany, to recognize outstanding scientific achievements in the field of medical innovation and to promote further research in the field.
The award honors scientists whose research activities exhibit exceptional scientific excellence and who already have or have the potential to appreciably advance medical care worldwide.
