Cigall Kadoch, PhD, chosen for 2019 Wachtel Cancer Research Prize

AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) and Science Translational Medicine announced that Cigall Kadoch, PhD, has been chosen for the 2019 Martin and Rose Wachtel Cancer Research Prize. Kadoch is Assistant Professor of Pediatric Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; Affiliated Faculty of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School and Institute Member and Epigenomics Program Co-Director, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

This annual award, funded by an endowment established through a generous bequest from Martin L. Wachtel, honors early-career investigators who have performed outstanding work in the field of cancer research. Kadoch will deliver a public lecture on her research at the National Institutes of Health, receive a cash award of $25,000 and her award-winning essay will be published in Science Translational Medicine.

Kadoch studies chromatin regulation, with a strong focus on the structure and function of the mammalian SWI/SNF or BAF family of chromatin remodeling complexes in human cancer. Her work has focused, in part, on rare, molecularly well-defined cancers, to understand the role that aberrant chromatin remodeling plays in promoting a wide range of more common cancer types and to inform new therapeutic approaches. 

Kadoch earned her undergraduate degree in molecular and cell biology from the University of California, Berkeley, and her Ph.D. in cancer biology from Stanford University School of Medicine. Kadoch completed her graduate research at the Stanford University School of Medicine and transitioned to her faculty appointment shortly thereafter.

In 2014, she was named to Forbes Magazine’s 30 Under 30 in Science & Healthcare. She is also the recipient of the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award and was recently named a Pew-Stewart Scholar in Cancer Research.