William Hahn is a 2023 Award of Excellence Honoree by Hope Funds

William Hahn, MD, PhD, executive vice president and chief operating officer at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, is one of three exceptional individuals honored by Hope Funds with its 2023 Award of Excellence in the areas of Basic Science and Medicine. The awards will be presented at a ceremony in Newport, RI on July 15, 2023. 

The Award of Excellence honors those who have made outstanding contributions to basic, clinical, and medical research in cancer, or conducted prominent advocacy and philanthropy on behalf of cancer research. In addition to Hahn who received the award for Medicine, the other 2023 honorees are Nathanael Gray, PhD, for Basic Science, and Alexander Varshavsky, PhD, for Basic Science.

"Hope Funds is honoring three outstanding individuals who have made major contributions in basic research and medicine, leading to better understanding of the causes of cancer, and new approaches for treating cancers," said Bryan R.G. Williams, Ph.D., chairman, Hope Funds Board of Trustees. 

Hahn is also the William Rosenberg Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an Institute Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He has made numerous discoveries that have informed our molecular understanding of cancer. His laboratory has pioneered the use of integrated functional genomic approaches to identify and validate cancer targets. The tools, models and approaches that his laboratory has developed are used worldwide to discover and validate molecularly targeted cancer therapies.

Hahn received his AB in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard University in 1987 and his MD and PhD from Harvard Medical School in 1994. Hahn has served as president of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and has been elected to the Association of American Physicians and the National Academy of Medicine.

Hahn has been the recipient of many honors and awards including the Wilson S. Stone Award from M.D. Anderson Cancer Center for outstanding research in cancer (2000), the Ho-Am Prize in Medicine (2010), the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Award from AACR (2015) and the Claire and Richard Morse Award (2019). He has been elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation, American Association of Physicians, the National Academy of Inventors and the National Academy of Medicine.

Honorees who receive this award are nominated through a formal process and selected based on their contributions to the field of cancer research and treatment, their integrity and character, and how they are regarded by their peers.