SITC 2016 Award Recipients

The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer’s (SITC) 31^st Award Ceremony celebrates the achievements of current and future leaders in the cancer immunotherapy field.

The work of these dedicated individuals that include young investigators and luminaries in the field seeks to propel the field forward and build a solid foundation for future advances and soon, a cure. Click here to download the PDF program for the Award Ceremony (the program does not include the Presidential Award winner).

2016 SITC Presidential Travel Awards

These recipients’ abstracts were the top scoring among those submitted for the Annual Meeting by young investigators based on quality of research, excellence in results and methods, and the potential of their work to advance the field. Of the four recipients pictured below, one will be selected to receive the SITC Presidential Travel Award.

Established in 1991, the SITC Presidential Travel Award is the most prestigious Young Investigator Award and recognizes the young investigator deemed to have the most outstanding oral abstract presentation among those delivered in the Presidential Session of the SITC Annual Meeting. The recipient will be announced at the end of tonight’s ceremony.

Jonathan Peled, MD, PhD Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center	David Woods, PhD NYU Langone Medical Center
Nicole Scharping University of Pittsburgh	Roberta Zappasodi, PhD Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Of the four travel award recipients, the individual who was honored with the SITC Presidential Award was ...

SITC Presidential Award

Roberta Zappasodi, PhD Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

2016 Richard V. Smalley, MD Memorial Lectureship Award 

About the Smalley Award 

As one of the society’s charter members, Richard V. Smalley, MD was an integral part of the SITC fabric from its inception. Dr. Smalley served on the original Board of Directors from 1984-1990, where he also served as the society’s third President from 1988 – 1990, leading the society through some of its most formative years. SITC’s success is due in large part to the consummate dedication and leadership of Richard V. Smalley, MD.

Established in 2005, the Richard V. Smalley, MD Memorial Lectureship Award is presented each year to a luminary in the field that has significantly contributed to the advancement of cancer immunotherapy research. The award serves to honor those that have been pioneers in their work and have made a notable impact worthy of high regard and recognition by their peers.

SITC is proud to recognize Suzanne L. Topalian, MD; Professor, Surgery and Oncology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Director, Melanoma Program, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center as the 2016 Richard V. Smalley, MD Memorial Lectureship Award recipient. 

About Dr. Topalian 

Dr. Topalian received her medical degree from the Tufts University School of Medicine and completed a general surgery residency at the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia. She was a research fellow and subsequently a Senior Investigator in the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health. She joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 2006 to direct the Melanoma Program in the Kimmel Cancer Center. Dr. Topalian is a physician-scientist whose studies of human antitumor immunity have provided a foundation for the translational development of cancer vaccines, adoptive T cell transfer, and immunomodulatory monoclonal antibodies. Her current research focuses on manipulating immune checkpoints such as PD-1 in cancer therapy, and discovering biomarkers predicting clinical outcomes. 

Honors & Affiliations

Dr. Suzanne Topalian was named one of Nature’s 10 in 2014, and received the Karnofsky Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology in 2015. Her work has opened new avenues of scientific investigation in cancer immunology and immunotherapy, and has established this modality as a treatment approach in oncology.

2016 Collaborative Awards

NCI Immunotherapy Fellowship 

This award, co-sponsored by the NCI Center for Cancer Research and SITC and made possible in part by an educational grant from EMD-Serono, provided a young investigator with an opportunity to further their education and experience in the field of cancer immunotherapy.

The fellow will have exposure to multiple clinical immunotherapeutic approaches, and also to key opinion leaders in the field of clinical immunotherapy during this one year program at the CCR in Bethesda, MD.

Julius Strauss, MD National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health

SITC-MRA Young Investigator Award 

Developed in collaboration with the Melanoma Research Alliance (MRA), the SITC-MRA Young Investigator Award aims to attract early career scientists with novel ideas into melanoma research, thereby recruiting and supporting the next generation of melanoma leaders.

Ping-Chih Ho, PhD University of Lausanne, Switzerland

“Immunometabolic editing facilitates immune evasion in melanomas”

2016 Connect-a-Colleague Top Referrer

Launched in November 2015, The Connect-A-Colleague campaign is designed to encourage members to personally reach out and invite potential members to join the society. An online tool was created for members to refer multiple potential members at a time. New members are also encouraged to indicate SITC members who referred them for membership. Nearly 200 SITC members have participated in the campaign, referring 34% of all new members. This year’s recipient has personally referred nearly half of the members in SITC’s new member category: Nurse and Physician Extender. 

This year's recipient:

Laura S. Wood, RN, MSN, OCN Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute

2016 SITC Abstract Travel Awards

Created in 2007, the SITC Abstract Travel Award highlights promising young investigators who submitted high-scoring abstracts to the SITC Annual Meeting, based on the quality of their research and potential to advance the field.

The following are the recipients of the 2016 SITC Abstract Travel Awards:

Ephraim A. Ansa-Addo, PhD, MSB Medical University of South Carolina	Cristina Bergamaschi, PhD National Cancer Institute
Tullia C. Bruno, PhD University of Pittsburgh	Fanny Chapelin, MS University of California San Diego
Natalie Collins, MD, PhD Dana-Farber Cancer Institute	Cara Haymaker, PhD University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Tyler Hulett Providence Cancer Center	Michael Klichinsky, PharmD Center for Cellular Immunotherapies University of Pennsylvania
Daniel Landi, MD Center for Gene & Cell Therapy Baylor College of Medicine	Thomas Mace, PhD Ohio State University
Kathleen M. Mahoney, MD, PhD Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute	Adam W. Mailloux, PhD H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center
Melinda Mata, PhD Center for Gene & Cell Therapy Baylor College of Medicine	Alessandra Metelli Medical University of South Carolina
Nicholas Minutolo University of Pennsylvania	John Mullinax, MD H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center
Sukhmani K. Padda, MD Stanford University School of Medicine	Jonathan Schoenfeld, MD, MPH Brigham and Women’s Hospital Dana-Farber Cancer Center
Tala Shekarian UCBL1 Centre Léon Bérard	John-William Sidhom Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Stefani Spranger, PhD University of Chicago	Randy F. Sweis, MD University of Chicago
Marie-Nicole Theodoraki, MD University of Pittsburgh	Katy Tsai, MD University of California San Francisco
Claire VanpouilleBox, PhD Weill Cornell Medicine	Jessica Wenthe Uppsala University
Jason B. Williams University of Chicago

2016 Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer Best Paper Awards

The JITC Best Paper Awards celebrate excellence in scientific research and are awarded to researchers demonstrating leadership in the field as well as innovation and high-quality execution and discussion in their manuscripts. Papers published in the last 12 months authored by SITC members were eligible for nomination for this award.

JITC Best Basic Science Research Paper

Articles nominated in this category present innovative research in basic medical sciences that have a direct relevance to future research in clinical medicine.

The recipient is: 

Katherine Woods, PhD Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute

“Mismatch in epitope specificities between IFN γ inflamed and uninflamed conditions leads to escape from T lymphocyte killing in melanoma” 

Katherine Woods, Ashley J. Knights, Matthew Anaka, Ralf B. Schittenhelm, Anthony W. Purcell, Andreas Behren and Jonathan Cebon Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer 2016, 4:10 (16 February 2016)

JITC Best Clinical/Translational Research Paper 

Papers in this category present clinical research that has a clear potential to optimize patient care, with particular emphasis on high quality randomized controlled trials, novel combination treatments, therapies, novel diagnostic or prognostic insights and new insights into mechanism of action.

Presented to First Authors

Zipei Feng Oregon Health & Science University

Sachin Puri, PhD MedImmune

“Multispectral imaging of formalin-fixed tissue predicts ability to generate tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes from melanoma”

Zipei Feng, Sachin Puri, Tarsem Moudgil, William Wood, Clifford C. Hoyt, Chichung Wang, Walter J. Urba, Brendan D. Curti, Carlo B. Bifulco and Bernard A. Fox Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer 2015, 3:47 (20 October 2015)

2016 Cancer Immunotherapy Fellowship Awards 

SITC is proud to announce the recipients of the SITC 2016 Cancer Immunotherapy Fellowship Awards. The Fellowship Award program was established through SITC’s Forward Fund to support the development of young investigators in the field in order to cultivate the next generation of cancer immunotherapy experts.

SITC would like to thank AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, EMD-Serono, Genentech, NCI Center for Cancer Research, and the Melanoma Research Alliance (MRA) who helped to make these awards possible.

SITC-AstraZeneca Cancer Immunotherapy Clinical Fellowship in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) Recipient

Miguel F. Sanmamed, MD, PhD Yale University 

“Identifying primary and acquired resistance mechanisms to PD-1/PD-L1 pathway blockade in non-small cell lung cancer patients using immune-patient-derived xenograft model”

SITC-Bristol-Myers Squibb Cancer Immunotherapy Translational Fellowship Recipient 

Benjamin Izar, MD, PhD Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

 “Dissecting the role of tissue-specific anti-tumor immunity following PD-1 blockade”

SITC-EMD Serono Cancer Immunotherapy Clinical Fellowship Recipient

Eric L. Smith, MD, PhD Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

“Investigating and manipulating the interplay between the tumor microenvironment and Chimeric Antigen Receptor T cell therapy to generate durable remissions in multiple myeloma”

SITC-Genentech Postdoctoral Cancer Immunotherapy Basic Fellowship in Related Biomarkers Recipient

Ada G. Blidner, MSc, PhD Immunopathology Laboratory, Institute of Biology and Experimental Medicine, Argentina

“Unraveling the role of the galectin-1/glycan axis in T cell exhaustion and resistance to cancer immunotherapy”

SITC-Genentech Postdoctoral Cancer Immunotherapy Clinical Fellowship in Related Biomarkers/Mechanism of Action (MOA) Recipient

Claire F. Friedman, MD Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

“The tumor immune microenvironment and response to CTLA-4 blockade in PD-1 refractory metastatic melanoma”