Eirini Papapetrou, MD, PhD, in her laboratory at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Eirini Papapetrou, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Oncological Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, has won the Pershing Square Sohn Prize for Young Investigators in Cancer Research for her work using stem cells and genome editing to study blood disorders and uncover new therapeutic options.
Dr. Papapetrou was among six researchers to receive the award earlier this year from the nonprofit Pershing Square Sohn Alliance for Cancer Research. All are based in New York and have spent at least two years running their own laboratories. Her laboratory will receive $200,000 yearly for the next three years.
“I am very pleased that Dr. Papapetrou has been recognized by Pershing Square Sohn for her important work,” says Ramon E. Parsons, MD, PhD, Ward-Coleman Chair in Cancer Research, Professor of Oncological Sciences, and Director of The Tisch Cancer Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Watch a video of Dr. Papapetrou
Dr. Papapetrou is among pioneers turning human cells into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, which are reprogrammed to behave like embryonic stem cells so that they can form any kind of adult cell. Combining that breakthrough technology with CRISPR gene editing, her laboratory performs a range of experiments, including creating models of cancer mutations.
Cell cultures from patients with blood cancer, which the Papapetrou Laboratory converts into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells that can be used to test the effects of drugs.
She says: “We take cells from patients who have cancers of the blood, and we convert them in the lab into iPS cells, which we then use to study their disease and to test the effects of drugs on specific mutations.”
“I envision a new era of cancer research,” Dr. Papapetrou says, “in which human iPS cells will be a valuable tool in the armamentarium of the modern cancer researcher.”