Yale scientist Mandar Deepak Muzumdar has been named a recipient of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s New Innovator Award.
An assistant professor of genetics and of medical oncology, and faculty member of the Yale Cancer Biology Institute, Muzumdar is one of 60 scientists to receive the prestigious New Innovator Award in 2019. He receives a total of $1.5 million over five years to support the project “Defining Tumor Cell and Host Adaptations in Cancer Progression.”
Muzumdar’s lab studies the mechanisms by which genetic and environmental factors contribute to cancer initiation, progression, and maintenance.
Leveraging a combination of sophisticated genetically-engineered cell and animal models, he seeks to define the molecular basis for tumor cell and host adaptations that drive cancer progression. The lab uses genetic and pharmacologic approaches combined with novel nanoparticle-based delivery methods to augment or impede these adaptations and determine the consequences on cancer development in these models.
“Receiving the NIH New Innovator Award will help advance our work to define the molecular drivers of cancer progression. Ultimately we hope to identify novel approaches for cancer prevention and treatment,” said Muzumdar.
Part of the High-Risk, High-Reward Research program, the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award supports exceptionally creative early career investigators who propose innovative, high-impact projects in the biomedical, behavioral or social sciences within the NIH mission.
“I am delighted that Mandar has received this highly coveted award,” said Mark Lemmon, Director of the Yale Cancer Biology Institute (YCBI). “The Director’s New Innovator Award will enable the kind of novel research that we need to make cellular and molecular links across multiple cancers.”
Muzumdar graduated from Harvard College and received his Doctorate of Medicine from the Stanford University School of Medicine. He completed his internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a fellowship in Medical Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital. Muzumdar completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before joining the YCBI faculty in 2017.
Contact: jon.atherton@yale.edu