Cohen Innovation Fund Supporting Two High-Risk, High-Reward Projects
By Aaron Conley
Houra Merrikh, professor of biochemistry, and Teru Nakagawa, associate professor of molecular physiology and biophysics, have both been selected to receive one-year research awards from the Stanley Cohen Innovation Fund. The awards will support groundbreaking and paradigm-shifting research, including Merrikh’s study of the molecular drivers of evolution that enables cancer to develop resistance to drugs and Nakagawa’s study of the biological significance of lipids associated with membrane proteins.
Established through philanthropy in 2019 and named after the late Nobel laureate Stanley Cohen, emeritus professor of biochemistry, the Cohen fund annually supports innovative early-phase research projects that are high risk yet potentially high reward. These awards honor Cohen’s curiosity-driven seminal discoveries in growth factor signaling, which laid the groundwork for our understanding of embryonic and cancer development and led to the invention of numerous anticancer drugs that are still used today. “We’ve arrived at a moment of celebration,” said Larry Marnett, dean of the School of Medicine Basic Sciences. “The Cohen fund has reached our initial goal thanks to contributions from donors and matching institutional investment. This model of co-investment—where donors and departments come together—is propelling some very exciting work here.”
“Drug resistance is among the greatest challenges facing modern medicine,” said Merrikh. “To date, scientific innovation has not succeeded in outpacing evolution. Even with the advent of novel targeted therapeutics and chemotherapies, multidrug resistant cancers are still responsible for over 90% of cancer-related deaths worldwide.” For her project, Merrikh proposes “a fundamental shift in the scientific community’s approach to drug resistance in cancer targeting the molecular mechanisms that promote tumor evolution.”