Three members of the HMS faculty have been named Pew Scholars in the Biomedical Sciences by the Pew Charitable Trusts, out of a total of 21 scholars announced nationwide for 2010. The scholars program provides $240,000 over four years and encourages scientists in their early years as assistant professor to pursue innovative research and take calculated risks.
The recipients from HMS are Fernando Camargo, Alexander Gimelbrant and Sun Hur. Camargo, an assistant professor of stem cell and regenerative biology at Children’s Hospital Boston, studies how tumor growth is inhibited within a tissuewide context. Gimelbrant, an assistant professor of pathology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, investigates how establishment of cell identity can be determined by the choice of which allele, maternal or paternal, will be expressed in a given cell lineage. And Sun Hur, assistant professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology, focuses on the functions and mechanisms of several pattern recognition receptors in the immune system that distinguish genetic material from viruses, such as certain Toll-like receptors and RIG-I-like helicases.
