Andrea Ablasser wins Coley Award
Andrea Ablasser. Credit: EPFL - Alain Herzog
EPFL Professor Andrea Ablasser is among the winners of the 2020 William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic and Tumor Immunology, given by the Cancer Research Institute.
Each year, the Cancer Research Institute (CRI) gives the Coley Award to one or more scientists “for seminal discoveries in the field of basic immunology and cancer immunology.” It was established in 1975 in honor of Dr. William B. Coley, a pioneer of cancer immunotherapy.
Winners receive an honorary medal and $5,000 prize.
In an announcement, the CRI has revealed the five awardees for the 2020 Coley Award. Among them is Professor Andrea Ablasser at EPFL’s School of Life Sciences.
The winners are being recognized “for their individual contributions to the discovery and characterization of the cGAS-STING pathway, an important component of the innate immune system that currently is being utilized in the development of novel immunotherapies against cancer.” The award will be presented by 2018 Nobel Laureate and CRI Scientific Advisory Council Director James P. Allison, Ph.D.
“I am deeply honored to receive this year’s Coley Award along with my esteemed colleagues,” says Andrea Ablasser. “It is an enormous recognition of our contributions to understand the cGAS-STING pathway, a fundamental mechanism of immunity.”