Cancer Research Institute to Honor Dr. Ananda Goldrath with 2023 Alt Award

New York, October 27, 2023

The Cancer Research Institute (CRI), a nonprofit organization dedicated to harnessing the immune system’s power to control and potentially cure all cancers, will honor Dr. Ananda Goldrath, Executive Vice President and Director, Allen Institute for Immunology with the Frederick W. Alt Award for New Discoveries in Immunology. Dr. Goldrath will receive the award at the 2023 CRI Annual Awards Dinner on Monday, November 6, in New York City.

The Frederick W. Alt award is designated specifically for former CRI postdoctoral fellows to honor their contribution towards research that has had an outsized impact in the field of immunology, either in academia or industry.

The award is named after CRI Scientific Advisory Council member Frederick W. Alt, PhD (Boston Children’s Hospital & Harvard Medical School). Dr. Alt has empowered many emerging, promising scientists in his career, and has made several monumental contributions within the field of immunology.

“The Cancer Research Institute has been supporting the training of young scientists and nurturing careers for decades,” says Dr. Goldrath. “CRI funded my training and research as a fellow and then again when I started my own lab. CRI funds helped us carry out some of our earliest experiments that led to key insights into how to induce ‘memory’ T cells that provide protective immunity and kill tumor cells. To receive the CRI 2023 Frederick W. Alt award for New Discoveries in Immunology is a thrilling honor and reflects the hard work and creativity of many brilliant trainees I have had the privilege of working with over the course of my career.”

Dr. Goldrath has made many critical contributions to the field of immunology. Notably, her lab has revealed a mechanistic understanding of the creation and maintenance of long-lived protective immunity. She is extremely active in the larger science and immunology space, as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Pew Scholar, a Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Fellow, and a member of the Immunological Genome Project.

Additionally, Dr. Goldrath recently joined the Allen Institute for Immunology after nearly two decades at the University of California San Diego where she was a Tata Chancellor’s Professor in the School of Biological Sciences in the Molecular Biology Department and Co-Director of the Program in Immunology.

“Dr. Goldrath’s contributions to the field of immunology epitomize the sort of scientific excellence that CRI seeks in its most exceptional scientists,” says CRI CEO and Director of Scientific Affairs Jill O’Donnell-Tormey, PhD. “Her research on memory T cells has provided valuable insight on how to manipulate the immune system to deliver long lasting immunity against infection and cancer. Such discoveries are not only significant for the immunology field, but they benefit us all.”

CRI is proud to honor Dr. Goldrath with the 2023 Fredrick W. Alt award for New Discoveries in Immunology. The discoveries she has made, and the knowledge she has passed on to scientists that have worked in her lab, go directly towards our goal of creating a world immune to cancer.

About the Cancer Research Institute

The Cancer Research Institute (CRI), established in 1953, is the preeminent U.S. nonprofit organization dedicated exclusively to saving more lives by fueling the discovery and development of powerful immunotherapies for all cancers. Guided by a world-renowned Scientific Advisory Council that includes four Nobel laureates and 33 members of the National Academy of Sciences, CRI has invested over $517 million in support of research conducted by immunologists and tumor immunologists at the world’s leading medical centers and universities and has contributed to many of the key scientific advances that demonstrate the potential for immunotherapy to change the face of cancer treatment. To learn more, go to cancerresearch.org.