Luke Gilbert, PhD, Assistant Professor, UCSF Urology and 
Goldberg-Benioff Program Chair in Prostate Cancer Translational Biology has been awarded the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Martin and Rose Wachtel Cancer Research Award for 2020.
The award is annually funded by an endowment established through a generous bequest from Martin L. Wachtel to honor early-career investigators who have performed outstanding work in the field of cancer research. Entrants must have received their Ph.D. or M.D. within the last 10 years. Recipients receive an unrestricted cash award of $25,000.
“I am absolutely thrilled to receive this award,” says Dr. Gilbert. “I believe that our research on how genes function to drive cancer phenotypes will lead to new anti-cancer strategies, and, this award will help us prove it.”
The award comes with an invitation to deliver a public lecture on his research. Dr. Gilbert plans to present how his work on a new class of anti-cancer drugs targeting KRAS shows that this exciting class of drugs can be potentiated by combining KRAS inhibitors with other FDA approved drugs to drive synergistic anti-cancer response.
“Cancer is a genetic disease,” says Raj S. Pruthi, MD, MHA, FACS, Professor, Department of Urology. “Dr. Gilbert’s important research develops new methods for understanding how individual genes and sets of genes work together in biology. We are thrilled that he has been recognized for his unique and cutting-edge research and look forward to its future applications.”
Dr. Gilbert’s Award lecture will take place on August 28th during a virtual award ceremony co-hosted by the National Institutes of Health from 12 to 1 pm. Please visit https://american-association-for-the-advancement-of-science.ticketbud.com/aaas-wachtel-award-lecture for more details and event registration.