JHU postdoctoral fellow wins Rangos Award for cancer vaccine proposal

Jason D. Howard, a postdoctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, has been named the 2013 recipient of the John G. Rangos, Sr., Award for Creativity in Cancer Discovery for his proposal to create vaccines designed to help the immune system fight cancerous tumors.

Image caption: Jason Howard

Howard aims to build on the success of the preventive vaccine against human papillomavirus, or HPV, the cause of cervical cancer and several head and neck cancers, and train the body's immune system to mount a response against cancer that has spread.

Howard received the first-place award of $25,000. Other finalists were Ashwin Ram (second place, $12,500), Hogan Tang (third place, $6,250), Sylvie Stacy (fourth place, $3,150), and Xiaochuan Yang (fifth place, $1,500).

The Rangos Award, named for entrepreneur and philanthropist John G. Rangos, Sr., is awarded annually to individuals with new and innovative approaches to metastatic cancer research and treatment. It was created to inspire original ideas and innovative approaches to determine why some cancers are treatable, but others are not.

Participants must be currently enrolled full-time students and trainees at The Johns Hopkins University, including undergraduate, graduate, medical students, residents, and fellows.