Jason D. Howard, a postdoctoral fellow in the 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—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 award, named for entrepreneur and philanthropist John G. Rangos Sr., is designed to encourage students and young scientists and physicians to look at the problem of metastatic cancer and propose creative, "out of the box" treatment strategies.
Participants must be currently enrolled full-time students or trainees at Johns Hopkins, including undergraduate, graduate, and medical students; residents; and fellows.
The annual John G. Rangos Sr. Award program was launched in 2012.
