We are thrilled to announce the winners of the 2024 Ruth Leff Seigel Awards for pancreatic cancer research, Sita Kugel, PhD and Kazuki N. Sugahara, MD, PhD. Each year, The Siegel family entrusts the Pancreas Center to identify the investigator, or team of investigators, who has had the most impactful contribution to the understanding/treatment/advancement of pancreatic cancer. They consider efforts in pancreatic cancer research, including but not limited to basic biology, population biology, public health, and/or translational science. Not only do the winners of the Ruth Leff Siegel Award have a track record of high-quality work in the field, they have also contributed to our understanding of pancreatic cancer in the past year, and will continue to do so in the future.
National Awardee:
Sita Kugel, PhD
Sita Kugel, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Human Biology Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. Dr. Kugel received her B.Sc. from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada and her Ph.D. in Cancer Biology at Karmanos Cancer Institute and Wayne State University Medical School. For her postdoctoral fellowship she joined the laboratory of Dr. Raul Mostoslavsky at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and Harvard Medical School to study the how chromatin modifying enzymes influence pancreas cancer development in mouse models. Since starting her laboratory Dr. Kugel has received a K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award, NCI R01, R37 Merit Award and V Foundation 2018 Scholar award and 2023 Women Scientists Innovation Award for Cancer Research (Translational) award. The central theme of her research group is to study how the dysregulation of chromatin modifying enzymes contribute to pancreatic and biliary cancers and, further, whether these pathways present liabilities that can be exploited for cancer therapy. She is particularly interested in exploring the biology of different transcriptional subtypes of pancreatic cancer and cholangiocarcinoma. How the epigenome influences subtype determination and discovering unifying biological characteristics that define these subtypes, which with deeper understanding could improve patient therapy.
Past National Awardees
- Dr. Pat Gulhati, 2023
- Dr. Ronald A. DePinho, 2022
- Dr. Anirban Maitra, 2021
- Dr. Tannishtha Reya, 2020
- Dr. Tannishtha Reya, 2020
- Dr. Christine Iacobuzio-Donahue, 2019
- Dr. Harvey Risch, 2018
- Dr. George Miller, 2017
- Dr. Raghu Kalluri, 2016
- Dr. Steven Leach, 2015
- Dr. Alex Kimmelman, 2014
- Dr. Ralph Hruban, 2013
CUIMC Awardee:
Kazuki N. Sugahara, MD, PhD
Kazuki N. Sugahara, MD, PhD, is a surgeon scientist at the Pancreas Center of Columbia University specializing in pancreas cancer surgery and research with a focus on peptide-based cancer-targeted drug delivery scaffolds.
Dr. Sugahara started his professional career in Japan. He earned his MD from Shiga University of Medical Science, trained in surgery at Tazuke Kofukai Medical Research Institute Kitano Hospital, and received his PhD in cancer biology and immunology from the Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine. He then moved to the US to join the laboratory of Dr. Erkki Ruoslahti at Burnham Institute for Medical Research (currently Sanford-Burnham-Prebys Medical Discovery Institute) as a Postdoctoral Associate. There, he identified the iRGD tumor-penetrating peptide, which enhances tumor penetration and tumor-specific toxicity of co-injected anti-cancer agents.
After establishing his laboratory at the Burnham Institute, Dr. Sugahara moved to Columbia University to integrate his research with patient care. While running his NIH-funded laboratory to further characterize the iRGD peptide, he completed a general surgery residency program to become a board-certified surgeon in the US. His work during this time greatly facilitated the translation of iRGD. The peptide, under the name of Certepetide, is now in multiple phase 1 and phase 2 clinical trials in the US, Asia, Australia, and EU as a co-injected enhancer of standard-of-care chemotherapy and immunotherapy for various cancers, such as pancreatic cancer, cholangiocarcinoma, and glioblastoma. Dr. Sugahara pursues his endeavor as a surgeon scientist with continued focus on the development of novel approaches to target tumors and modify the tumor microenvironment to achieve enhanced cancer-directed therapy.
Past Columbia University Irving Medical Center Ruth Leff Siegel Awardees
- Dr Fay Kastrinos, 2023
- Dr. Anil K. Rustgi, 2022
- Dr. Lyndon Luk, 2021
- Dr. Iok In Christine Chio, 2020
- Dr. Andrea Califano, 2019
- Dr. John Chabot, 2018
- Dr. Susan Bates, 2017
- Dr. Timothy C. Wang and Professor Jeanine Genkinger, 2016
- Dr. Kenneth Olive, 2015
- Dr. Gloria H. Su, 2014
- Dr. Robert Lance Fine, 2013