2027 Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Prize Now Accepting Applications

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance (PSSCRA) announced the opening of applications for the 2027 Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Prize. The grant of $250,000 per year for three years is awarded annually to empower researchers to pursue novel, high-risk/high-reward cancer research at a stage when traditional funding is lacking.

“We are delighted to open applications for the 2027 Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Prize,” said Bill Ackman, Co-Trustee of The Pershing Square Foundation. “Our past winners have shown what talented scientists can accomplish when given the resources to pursue their best ideas. We look forward to reviewing proposals from across the country and supporting the next generation of scientists working to cure cancer.”

Applicants must have between two and six years of experience running their own laboratories by the award start date (July 2027), hold a PhD, MD, or MD-PhD (or equivalent), and be affiliated with a nonprofit research institution in the United States. The deadline to submit an application is October 26^th at 5:00pm ET. For more details on PSSCRA and the application process, including the full eligibility criteria and a link to the application platform, please visit: https://pershingsquarephilanthropies.org/initiatives/programs/PSSCRA/.

Now providing funding and support for 90 investigators at 24 research institutions, the highly competitive Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Prize underwrites the bold research of cancer scientists at a formative stage in their careers. In order to facilitate collaboration and innovation, Prize winners are given access to leaders in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries and the opportunity to present their work to scientific, business, and philanthropic audiences.

“The Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Prize is built on a belief in the power of exceptional scientists. When their most ambitious ideas need support, we aim to accelerate discoveries and change the future of cancer treatment,” remarked Olivia Tournay Flatto, PhD, President of The Pershing Square Foundation and Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance. “We are deeply grateful to our extraordinary review board for their expertise and vision in recognizing the researchers who are pushing the field forward.”

“Receiving the Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Prize meant a great deal to me and my lab. It came at a pivotal moment when our discoveries revealed a new way to control immune-cell behavior, showing therapeutic potential and exposing a largely uncharted dimension of cellular sensing that we realized we could map and engineer,” noted Livnat Jerby, PhD, 2026 Prize winner and Assistant Professor at Stanford University. “PSSCRA recognized both the immediate and larger opportunity, and their support has been invaluable. We are incredibly excited to pursue this work and honored to be part of this community of scientists and innovators.”

“New technologies rarely come from safe experiments,” said Robbie Majzner, MD, 2026 Prize winner and Associate Professor at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. “The Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Prize gives my lab room to take risks and to build tools and platforms that do not yet exist. Those ideas are already driving the most ambitious work we do, and we believe they will lead to new therapies for children and adults with cancer.”

“It is hard to overstate how positively my lab has been impacted by this award. We were able to develop new expertise around adipocytes, melanoma cells, lipid metabolism, and epigenetics,” remarked 2017 Prize winner Richard White, MD, PhD, Professor at the University of Oxford (formerly Memorial Sloan Kettering). “But equally important, the Prize also helped support other seemingly tangential projects in the lab, which led to very fundamental insights about cancer and numerous high impact publications. It is the freedom to explore, and go where the science takes you, that I consider the true mark of a great program like the Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Prize.” Since concluding his project, Dr. White has actively participated in PSSCRA’s application process as a member of the Scientific Review Council.

About the Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance

The Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance was formed in 2013 by The Pershing Square Foundation, which has since committed more than $58 million to 90 scientists, in partnership with The Sohn Conference Foundation. The Alliance is dedicated to playing a catalytic role in accelerating cures for cancer by supporting innovative cancer research and by facilitating collaborations between academia and industry. Annually, the Alliance awards the Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Prize to early-career scientists who are engaged in cutting-edge cancer research. For more information, visit http://psscra.org/.

About The Pershing Square Foundation

The Pershing Square Foundation is a family foundation established in 2006 to support exceptional leaders and innovative organizations that tackle important issues and deliver scalable and sustainable global impact. Pershing Square Philanthropies, which includes The Pershing Square Foundation, has committed more than $1 billion in grants and investments in target areas including health and medicine, education, economic development and innovation. Bill Ackman and Neri Oxman are co-trustees of the Foundation. For more information, visit: http://pershingsquarephilanthropies.org.

About The Sohn Conference Foundation

The Sohn Conference Foundation supports cutting-edge medical research, state-of-the-art research equipment, and innovative programs. The Foundation raises its funds through the renowned Sohn Investment Conference in New York City and a number of premier investment conferences around the world.

The Sohn Conference Foundation honors the memory of Ira Sohn, a talented Wall Street professional whose life was cut short when he passed away from cancer at the age of 29. Ira’s friends and family founded The Sohn Conference Foundation in New York City in 1995. Since then, investment leaders from across the globe have been inspired to launch partner Sohn conferences and unite the financial community to support a number of charitable causes. To date, The Sohn Conference series has raised over $150 million. More information on The Sohn Conference Foundation is available at www.sohnconference.org.