Harrington Discovery Institute Announces 2023 Scholar-Innovator Award Recipients

10 physician-scientists have been selected for drug development grant to advance discoveries into the clinic

CLEVELAND, April 26, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Harrington Discovery Institute at University Hospitals in Cleveland, Ohio, today announced the 2023 class of Harrington Scholar-Innovators. The scholar awards will support a diverse set of projects including new breakthrough treatments for autoimmune disorders, cancer, heart failure, kidney disease, and severe forms of epilepsy.

Harrington Discovery Institute was established in 2012 to accelerate the development of new treatments to address major unmet needs in medicine and society. Harrington Scholar-Innovators are accomplished physician-scientists whose research demonstrates innovation, creativity and potential for clinical impact. In addition to grant funding, Harrington provides guidance and oversight in drug development, while intellectual property is retained by the scholar and their institution.

Since its founding, Harrington Discovery Institute has supported 165 drugs-in-the-making, 65 institutions, 36 company launches, 19 clinical candidates, and 13 licenses to pharma.

"Now in our second decade, we continue to be inspired by the brilliant science demonstrated in academic labs across the U.S. and Canada. It is an honor to support these extraordinary physician-scientists and their novel medicines-in-the-making that have the potential to significantly improve human health," said Jonathan S. Stamler, MD, President, Harrington Discovery Institute, Robert S. and Sylvia K. Reitman Family Foundation Distinguished Professor of Cardiovascular Innovation and Professor of Medicine and of Biochemistry at University Hospitals and Case Western Reserve University.

In addition to grant funding and tailored drug development guidance, Harrington Scholar-Innovators have the opportunity to access acceleration funds up to $300,000 and to qualify for mission-related investment funds typically up to $2 million. Scholars also have facilitated access to Harrington's mission-aligned commercial entities, the Advent-Harrington Impact Fund and BioMotiv, and to its charitable partner Morgan Stanley GIFT Cures.

The 2023 Harrington Scholar-Innovator Award recipients, their organizations and fields of research are:

Kirk Campbell, MD – Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Novel therapeutics for proteinuric kidney disease

Jacques Galipeau, MD – University of Wisconsin, Madison 
Curative treatment for type 1 diabetes

Won Jin Ho, MD – Johns Hopkins University
Novel treatment to enhance antitumor immunity

Maximillian Konig, MD – Johns Hopkins University
T-cell therapies for antiphospholipid syndrome, a rare autoimmune disorder

Berge Minassian, MD – UT Southwestern
New therapy for the fatal teenage-onset epilepsy, Lafora disease

Michael Pacold, MD, PhD – New York University
A drug for pancreatic cancer

Anthony Rosenzweig, MD – University of Michigan
Nucleic acid therapy for heart failure

Jeffrey Schelling, MD – Case Western Reserve University
Novel drug to treat diabetic kidney disease

Ming-Ru Wu, MD, PhD – Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Treating melanoma via the body's own immune system

Timothy Yu, MD, PhD – Boston Children's Hospital
Personalized therapies for epileptic encephalopathies

Harrington Discovery Institute is now accepting Letters of Intent for the 2024 Harrington Scholar-Innovator Award. The deadline to submit a brief Letter of Intent is June 5, 2023. The full application deadline, for those invited to submit, is August 7, 2023. Learn more and apply to the 2024 Scholar-Innovator Award at HarringtonDiscovery.org/Scholar-Innovators.

SOURCE Harrington Discovery Institute