Michelson Awards Luncheon Features Rising Stars in Vaccinology & Immunology

On Friday June 3, as part of the Progress in Vaccine Development for Infectious Diseases Keystone Symposia in Breckenridge, Colorado, Michelson Philanthropies will be hosting a special awards luncheon to honor postdoctoral researchers who are forging new frontiers in vaccinology and immunology. The ceremony will feature Dr. Camila Consiglio, Dr. Rong Ma, and Dr. Scott Biering, who were chosen for the innovative nature of their work and potential impact to society, providing powerful new approaches to combat infectious disease threats.  

Michelson Medical Research Foundation (MMRF) supports early career investigators; rebalancing research funding to spur more creativity, innovation, and progress in medical research.

The special luncheon will take place between 11:00am-12:30pm in the Breckenridge Ballroom, and all conference attendees are invited to join, no RSVP required.  The ceremony will honor recipients of the following awards, who are now accepting applicants for next year's crop of rising stars!

Next Generation Grants

•  $150,000 research grants given annually to support promising researchers who are applying disruptive concepts and inventive processes to advance human immunology, vaccine discovery, and immunotherapy research for major global diseases.
• The committee will be looking for research aimed at tackling the current roadblocks that exist in human vaccine development and expanding our limited understanding of key immune processes that are fundamental to successful vaccine and immunotherapy development.
• Applications are currently being accepted through June 22, 2022

Michelson Philanthropies & Science Prize for Immunology

• Awarded annually as one $30,000 grand prize, and two $10,000 finalist awards.
• The prize recognizes transformative research in human immunology, with trans-disease applications to accelerate vaccine and immunotherapeutic discovery.
• Next application deadline: 1 October 2022

Read more about Michelson Prizes and Awardees Below!

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The Michelson Awardees

Find out more about the awardees and their research below. For those unable to attend the conference in person, you watch their recorded SciTalks in the feature videos!

Camila Consiglio, PhD

Michelson Prize Winner: Next Generation Grants

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow, Women's & Children's Health, Karolinska Institutet

Camila Consiglio is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow in the Brodin Lab at the Department of Women's and Children's Health at Karolinska Institutet (KI), Sweden, where she applies systems-level computational approaches to understand human immune function in health and disease. Originally from Brazil, Camila obtained her BS in Biomedicine and MSc in Genetics from Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. She holds a PhD degree in Immunology from Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center (RPCCC), Buffalo, USA.

The overarching goal of Camila’s research is to understand how immune variation contributes to disease in humans. Growing evidence reveals that biological sex is an important driver of immune variability. Camila’s PhD research took advantage of murine models and pharmacological inhibitors to uncover how sex hormones regulate immunity in cancer (RPCCC, USA) and infection (9-month research stay at Institut Pasteur, France). Building on her Ph.D. work, she is now utilizing systems immunology approaches to dissect the contribution of sex hormones to human immune function as a MSCA fellow at KI.

This Keystone Symposia SciTalk was made possible in collaboration with Michelson Philanthropies https://www.michelsonmedicalresearch.org/projects/michelson-philanthropies-and-science-prize-for-immunology

Rong Ma, PhD

Michelson Prizes Winner: Next Generation Grants

Postdoctoral fellow, Department of Chemistry, Emory University

Dr. Rong Ma is a postdoctoral fellow in the Salaita lab at Emory University. Her research focuses on developing DNA-based tools to study mechanobiology, especially in T cells.

This Keystone Symposia SciTalk was made possible in collaboration with Michelson Philanthropies www.michelsonmedicalresearch.org/projects/michelson-philanthropies-and-science-prize-for-immunology

Scott B. Biering, PhD

Michelson Philanthropies & Science Prize for Immunology Finalist

Postdoctoral Scholar, Division of Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley

Scott Biering received undergraduate degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a PhD in microbiology from the University of Chicago. He is currently a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, in the laboratory of Eva Harris. His present research investigates the role of viral proteins like flavivirus nonstructural protein 1 (NS1) and SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) in inducing viral pathogenesis and promoting viral dissemination.

This Keystone Symposia SciTalk was made possible in collaboration with Michelson Philanthropies www.michelsonmedicalresearch.org/projects/michelson-philanthropies-and-science-prize-for-immunology

Hear more from Scott Biering on the Keystone Symposia free ePanel:  Charting the Future of Immunology and Immunotherapy 

Read more about Michelson Philanthropies and Science Prize on the Keypoint Blog HERE