Three Investigators Named Winners of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center’s 2025 Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) will award three influential cancer researchers with this year's Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research. The prize, named in honor of former MSK president Paul Marks, MD, recognizes a new generation of leaders who are making significant contributions to the understanding of cancer or are improving the treatment of the disease. The winners will share a cash award of $150,000 and will present their work at a symposium held at MSK on December 4, 2025.

The winners of the 2025 Paul Marks Prize are Omar Abdel-Wahab, MD, of MSK; Andrea Ablasser, MD, of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL); and Christina Curtis, PhD, MSc, of Stanford Medicine. 

"All three of these winners embody the spirit of Dr. Paul Marks: Each has led remarkable research that is deeply grounded in scientific rigor and at the same time has a significant impact on how we care for cancer patients," said Selwyn M. Vickers, MD, MSK's President and CEO. "We are especially proud that this year we are honoring one of our own - Dr. Omar Abdel-Wahab."

This is the first time since 2003 that the Marks Prize has been awarded to someone from MSK.

The awardees were selected by a committee of prominent members of the cancer research community, chaired by Kimryn Rathmell, MD, CEO of the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center.

About the Recipients

Omar Abdel-Wahab, MD

Omar Abdel-Wahab, MD, is an Attending Physician on the Leukemia Service at MSK and Chair of the Molecular Pharmacology Program in the Sloan Kettering Institute (SKI). He is also a Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College and holds the Evnin Family Molecular Pharmacology Chair at MSK. He was recently named a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

As a leukemia specialist and physician-scientist, Dr. Abdel-Wahab treats patients and studies the functional implications of mutations frequently found in blood cancers. Much of his work focuses on the role of genes that regulate RNA splicing, a key function in the manufacture of proteins inside cells. Mutations in splicing genes are commonly found in blood cancers and can cause defective proteins that drive cancer.

Dr. Abdel-Wahab's discoveries have led to the development of new therapies for treating blood cancers, including several drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as well as targeted drugs that are now in early-stage clinical trials. Some of Dr. Abdel-Wahab's research has the potential to create new approaches for using immunotherapy to treat cancer as well.

Dr. Abdel-Wahab earned undergraduate and medical degrees from Duke University.

Visit Dr. Abdel-Wahab's physician page and his laboratory page at MSK.

Andrea Ablasser, MD

Andrea Ablasser, MD, is a full professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL). She is also scientific cofounder of the biopharmaceutical company IFM Due, which was acquired by Novartis in 2024.

She is internationally known for her discoveries that helped to elucidate the cGAS/STING pathway, a key component of the innate immune system. This pathway is one of the ways in which the immune system distinguishes between "self" and "nonself." It plays an important role in cancer and inflammatory diseases.

In particular, Dr. Ablasser is known for identifying the messenger molecule cGAMP, which is produced in response to rogue DNA inside cells and which activates STING. Her later discovery of molecules that inhibit STING have led to a new class of drugs for the treatment of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. This work has also helped to drive the development of novel immunotherapy approaches for cancer.

A native of Germany, Dr. Ablasser earned an MD from Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich.

Visit Dr. Ablasser's webpage at EPFL.

Christina Curtis, PhD, MSc

Christina Curtis, PhD, MSc, is the RZ Cao Professor of Medicine, Genetics, and Biomedical Data Science and the senior vice chair for research in the Department of Medicine at the Stanford School of Medicine. She is also director of artificial intelligence and cancer genomics and of breast cancer translational research at the Stanford Cancer Institute, and an investigator in the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub.

She is being recognized for innovative computational biology approaches that have led to a new understanding of tumor evolution. Her "Big Bang" model of tumor growth fundamentally shifted the understanding of tumorigenesis and provided a new framework for understanding the drivers and dynamics of metastatic colorectal cancer.

Dr. Curtis' later work defining breast cancer subgroups has shaped the development of new biomarkers and treatments for patients with a high risk of disease relapse. Through the use of artificial intelligence-powered models to understand each patient's individual disease, her work is powering new clinical trials that have greatly advanced the field of precision oncology.

Dr. Curtis earned a BS at the University of California, Los Angeles; an MSc at the University of Heidelberg in Germany; and MS and PhD degrees at the University of Southern California.

Visit Dr. Curtis' lab webpage at Stanford Medicine.

Celebrating a Visionary Leader in Cancer Research

Honoring the legacy of the late Paul A. Marks, MD - a distinguished scientist and leader who served as President of MSK for nearly two decades - the Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research recognizes early- and midcareer investigators who have made significant contributions to increasing the understanding of cancer.

The prize is awarded every other year to up to three investigators. Since it was first presented in 2001, the award has recognized 40 scientists and awarded a total of $1.8 million in prize money.

Dr. Marks served as President and CEO of MSK from 1980 to 1999. He died in 2020.

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