2026 Research Paper Prize Competition
2026 Medical Student Research Paper Prize Recipients
Abramson Cancer Center basic science research prize – Samuel Kim
Title: CD4+ T Cells Mediate MHC-Deficient Tumor Rejection and Endothelial Cell Reprogramming
Abramson Cancer Center clinical/translational research prize – Daniel Chafamo
Title: The critical role of the host endogenous immune compartment after intracerebroventricular CAR T cell therapy in recurrent GBM
AI and Informatics in Medicine – John Lin
Title: Benefit-Risk Reporting for FDA-Cleared Artificial Intelligence–Enabled Medical Devices
Balduin Lucke Memorial Prize – Nicolas Marzolini
Title: Targeting DNA-LNPs to Endothelial Cells Improves Expression Magnitude, Duration, and Specificity
Celso-Ramon Garcia Award for Outstanding Women’s Health Research – Krithika Kuppusamy
Title: Early Pharmacologic Therapy Patterns and Outcomes in Peripartum Cardiomyopathy: Insights from a Patient-Reported Registry
Clinical Epidemiology Research Prize – Kriyana Reddy
Title: Inter- and Intra-facility Price Variation for Outpatient Percutaneous Coronary Intervention
Creskoff Prize – Julia Chini
Title: CD9 regulates macrophage-mediated remodeling of adipose tissue in obesity
David B. P. Goodman Award – Ivy Han
Title: Changes in Cardiac Function in Patients Receiving Radiation Therapy for Lung Cancer
Edward Raffensperger Research Prize – Sophia Spiegel
Title: Colorectal neoplasia rates in Li Fraumeni Syndrome
Gail Morrison Prize – David Isaacs
Title: Virtual Reality: The New Frontier of Orthopaedic Medical Student Education
George W. Householder, III Memorial Prize – Claire Zhang
Title: Proteomic and morphologic perturbations in the human heart across a spectrum of coronary artery disease
George W. Householder, III Memorial Prize – Kaitlyn Shen
Title: The Cytoskeleton Drives Abnormal Chromatin-Lamina Interactions In Lmna-Deficient Cardiomyocytes
ITMAT Prize for Clinical/Translational Research – Maggie Pecsok
Title: Characterizing Spatial Associations Between GluCEST MRI and Neurotransmitter Receptor Density in the Human Cortex
John G. Clark Prize – Zachary Gardner
Title: Genome folding and nuclear speckles converge to orchestrate fibroblast activation
John G. Clark Prize – Diane Rafizadeh
Title: Collagen mimetic macrocycles self-assemble into highly thermally stabilized multimeric complexes
John Pryor Award for Trauma Research – Lance Murphy
Title: CD14-deficiency protects against osteoarthritic subchondral bone 1 sclerosis via enhanced 2 osteoclastogenesis following joint injury
John R. Stanley Research Prize for Dermatology – Varshini Babu
Title: Discordance in Treatment Response Assessment Between Clinicians and Patients With Skin Chronic Graft-vs-Host Disease
John R. Stanley Research Prize for Dermatology – Nina Kuprasertkul
Title: LSD1 inhibition unlocks retinoid AP-1 programming to activate epithelial immunity and suppress skin cancer
Jonathan Rhoads Prize for Surgical Scholarship – Jeffrey Huang
Title: Machine Learning Based Prediction of Hospitalist Consult Appropriateness in Total Joint Arthroplasty
Jonathan Rhoads Prize for Surgical Scholarship – Elizabeth Bernstein
Title: Inhibition of Fibroblast Activation Protein Partially Restores the Homeostatic Phenotype of Mechanoactivated Synoviocytes
Jonathan Rhoads Prize for Surgical Scholarship – Jacob Jordan
Title: A Novel Targeted Model of Congenital Scoliosis in the Developing Chicken Embryo
Leonard Davis Institute’s William L. Kissick, MD, DrPH, Health Policy Research Prize – Anant Mishra
Title: Estimated undertreatment of carbapenem-resistant infections in eight large low- and middle-income countries: A modelling study
Marc Levine Radiology Research Award – Michael Yao
Title: Evaluating Acute Image-Ordering for Real-World Patient Cases via Language Model Alignment with Radiological Guidelines
Mary Ellis Bell Prize – Jeremy Morrissette
Title: The innate cytokine IL-18 inhibits CNS autoimmunity through preferential activation of protective CD8 T-cells
Mary Ellis Bell Prize – Sam Barnett Dubensky
Title: Multimodal analysis defines GNG4 as a distinguishing feature of germinal center-positioned CD4 T follicular helper cells in humans
Neurosurgery Research Prize – Shreya Mehta
Title: Social Vulnerability and Its Relationship to Fetal Surgery for Myelomeningocele
Neurosurgery Research Prize – Jonathan Sussman
Title: A longitudinal single-cell and spatial multiomic 1 atlas of pediatric high-grade glioma
O. H. Perry Pepper Prize – Nolan Kavanaugh
Title: The Effects of Educational Opportunities on Alcohol Consumption: Evidence from Mandatory Schooling Reforms
O. H. Perry Pepper Prize – Kathleen Krauss
Title: An mRNA platform to create isolated, monospecific Th1 responses
O. H. Perry Pepper Prize – Sam McCright
Title: Dietary saturated fatty acids promote lung myeloid cell inflammasome activation and IL-1β–mediated inflammation in mice and humans
Orthopaedic Research Prize – Ryan Turlip
Title: Predicting Acetabular Augment Usage in Revision Total Hip Arthroplasty: A Machine Learning Approach
Pediatric Research Prize – Kimberly Wei
Title: Safety and Efficacy of Systemic Corticosteroids in Children with Orbital Complications of Acute Sinusitis
Peterman-Arnold Award for Endocrinology – Catherine Shen
Title: Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonists Are Not Associated With an Increased Risk of Bullous Pemphigoid
Pulmonary Research Prize – Lancelot Herpin
Title: Factors influencing aspirin therapy after desensitization (ATAD) tolerance in aspirin-exacerbated respiratory disease (AERD) patients
Renal Research Prize – David Zhang
Title: Protein-truncating variant in APOL3 increases chronic kidney disease risk in epistasis with APOL1 risk alleles
Richard K. Root Prize for Infectious Disease Research – Sam Garfinkle
Title: Machine learning enables de novo multiepitope design of Plasmodium falciparum circumsporozoite protein to target trimeric L9 antibody
Richard K. Root Prize for Infectious Disease Research – Andrew Nelson
Title: Machine learning enables de novo multiepitope design of Plasmodium falciparum circumsporozoite protein to target trimeric L9 antibody
Robert M. Toll Prize – Shreya Parchure
Title: Predicting Post-Stroke Aphasia Speech Performance from Multimodal Data with Explainable Machine Learning
Rose Meadow Levinson Memorial Prize – Kyle Polen
Title: Cigarette Smoke Exposure Attenuates T2R-Mediated Apoptosis in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma
Rose Meadow Levinson Memorial Prize – Helen Molteni
Title: Small molecule screen identifies elafibranor to link mechanical cues and IRF6-dependent epithelial differentiation
Roy G. Williams Award – Maggie Tamburro
Title: Loss of Type III Collagen has Limited Effect on Tendon Healing in Young Adult Mice
Roy G. Williams Award – Rachit Kumar
Title: CASTER-DTA: Equivariant Graph Neural Networks for Predicting Drug-Target Affinity
Stuart L. Fine Ophthalmology Medical Student Research Prize – Ha-Neul Yu
Title: Ophthalmic conditions in patients with multiple sclerosis
Stuart L. Fine Ophthalmology Medical Student Research Prize – Royce Dong
Title: Artifact-free, colocalized opto-electrophysiology enabled by a flexible, multimodal interface integrating transparent MXene microelectrodes and microLEDs
The Masters of Science in Health Policy Research Medical Student Award in Community Engagment & Health Equity Research – Maxim Yaskolko
Title: Disparities in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) by age, sex, and race: a systematic review and meta-analysis of immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) trials
The Masters of Science in Health Policy Research Medical Student Award in Innovation & Implementation Research – Eren Kafadar
Title: Conditional-longitudinal brain growth charts detect MRI changes with birth weight and psychopathology
William F. Jeffers Prize – Ethan Fein
Title: The innate thermogenic capacity of brown adipose tissue develops independently of sympathetic signaling