We are excited to announce Dr. Nada Kalaany of Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School as the winner of the 2020 Armen H. Tashjian Jr. Award for Excellence in Endocrine Research.
This award was established to recognize scholars early in their careers who are pursuing novel areas of discovery in endocrine and related areas of research. The committee is comprised of Sudha Biddinger, MD, Ph.D.; David E. Golan, MD, Ph.D.; Gökhan S. Hotamışlıgil, MD, Ph.D.; Brendan D. Manning, Ph.D.; Yu-Hua Tseng, Ph.D.
Nada Kalaany completed her Ph.D. at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, where she identified a role for the nuclear hormone receptors “LXRs” in regulating fat metabolism. As a post-doctoral fellow at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, she demonstrated that tumor sensitivity to dietary restriction can be modulated by the activation status of the oncogenic pathway PI3K/AKT. Dr. Kalaany is currently an Associate Professor at Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, where her lab focuses on investigating the reciprocal interaction between systemic metabolism and cancer, with the goal of identifying metabolic vulnerabilities in tumors under distinct systemic metabolic states.
Professor of Toxicology, Emeritus, and former chair of the then-named Department of Molecular and Cellular Toxicology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Armen Tashjian was celebrated for his neuroendocrine research, contributing to a life-saving test for a pre-cancerous condition associated with inherited thyroid cancer and playing a key role in the development of two drugs for the treatment and prevention of osteoporosis. Dr. Tashjian’s legacy includes influential contributions to the field of endocrine research, encouragement, and teaching of fellows and students, his unique ability to ask questions that are thought-provoking and stimulating across many fields, and a warm personality that brought people together to make science happen. This annual award is a truly loving response to a great man’s contributions to research and teaching, and his compassion to promote and advocate for young scientists.
This year will mark the 10th presentation of this award. Previous award winners are Will Mair, Ph.D., Harvard Chan School of Public Health; Mark Anderman, Ph.D., Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center; Yu-Hua Tseng, Ph.D., Joslin Diabetes Center; James Mitchell, Ph.D., Harvard Chan School of Public Health; Sudha Biddinger MD, Ph.D., Boston Children’s Hospital; Aaron Martin Cypress, MD, Ph.D., Harvard Medical School; Quan Lu, Ph.D., Harvard Chan School of Public Health; Brendan D. Manning, Ph.D. Harvard Chan School of Public Health.
The Award Ceremony and following reception is a highlight of each spring to come together with the school community. Due to the current restrictions on gatherings, the event will be postponed until Fall 2020.
