Cédric Blanpain has been announced as the winner of the European Association for Cancer Research’s Mike Price Gold Medal Award, a biennial award recognising a senior researcher who has made exceptional contributions to the progress of cancer research in Europe.
The 2022 award will be presented at the 28th Congress of the European Association for Cancer Research (EACR 2022) in Seville in June 2022, where Professor Blanpain will present the Keynote Award Lecture. The Congress will celebrate a return to the EACR’s in-person events following the COVID-19 pandemic. It will bring together cancer researchers from across Europe and the world and help them to advance their research.
About the Winner
Cédric Blanpain is MD/PhD and board certified in internal medicine from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. Cédric Blanpain is full professor, WELBIO investigator and director of the laboratory of stem cells and cancer at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. His research group uses lineage-tracing approaches to study the role of stem cells during development, homeostasis and cancer. His group uncovered the existence of stem cells and progenitors acting during homeostasis and repair of the epidermis and uncovered a novel paradigm of lineage segregation in the mammary gland and prostate.
His lab was a pioneer in using mouse genetics to identify the cancer cell of origin of epithelial cancers. They identified the cancer cell of origin and the mechanisms regulating the early steps of tumor initiation in skin basal cell carcinoma, skin squamous cell carcinoma and mammary tumors. His lab developed novel approaches to unravel tumor heterogeneity and understand the mechanisms regulating the tumor states responsible for tumor growth, metastasis and resistance to anti-cancer therapy.
Click here to see Cédric Blanpain’s institute profile page
More about the Award
The Mike Price Gold Medal Award was created in 2012 in memory of Dr. Mike Price, Secretary General of the EACR for 21 years, who died of cancer in 2000. Previous winners of the award include Professor Pier Giuseppe Pelicci, Professor Karen Vousden, Professor Sir Michael Stratton, Professor Harald zur Hausen and Dr. José Baselga.