News, Continued

Memorial Sloan Kettering announced their first cohort of the Louis V. Gerstner Jr. Physician Scholars Program on Monday. In 2021, the Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. Physician Scholars Program was established at MSK to support the translational science initiatives of talented early-career physician-scientists across multiple specialties. Mr. Gerstner’s generosity and continued dedication to the education and training of future leaders in cancer care make this farsighted opportunity possible. Through this highly competitive program, top-tier physician-scientists will be provided with a level of support that is otherwise difficult to obtain this early in their careers. The scope of innovation and excellence achieved at MSK depends on the work of a diverse scientific and clinical community of investigators, including these four promising physician-scientists, who were carefully selected for the inaugural class of Gerstner Physician Scholars: Susan De Wolf, MD, Juan Osorio, MD, Samir Zaidi, MD, PhD and Morgan Freret, MD, PhD.

Four physician-scientists were recently named 2022 Gerstner Scholars: Rebecca Muhle, MD, PhD; Jennifer Small-Saunders, MD, PhD; Neil Vasan, MD, PhD; and Peter Yim, MD. The program also awarded the Gerstner Merit Award to 2019 Scholar Amélie Collins, MD, PhD. The Gerstner Merit Award, created in 2014, provides an additional year of funding and recognizes an exceptional third-year Gerstner Scholar who conducts innovative research, has shown significant growth as an academic medicine investigator, and is ideally positioned to secure a significant principal investigator award.he Louis V. Gerstner Jr. Scholars Program provides exceptional physician-scientists at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons (VP&S) with vital funding. Each scholar receives a stipend of $75,000 per year for three years for salary or laboratory support. The support allows early-career scientists to conduct pioneering research and gather the pilot data necessary to apply for grants from the National Institutes of Health and other sources. The Gerstner Scholars Program, established in 2008 by Louis V. Gerstner Jr. and the Gerstner Family Foundation, helps make VP&S a major engine of medical innovation.

A team led by researchers at Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Harvard Medical School has developed a new method to identify thousands of DNA mutations accurately and efficiently in a patient's blood sample with minimal sequencing. The approach, called MAESTRO, could one day enable the detection of residual cancer in patients who have undergone treatment, alerting doctors to disease recurrence earlier and more cheaply than current techniques allow. MAESTRO works to identify Minimal Residual Disease (MRD) markers in the blood using less sequencing than more conventional approaches, enabling researchers to detect cancer mutations more quickly, efficiently and at a low cost. “This project has been a great reminder that new methods can make DNA sequencing even more powerful,” added Golub. “It will be exciting to see how MAESTRO can impact basic discovery and, in the future, clinical care.”

GerstnerPhilanthropies announced today that it has awarded $4.9 million in Helping Hands funds to our grantee organizations. The Gerstner Helping Hands program provides financial resources to assist individuals facing a one-time, urgent need. These emergency cash grants are distributed by our partners, who combine Helping Hands funds with holistic wrap-around services to help clients avoid homelessness and instability. Helping Hands reaches over 4,000 families each year, providing assistance with rent, utilities, medical expenses, and food.

2021 was a landmark year for Gerstner Philanthropies. Grants totaled over $48 million, almost doubling the previous year and the most in its history. Gerstner Philanthropies launched two new program areas within Helping Hands and created a new grant program to support climate change mitigation. Grantees continue to respond to the impacts of COVID-19, and we are proud of the impacts they made. For more on our engagement and impact in 2021, please see the full Year in Numbers Report.