More than $650,000 was raised for the 26th annual UMass Cancer Walk.

Faculty members from the three UMass Chan graduate schools were honored at the 2024 Educational Recognition Awards ceremony and Susan Zweizig, MD, delivered the annual honorary Last Lecture, titled “What You Don’t See.”

The two UMass Chan faculty members are among 500 scientists, engineers and innovators elected this year.

The UMass Cancer Walk presented by Harr Toyota returns to Polar Park on Sunday, Sept. 29. All proceeds support adult and pediatric cancer research and more than 150 clinical trials at UMass Chan Medical School.

Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences students Atinuke G. Oyinbo and Favour Akabogu discussed their research for the Black Excellence series.

Sharina Person, PhD, was honored with the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion at the annual tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. Keynote speaker Joan Reede, MD, MS, MPH MBA called on the medical community to move forward in values that promote diversity, equity and inclusion. 

Marcus Ruscetti, PhD, resisted following in his parents’ scientist footsteps but ended up in a career dedicated to cancer research in and out of the lab.

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Dohoon Kim, PhD, and colleagues have shown that blocking a specific detoxifying enzyme in lung cancer cells leads to cell death, making it a viable target for drug development.

Vaccination against COVID-19 was linked to reduced inflammation in response to SARS-CoV-2 infection, according to a paper co-authored by UMass Chan Medical School researcher Jonathan M. Gerber, MD.

The Research Scholar Grant will support Dr. Ruscetti’s research on senescent cells and their role in tumor progression and immune suppression in prostate cancer.