McEwen Award for Innovation 

 McEwen Award for Innovation
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The McEwen Award for Innovation, supported by the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine in Toronto, Ontario Canada, recognizes original thinking and ground-breaking research pertaining to stem cells or regenerative medicine that opens new avenues of exploration towards the understanding or treatment of human disease or affliction. The winner will be honored with the award at the ISSCR 11th Annual Meeting in Boston in June 2013.  

​2013 Winner.

The ISSCR proudly announces that James A. Thomson, PhD is the recipient of the 2013 McEwen Award for Innovation. He is honored for his work that reproducibly isolated pluripotent cell lines from human blastocysts. This discovery opened the door for the study of human embryonic stem cells and revealed new possibilities for developing cell-based therapies, disease models and reagents for toxicity testing. Dr. Thomson is the Director of Regenerative Biology at the Morgridge Institute for Research in Madison Wisconsin and holds professorships at both the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and the University of California, Santa Barbara. He will be presented with his award at the ISSCR 11th Annual Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, during the Presidential Symposium on Wednesday, June 12, which will be immediately followed by his plenary lecture.

Criteria:

  • Nominee(s) must be independent investigators conducting original research in basic science or clinical development and translation in the field of stem cell research.
  • At least one nominee must be available to attend the ISSCR Annual Meeting if selected as the award recipient.
  • The research recognized should have occurred within the past ten years, but the body of work will also be considered.
  • The award can be given to an individual OR can be shared for the same advance by up to three people total and is not limited to the senior Principal Investigator.  A key junior collaborator who was in the lab of the PI at the time of the discovery can be included with the Principal Investigator in the nominations.
  • Nominee(s) must be an ISSCR member in good standing.

Award:

  • The winner will receive $100,000 USD (to be split among winners if more than one person receives the award), a complimentary registration for the Annual Meeting, and recognition at the Annual Meeting during a plenary session.

Nomination Process:

Nominations must be submitted by two or more ISSCR Members in good standing. A single nomination letter signed by two ISSCR Members in good standing is sufficient. Two independent nomination letters may be submitted if preferred. Nomination letters (up to two pages) should provide:

  • a statement of up to 100 words highlighting the most important accomplishment of the nominee(s); and

  • an overview of the contributions of the nominee(s) to the field of stem cell research.

A copy of the nominee’s CV(s) and listing of up to five of their most relevant publications must also accompany the nomination letter. Include electronic version of these publications where possible. 

Past Winners

2012 Winner. The recipient of the 2012 McEwen Award for Innovation is Rudolf Jaenisch, MD, a leader in biomedical sciences for more than three decades. Dr. Jaenisch is a Founding Member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  He is recognized for his pioneering discoveries in the areas of genetic and epigenetic control of development in mice that directly impact the future potential of embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells for therapeutic utility and has made many seminal discoveries in the fields of virology, cancer, epigenetics and regenerative medicine. Dr. Jaenisch was presented with the award preceding his keynote lecture on Wednesday, June 13, 2012.

2011 Winners. The recipients of the 2011 inaugural McEwen Award for Innovation were Kazutoshi Takahashi, PhD, lecturer, Center for iPS Cell Research and Application, Kyoto University and Shinya Yamanaka, MD, PhD, director, Center for iPS Cell Research and Application, and Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences, Kyoto University. The award was given in recognition of their paradigm-shifting work demonstrating the reprogramming of adult/tissue-specific cells using transcription factors that has resulted in a rapid development of novel tools and strategies for use in the pursuit of better understanding and treating disease.