Dilanka Fernando, PhD Student (CCR), awarded a 2019 AACR-Bristol-Myers Squibb Oncology Scholar-in-Training Award

Dilanka Fernando, a Centre for Cancer Research PhD student from the STAT Cancer Biology laboratory, was awarded a 2019 AACR-Bristol-Myers Squibb Oncology Scholar-in-Training Award on 30 March 2019.  The award was presented by the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) at its 2019 annual meeting in Atlanta, USA. Around 100 such awards were presented to early-career scientists in recognition of meritorious abstracts which were selected from thousands of submissions. Dilanka's abstract was titled "STAT3 control of mitochondrial RNA stability and translation is a vulnerability in tumours".

Since its inception in 1986, the AACR Annual Meeting Scholar-in-Training Award program has provided more than 4,600 grants to young investigators and has received support from more than 55 cancer research foundations, corporations, individuals, and other organisations dedicated to the fight against cancer. Scholar-in-Training Awards are highly competitive and recognise outstanding young investigators presenting meritorious proffered papers at the AACR Annual Meeting.

Dilanka said, "receiving an AACR award was an outstanding achievement during my PhD candidature. It was a great pleasure to represent Hudson Institute as well as Monash University on a global platform at the forefront of sharing advances in cancer research. AACR provided a great opportunity to showcase novel findings from my project and obtain invaluable feedback from pioneers in the field. I gratefully acknowledge the excellent mentorship I received from my supervisors since the beginning of my project, which was a key driving force behind this success".

Dilanka's supervisor, Dr Daniel Gough who leads the STAT Cancer Biology laboratory, said "Dilanka’s PhD studies have uncovered a fundamental biochemical process which is required for mitochondrial function. He has shown that this activity is critical for cancer formation. To be selected for this highly prestigious award at the premier international cancer research conference for this work is a massive achievement and well deserved. Congratulations, Dila!"