More than 100 supporters of SBP came out to celebrate this year’s Fishman Award recipients: Usue Etxaniz Irigoien, PhD, Koen Galenkamp, PhD, Laura Martin-Sancho, PhD, and Ee Phie Tan, PhD The annual awards ceremony, held September 20 at the Sanford Consortium, recognizes postdocs who have made extraordinary efforts and encourages their passion for careers in science.

The evening began with a warm welcome from founder Reena Horowitz, who described how she began the Fishman Fund with the late Mary Bradley (her dear friend) to honor Dr. William and Lillian Fishman. The Fishmans were the founders of SBP and firmly believed in helping young postdoctoral scientists become great principal investigators—and these awards help boost young researchers to meaningful careers in science.

Jeanne Jones, the Fishman Fund’s co-founder designee, shared that since the fund’s inception, 64 recipients have been awarded. The career development awards—bestowed annually to three postdocs—provide a generous $10,000 stipend to allow them to attend workshops and travel to national and international conferences to learn the latest developments in their research fields. Additionally, a Fishman Fund Fellowship Award, which provides salary support for two years in addition to benefits and a career-development stipend, was awarded this year for the second time in SBP history.

The keynote speaker was Aman Mann, PhD, who won the Fishman Award in 2011. Today, Mann is a research assistant professor at SBP and an entrepreneur and founder of AivoCode, a neuroscience company that licenses technology originally developed at SBP. Mann reflected on how the award gave him added confidence and resources to pursue his career goals—and he encouraged this year’s recipients to similarly follow their dreams.

If you are interested in donating to the Fishman Fund, click here.

The 2018 Fishman Fund Fellowship winner, Usue Etxaniz Irigoien, PhD, was presented with her award by Reena Horowitz. Irigoien, originally from the Basque region of Spain, is the first in her family to pursue a graduate degree in science. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Lorenzo Puri, PhD, and is studying the communication between nerves and muscles. Irigoien’s research is providing insights that may lead to improved therapies for neuromuscular diseases such as ALS. In the future, she hopes to become a principal investigator of her own lab.

The Fishman Fund Awardees:

Koen Galenkamp, PhD, was presented with his award by Andrew Viterbi, a distinguished scientist and former SBP trustee. Galenkamp works in the laboratory of Cosimo Commisso, PhD, and specializes in seeking ways to starve pancreatic tumors of the food they need to survive and grow. Originally from Amsterdam, Galenkamp thanked his colleagues and wife—who is also a postdoc in San Diego—and shared his plans to use the funds to attend a comprehensive pancreatic cancer conference at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories.

Laura Martin-Sancho, PhD, a postdoc in the lab of Sumit Chanda, PhD, received her Fishman Fund Award from Armi Williams, a Fishman Fund Board member and longtime SBP supporter. Martin-Sancho is working to develop antiviral medicines that will combat infectious diseases such as influenza, dengue, and West Nile and Zika viruses. Martin-Sancho’s career goal is to be an independent investigator in an academic organization. She will use her stipend to attend a Keystone RNA virus conference in Dublin, Ireland.

Ee Phie Tan, PhD, originally from Malaysia, joined SBP in 2016 to work in the lab of Malene Hansen, PhD Tan is studying autophagy—a cell process that tidies up cell debris and recycles parts to maintain health. Defects in autophagy are linked to many aging-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, and even cancer. Tan received her award from Reena Horowitz and will use the funds to attend a Gordon Research Conference in Texas and a Keystone Symposium in Santa Fe, New Mexico. 
 

When Joana Borlido, PhD, got the call that she won the inaugural Fishman Fund Fellowship late on a Friday afternoon, she called her parents, who had been waiting up past midnight in her native Portugal to find out if she had won the prestigious two-year postdoctoral fellowship along with a $5,000 career-development cash grant.

After all, her mother, a science teacher, had inspired Borlido to go into science by bringing home props of human body parts and subscribing to an immunology comic series. Yes, those biology cartoons do exist.

On September 15, the Fishman Fund ceremony honored Borlido and Fishman Fund Career Development recipients Bernhard Lechtenberg, PhD, and Jia (Zack) Shen, PhD

In celebration of SBP’s 40th anniversary, the significance of the Fishman Fund has been elevated with the addition of a two-year postdoctoral award called the Fishman Fund Fellowship. The Fishman Fund Fellowship is an incredible award that not only compensates exceptional postdocs at a higher income level than a typical fellowship, but also comes with a one-time $5,000 flexible career-development award, which they can use to further their professional endeavors. The established Fishman Fund Career Development awards of $10,000 will continue to be awarded as well.

Since the Fishman Fund’s inception in 2001, the Fishman Fund has grown from $1,500 cash awards. It was first established by Horowitz and Mary Bradley in honor of founders Dr. William and Lillian Fishman. In 2010, Jeanne Jones became the co-founder designee.

During the ceremony, Fishman Fund co-founder Reena Horowitz discussed the importance of supporting “the next generation of biomedical trailblazers.” She also said that the “Fishmans believed passionately in cultivating early-stage scientific talent. They knew that young investigators must focus intently on honing research skills and gaining professional experience.” Horowitz also took a moment to honor friends and supporters who have passed: Mary Bradley, Erna Viterbi, Pauline Foster, and Conrad Prebys.

Nina Fishman, daughter of SBP founders Dr. William and Lillian Fishman, read from a speech her father gave at the Institute. He said, “Each is encouraged to develop original ideas, which can be tested experimentally and subsequently qualify for grant support. Together we have the ‘critical mass’ of intellectuals and skills to accelerate progress in sciences.” She added that the Institute has demonstrated that a “relatively small but highly focused group can provide a nucleus where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

Past winner Petrus de Jong, MD, PhD, shared how the Fishman Fund has boosted his career. With the grant, de Jong attended a drug delivery systems symposium with biotech entrepreneurs, participated in a research symposium in pancreatic cancer and received tailored career advice from senior scientists. “These events have been crucial for my personal career development, which would not have been possible without the Fishman Fund Award,” he said.

Fishman Fund Fellowship Awardee:

Joana Borlido, PhD, explores the mechanisms through which the channels that connect the cell nucleus (where the genome is stored) affect the immune system. She works in the laboratory of Maximiliano D’Angelo, PhDHer work will help elucidate the molecular basis for the onset and development of leukemia.

She completed her PhD in Oncology at the University of Cambridge in the U.K. and her BS in Biology at the University of Porto in Portugal.

If Borlido is not in the lab, she can usually be found playing foosball, which she admits she would play during all her free time if she could.

Fishman Fund Career Development Recipients:

Bernhard Lechtenberg, PhD, studies cellular signaling networks in normal human physiology and diseases in the laboratory of Stefan Riedl, PhDLechtenberg uses protein X-ray crystallography to study diseases such as cancer and ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). He received his BS and MS from the University of Luebeck in Germany and his PhD from the University of Cambridge in the U.K.

In his spare time, he and his wife Anne Hempel, also a SBP postdoc, participate in Ragnar Relay races, in which a team runs nonstop day and night to complete a course of almost 200 miles.

Jia (Zack) Shen, PhD, develops functional screens of for drugs that inhibit ubiquitin ligases (enzymes that tag proteins with a small protein called ubiquitin). Such drugs, alone and in combination with current chemotherapies, are considered important advances in the therapy of breast cancer patients. Shen works in the laboratory of Charles Spruck, PhD, and received his BS from Zhejiang Sci-Tech University and his PhD from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

He and his wife love taking their 6-month-old daughter Olivia for walks in San Diego. Shen also plays soccer twice a week with a team at the Salk Institute.

With the generous support of the Fishman Fund, this stellar group of postdocs will benefit tremendously from well-earned rewards for their hard work and vision for “Science Benefiting Patients.”