Research Awards
Generous donations from organizations and the community have allowed CRINA to give out many awards and grants to help support the next generation of cancer research.
Supporting Students
CRINA is dedicated to supporting students and their research. We have set up dozens of studentships over the years to offer support at all levels, from undergraduate students to doctoral students, and have also partnered with several organizations such as the , , and Roses of Hope Foundation.
This scholarship, in memory of Dr. Rachel Mandel, is given to a graduate student pursuing an innovative research project that strives to generate new ideas about the diagnosis, treatment and/or prevention of lymphoma and other blood cancers.
Recipients
- 2024: Angela Hamie and Sara Elmahrouk
- 2023: Mohammad Nasrullah
- 2022: Justine Lai
- 2021: Mahmoud Elghiaty and Andrew Locke
- 2020: Nicholas Ruel
The Elaine Essien Graduate Award in Ovarian Cancer Research will be awarded to a graduate student conducting ovarian cancer research.
Recipients
- 2024: Zorica Nakevska
- 2023: Brennan Salte
CRINA partners with the ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥ Cancer Foundation to provide a scholarship to an outstanding graduate student conducting cancer research.
Recipients
- 2022: Justin Knechtel
- 2019: Marnie Newell
- 2017: Amanda Swan
This award was established to recognize a high caliber graduate student conducting cancer research at the ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥. CRINA partners with the ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥ Cancer Foundation to offer this award.
Recipients
- 2022: Mona Al-Onazi
- 2018: Amirali Bukhari
These awards were made possible through generous donations to CRINA.
Recipients
- 2024: Leila Pirayeshfard andXiyuan Wu
- 2023: Leila Pirayeshfard, Shayla Mosley, Jaqueline de Lima Munhoz and Serena Li
- 2022: Nicholas Ruel and Jaqueline de Lima Munhoz
This award was made possible through the Kenneth and Reta Cote and Joyce Cote Biomedical Research Endowment.
Recipients
- 2024: Rachel Sherrington
- 2023: Maria Areli Lorenzana Carrillo
Recipients
- 2023: Jenilee Woodfield
Darin McDonald believed that it is the team working collaboratively where the greatest results are achieved. With this in mind, his family and friends, in collaboration with CRINA, created the Darin McDonald Team Award in Basic Oncology Research endowment in his memory, to provide an annual award to a multidisciplinary team that demonstrates excellence and collaboration in basic oncology research.
Recipients
- 2024: The team of Kléouforo-Paul Dembele, Alois Haromy, Jiyuan Piao, Evangelos D. Michelakis, and Gopinath Sutendra for the CRINA Research Day poster presentation titled "Nanotubes mediated mitochondria transfer from normal to cancer cells promotes Mesenchymal-to-Epithelial Transition (MET) required for metastasis in cancer."
- 2023: The team of Saymon Tejay, Maria Areli Lorenzana Carillo, Joseph Nana, Yongsheng Liu, Yongneng Zhang, Alois Haromy, Yuan Zhao, Edith Pituskin, John Ussher, Evangelos Michelakis, and Gopinath Sutendra for the CRINA Research Day poster presentation "Tumor-Secreted Nucleosides Promote RbFox1 Degradation and Dedifferentiation in Cardiomyocytes; A Two-Hit Hypothesis with Implications for Cardiotoxicity."
- 2022: The team of Bryce Nelson, John Wilson, Jan Andersson and Frank Wuest for the CRINA Research Day poster presentation "High yield cyclotron production of 203Pb for diagnostic SPECT imaging alongside 212Pb targeted radionuclide therapy."
- 2021: The team of TIffany Lo, Parnian Alavi, Nadia Jahroudi and Manijeh Pasdar for the CRINA Research Day poster presentation "Differential Effects of Plakoglobin Expression on the Oncogenic Properties of p53 Conformational and Contact Mutants."
This studentship, a partnership between CRINA and the ¾ÅÐãÖ±²¥ Cancer Foundation (ACF), allows us to provide several undergraduate students with stipend support to conduct cancer research in CRINA members’ laboratories over the summer months.
Recipients
- 2025: Brielle Airey, Tracy Cui, Hannah Dean, Clare Gilmour, David Guo, Cale Kooyman, Alex Kwan, Radha Maradiya
- 2024: Hannah Dean, Saron Gebremariam, Dev Patel, Rahim Valji, Bhoomi Venkatanarayana, Mandy Yip
- 2023: Hannah Dean, Angela Hamie, Khushi Patel, Maria Ren, Ali Simchi, Yifan Wu
- 2022: Alan Kulathanil, Ali Waheed, Jeremy Fung, Judy Ali, Kara Terry, Madihah Khan, Maiah Walters, Mariane Khoury, Melissa Aikema, Yingze Ma
- 2021: Jayden Pannu, Natnael Abate, Rianna Nanad, Angie Chen, Dongyu Shao, Heidi Nwosu, Cassidy Eckstrom, Shreya Ravi, Tony Yu
- 2020: Benjamin Schultz, Kerrylei Jabilona, Sargun Sokhi, Ryan Zhu
- 2019: Sahil Patel, Laura Enekegho, Angie Chen, Jessica Bennett, Anna Jutla
- 2018: Yea Jin Yoon, Pramal Kumar Patel, Asna Latif, Da Eun Choi, Sean Larade
Funded by the Kids with Cancer Society, this award recognizes the contributions of Dr. David Eisenstat to the area of pediatric oncology.
Recipients
- 2025: Anannya Prasanna
- 2024: Nishita Shukla
- 2023: Seth Peyton
- 2022: Tracy Lee
Funded through the generosity of supporters of the Tough Enough to Wear Pink Drag Race.
Recipients
- 2025: Sara Haque, Zalak Khatri, Amreen Podruzny, Abigail Samuel
- 2024: Daniel Huang
These awards are made possible with funding from the Terry Fox Research Institute.
Recipients
- 2022: Sargun Sohki, Saymon Tejay, Rachel Yang,Tomas Gutierrez
- 2021: Bryce Nelson, Qi Feng Lin, Richard Yuen, Won-Shik (Daniel) Choi), Quinn Storozynsky
- 2020: Meghan Hall, Fatemeh Mashayekhi, Wisdom Kate, Mostafa Khairy, Marina Lemieszek, Quinn Storozynsky
This studentship, made possible by the Kids with Cancer Society, awards students whose research is relevant to childhood cancer.
Recipients
- 2020: Paula Ospina Lopez and Ghazal Babolmorad
This studentship, made possible by a generous donation from the Roses of Hope Foundation, awards outstanding graduate students conducting breast cancer research.
Recipients
- 2020: Joanne Smith, Natasha Rana
- 2019: Francisca Cristi Munoz, Zelei Yang, Daniel Krys
- 2017: James Donnelly
The Boytzun Studentship in Colorectal Cancer will be awarded to a graduate student conducting colorectal cancer research.
Recipients
- 2024: Sara Abd El-Hafeez and Mckenna Eklund