Penn researcher receives NCI Outstanding Investigator Award

Caryn Lerman, PhD, senior deputy director of University of Pennsylvania’s Abraham Cancer Center and co-director of the Penn Medicine Neuroscience Center, received the NCI Outstanding Investigator Award.

Caryn Lerman

The NCI’s award program, developed last year, provides funding to investigators with outstanding records of productivity in cancer research to continue or embark upon new projects of unusual potential in cancer research.

Lerman, whose research focuses on the interface between neuroscience and cancer prevention, will receive $6.5 million over a 7-year period.

Her research explores how the brain’s cognitive control system can be enhanced to improve self-control over behaviors that contribute to cancer risk. Her premise is that it is possible to enhance the brain’s capacity to over-ride behavioral habits that contribute to obesity and cigarette smoking, and ultimately to cancer. Such habits are associated with cognitive impairments and altered brain functions that can interfere with goal-directed behaviors.

“This is a remarkable accomplishment, and I am personally very proud that Dr. Lerman, as a leader of the Abramson Cancer Center, received this highly distinguished award,” Chi Van Dang, MD, PhD, director of the cancer center, said in a press release. “I congratulate her for being among the first to achieve such a prestigious recognition, and look forward to her continued groundbreaking work, situated at an innovative intersection of neuroscience and cancer research. Her discoveries could ultimately translate into new treatments aimed to reduce deaths associated with cancer-related habits.”