OREANDA-NEWS. Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: REGN) today announced the winners of the fourth annual Regeneron Prize for Creative Innovation, an award designed to acknowledge, reward and foster talented early-career biomedical scientists. This year, Regeneron awarded $155,000 in prize money to 10 awardees and two institutions.

"These talented postdoctoral and graduate student winners have shown significant dedication and promise early in their scientific careers, and we are confident they have what it takes to be future leaders in biomedicine," said George D. Yancopoulos, M.D., Ph.D., President of Regeneron Laboratories and Chief Scientific Officer of Regeneron. "It is a key priority at Regeneron to support and develop young innovators who have the potential to generate tomorrow's breakthroughs in science and technology. We continue to expand our deep commitment to STEM at all levels, including through the prestigious Regeneron Science Talent Search for high school students."

Two winners of the Regeneron Prize will each receive a $50,000 cash prize. The institutions nominating the two winners will also receive a donation to support their seminar series. This year's winners are:

  • John Maciejowski, Ph.D., The Rockefeller University, Regeneron Prize for Creative Innovation by a Postdoctoral Fellow: Dr. Maciejowski recently published research in Cell showing a novel mechanism of malignant cellular transformation. Dr. Maciejowski found that dicentric chromosomes (abnormal chromosomes with two centromeres) formed during mitosis create chromatin bridges between daughter cells that cause nuclear envelope rupture, DNA degradation and hypermutation. His winning proposal focuses on how these events may contribute to cancer-related mutations.
  • Chi Zhang, Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Regeneron Prize for Creative Innovation by a Graduate Student: Mr. Zhang develops innovative chemical biology tools for tailoring of peptides and proteins, which may one day be applied to the creation of targeted therapies.

One additional Graduate Student will be awarded an Honorable Mention and a cash prize of $10,000:

  • Gustav Cederquist, a student of the Weill Cornell/Rockefeller/Sloan Kettering Tri-Institutional M.D.-Ph.D. program: Mr. Cederquist is using stem cells as a tool to understand mechanisms of neuronal development and how these processes may go awry in brain disease. He is also developing novel methods for multiplex screening of specific cell populations in the nervous system.

Seven additional finalists will each be awarded $5,000. Requests for applicants were distributed to academic institutions in November 2015. Each institution was asked to nominate two graduate students and two postdoctoral fellows. Each nominee's submission included a proposal explaining the nominee's "dream" project in biomedical research, which offered insight into the nominee's creativity and ability to think independently as a scientist. Submissions also included a curriculum vitae and a sample of publications that enabled the selection committee to review the nominee's scholarly productivity.

"We congratulate this year's Regeneron Prize recipients, who are already making cutting-edge contributions to science," said Susan Croll, Ph.D., Regeneron scientist and Director of the Regeneron Postdoctoral Training Program. "We are continually inspired by the novel thinking and enthusiasm shown by our applicants, and we look forward to supporting them as they continue to advance scientific discovery."

Regeneron Support for Science Education
Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Education is at the heart of Regeneron's corporate citizenship efforts. We seek to attract more students to science careers, while also supporting and nurturing talented young people who have shown early promise. We believe that science plays a key role in advancing society and are committed to ensuring a continual pool of talent. Our STEM programs include the Regeneron Science Talent Search, a program of Society for Science & the Public since 1942, the nation's oldest and most prestigious pre-college science competition. Westinghouse and Intel were previous title sponsors of the Science Talent Search.

About Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Regeneron (NASDAQ: REGN) is a leading science-based biopharmaceutical company based in Tarrytown, New York that discovers, invents, develops, manufactures and commercializes medicines for the treatment of serious medical conditions. Regeneron commercializes medicines for eye diseases, high LDL cholesterol and a rare inflammatory condition and has product candidates in development in other areas of high unmet medical need, including rheumatoid arthritis, atopic dermatitis, asthma, pain, cancer and infectious diseases.