Harrington Discovery Institute at University Hospitals Announces 2020 Scholar Innovator Award Recipients

Six physician-scientists from the U.S. and Canada selected for drug development grant

The Harrington Discovery Institute at University Hospitals in Cleveland, Ohio, today announced the 2020 class of Harrington Scholar-Innovators, which includes the Institute’s first Canadian Scholar. The grants will support a range of drug discovery projects including novel therapies for treating Alzheimer’s, Prion disease, cancer, lung diseases, resistant tuberculosis, and rare genetic disorders.

The Harrington Discovery Institute – part of The Harrington Project for Discovery & Development – was established to accelerate the development of new medicines to address unmet patient needs. Harrington Scholar-Innovators are accomplished physician-scientists whose research demonstrates innovation, creativity and potential for impact. In addition to grant funding, Harrington Discovery Institute provides guidance and oversight in all aspects of drug development, while taking no rights to intellectual property, which is retained by the scholar and their institution.

“Supporting the work of physician-scientists is the foundational mission of the institute. With this class of Scholar-Innovators, we will invest more resources in individual programs than in previous years, to more effectively progress discoveries toward clinical trials. We continue to evolve and grow our model to best address the major unmet needs in medicine and society,” said Jonathan S. Stamler, MD, President, Harrington Discovery Institute and Robert S. and Sylvia K. Reitman Family Foundation Distinguished Chair of Cardiovascular Innovation at University Hospitals and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

The selected Scholars have access to several rounds of capital (up to a total of $700,000) through their affiliation with the Harrington Discovery Institute to enable the transition of their work into the private sector. They also have facilitated access to BioMotiv, the mission-aligned development company that is part of The Harrington Project.

The 2020 Harrington Scholar-Innovator Award recipients, their organizations and fields of research are:

Rizwan Haq, MD, PhD - Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (U.S.)
A small molecule that targets cancers with dysregulated KEAP-NRF2 signaling

Michael Holtzman, MD - Washington University (U.S.)
A new drug to correct epithelial stem cell reprogramming in airway disease

Kyu Rhee, MD, PhD - Weill Cornell Medical College (U.S.)
New and selective inhibitors of tuberculosis

Stephen Strittmatter, MD, PhD - Yale University (U.S.)
Prion Protein Antagonist for Alzheimer’s Disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease

Donald Weaver, MD, PhD, FRCP(C) - University Health Network (Canada)
Targeting Immunopathy to treat Alzheimer’s Disease

Timothy Yu, MD, PhD - Boston Children’s Hospital (U.S.)
Personalized splice-modulating oligonucleotide therapy for Niemann-Pick Disease