PHILADELPHIA — Ronny Drapkin, MD, PhD, director of the Penn Ovarian Cancer Research Center in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, has been named the recipient of this year’s Rosalind Franklin Prize for Excellence in Ovarian Cancer Research. The prestigious award is from the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund Alliance in recognition of an individual’s contributions to basic science, translational, or clinical research in ovarian cancer.
Drapkin, who is also an associate professor of Pathology in Obstetrics & Gynecology and the director of Gynecologic Cancer Research for the Basser Center for BRCA in the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania, directs a team of researchers focused on developing a comprehensive understanding of the genetic, molecular and physiological factors that drive the development of cancer, with a special focus on gynecologic malignancies. Recent work from his group has implicated the fallopian tube as the likely point-of-origin for a majority of advanced ovarian cancers – a finding that has created a paradigm shift in the field, refocusing the efforts of experts who long believed the deadly cancers originated in the ovaries.
Since the discovery, the Drapkin lab has been at the forefront in developing novel experimental platforms that address the role of the fallopian tube and its susceptibility to neoplastic transformation. These platforms include genetically engineered mouse models, fallopian tube-derived cell lines, and patient-derived tumor xenografts. These model systems have been shared with investigators around the world and have been a catalyst for numerous international collaborations. The lab is currently focused on using these models to understand how genetic and epigenetic alterations influence lineage dependencies, genomic instability, DNA repair, replicative stress, and metabolism. The goal is to define selective vulnerabilities that can guide novel therapeutic approaches and biomarker development.
The Rosalind Franklin Prize is named for the molecular biologist Dr. Rosalind Franklin, who played a vital role in discovering the structure of DNA. Her life was cut short in 1958 when she died of ovarian cancer at age 37. Throughout her life, she was a committed researcher.
Given in her honor, recipients of the award have a track record of high achievement in the field of ovarian cancer research, as demonstrated by significant contributions to the care of women with gynecologic cancer and to the literature in the field, as well as having obtained significant extramural research funding. The prize rewards past achievement and provides further incentive for an outstanding working scientist to continue to do exceptional research into the causes, prevention, and treatment of ovarian cancer.
Drapkin received his BA from Brandeis University, followed by MD-PhD degrees from Rutgers University. He completed his residency and fellowship training at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and was on the faculty of Harvard Medical School and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute before joining Penn in 2015. He holds the Franklin Payne Chair of Gynecologic Oncology at Penn . He is also a Distinguished Alumnus of the Rutgers University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation. He serves on the editorial board of Cancer Research, Clinical Cancer Research, and Gynecologic Oncology, and has authored over 120 articles appearing in scholarly journals.
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