The winner of the inaugural Ogawa-Yamanaka Prize is Masayo Takahashi, MD, PhD.
According to the Gladstone Institute press release, “Dr. Takahashi was awarded the prize for her trailblazing work leading the first clinical trial to use induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells in humans.”
The prize, including a $150,000 cash award, will be given at a ceremony next week at the Gladstone on September 16. If you are interested in listening in, you can register for the webcast here.
Dr. Takahashi started the first ever human clinical study using iPS cells, which is focused on treating of macular degeneration using retinal pigmented epithelial cells derived from human iPS cells.
Congratulations to Dr. Takahashi for the great and well-deserved honor of the Ogawa-Yamanaka Prize.
As readers of this blog likely recall, Dr. Takahashi received our blog’s Stem Cell Person of the Year Award last year in honor of her pioneering work and that included a $2,000 prize.
Other past winners of our Stem Cell Person of the Year Award have gone on to get additional awards too.
The 2013 Stem Cell Person of the Year, Dr. Elena Cattaneo, went on to win the ISSCR Public Service Award in 2014 along with colleagues.
And our 2012 Stem Cell Person of the Year Award winner, stellar patient advocate Roman Reed, went on in 2013 to receive the GPI Stem Cell Inspiration Award.
The more we can recognize the pioneers and outside-the-box thinkers in the stem cell field, the better.
I find the giving of this award interesting due to the fact that the trial Dr. Takahashi is (was) leading was stopped (suspedended) due to complications with the cell line and was done so before the release of this award. Things that make you go hmmm…
Congratulation, your work is very amazing