Young Investigator Awards
The AGA Young Investigator Award recognizes two young investigators, one in basic science and one in clinical science, for outstanding research achievements.
AGA honors Sonia S. Kupfer, MD, with the Young Investigator Award in Clinical Science. Dr. Kupfer is nationally and internationally recognized as an expert in colorectal cancer in high-risk populations including individuals with hereditary cancer syndromes and African Americans. During her clinical and translational research to better understand factors that increase the risk of colorectal cancer, Dr. Kupfer identified distinctions in African-American population compared with Caucasians. Dr. Kupfer is an associate professor of medicine at the University of Chicago, and director of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Risk and Prevention Clinic, Illinois.
AGA honors Costas A. Lyssiotis, PhD, with the Young Investigator Award in Basic Science. His research, work ethic, and innovative approaches have made Dr. Lyssiotis a distinguished leader in pancreatic cancer. His work has broad implications for harnessing the power of the immune system to treat the disease and his laboratory is working to develop new drug therapies that target a pancreatic cancer metabolism-specific enzyme. Dr. Lyssiotis is an assistant professor in the department of molecular and integrative physiology in the division of gastroenterology at University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor.
