In honor of his daughter Lai Sulin, Dr. Cheng L. Lai, a Vanderbilt Graduate School alumnus in chemical engineering, established this endowed scholarship in 2009. This $5000 award recognizes excellence in research by a Vanderbilt PhD student in areas related to cancer. The scope of the scholarship is inclusive of any discipline as long as the student’s study and research have a relationship to cancer.
Students are nominated for this award by their mentors, and the scholarship is awarded to the most promising cancer related dissertation.
The 2019 recipient is David Elion, a PhD candidate in the laboratory of Rebecca Cook, and a student in the Cancer Biology graduate program. David has drawn from multiple disciplines, including cancer biology, immunology and biomedical engineering, to develop a therapeutic nano-medicine that could be delivered to breast tumors as a safe and efficacious way to provoke the immune system to attack breast cancer cells.
Of her student, Dr. Cook says, “David leads by example, and raises others around him so that working together, we achieve something far greater than any of us could envision on our own.”
The Graduate School is honored to present this award to David for his outstanding efforts.
Previous honorees are
- 2018: Nicki Perry, Pharmacology
- 2017: Kanetha Wilson, Sociology
- 2016: Amy Shah, Biomedical Engineering
- 2015: Clare Marie Adams, Pathology
- 2014: Katherine Hutchinson, Cancer Biology
- 2013: Alisha Mendonsa, Cancer Biology
- 2012: Shann Yu, Biomedical Engineering
- 2011: Elizabeth Vargis, Biomedical Engineering
- 2010: Ron Bruntz, Pharmacology
- 2009: Jessica Fowler, Cancer Biology