Research award for Radek Skoda

Since 1980, the Lugano-based foundation has annually honored scientists whose research projects and results contribute to the treatment of malignant tumors.

Skoda received the award for his contribution to the understanding of the development of malignant diseases involving the blood-forming cells in the bone marrow, so-called myeloproliferative neoplasms. The award comes with a prize money of 50,000 Swiss francs.

Radek Skoda studied human medicine in Zurich and received his doctoral degree from the Department of Biochemistry of the University of Zurich in 1983. He then moved to the Biozentrum of the University of Basel as a postdoc, where he became group leader in 1993. In 2000, he was appointed head of the clinical cooperation unit Molecular Hematology-Oncology at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg.

In 2002, he was elected professor of molecular medicine at the University of Basel. His research group on experimental hematology studies the molecular pathogenesis of myeloproliferative neoplasm that represent clonal stem cell disorders with a tendency towards transformation into leukemia.

The Fondazione San Salvatore was founded in 1979 by the banker Carlo Pernsch and his wife Celestine with the aim of promoting and rewarding medical and scientific research in the area of antitumor therapies.