Prigerson named as NCI Outstanding Investigator
Holly Prigerson, Ph.D.
Holly G. Prigerson, Ph.D, the Irving Sherwood Wright Professor of Geriatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine, was recently announced as a recipient of the NCI Outstanding Investigator Award. The prestigious award supports accomplished leaders in cancer research, who are providing significant contributions toward understanding cancer and developing applications that may lead to a breakthrough in biomedical, behavioral, or clinical cancer research. It provides up to $600,000 in direct costs per year for 7 years, allowing substantial time for funded investigators to take greater risks and be more adventurous in their research.
Dr. Prigerson is director of Weill's Center for Research on End-of-Life Care, and she has published more than 80 papers about coping with cancer. Her research includes findings that different brains are able to process a cancer diagnosis and treatment plan to a greater or lesser degree, based on how that information is presented by an oncologist.
Dr. Prigerson will use the grant money provided by the award to translate the foundational observational findings from her previous research from the Psychosocial AppROaches To Better Understanding & End-Stage Cancer Care (PROTECt) project into interventional trials to improve end-of-life cancer care; and develop the necessary research tools and build the capacity to develop psychosocial interventions to improve end-of-life cancer care.