The Vilcek Foundation announces the recipients of the 2022 Vilcek Foundation Prizes in Biomedical Science, totaling $250,000. Awarded annually, the prizes honor the contributions of foreign-born scientists to scientific research, discovery, and innovation in the United States.

The Vilcek Prize in Biomedical Science

The Vilcek Prize in Biomedical Science recognizes an immigrant scientist for outstanding career contributions to biomedical science with a global impact. The prize includes a cash award of $100,000 and a commemorative trophy.

Vishva M. Dixit

Vishva M. Dixit receives the Vilcek Prize in Biomedical Science for his groundbreaking work on apoptosis—a biochemical process of programmed cell death implicated in both normal human development and disease—and for his research to understand the processes that drive inflammatory signaling at the cellular and molecular level. Dixit was born in Kisii, Kenya, and is vice president of early discovery research in physiological chemistry at Genentech, a member of the Roche Group.

The Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science

The Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science are awarded to young, foreign-born scientists living and working in the United States whose early-career work demonstrates outstanding achievement. Prizewinners each receive a cash award of $50,000, and a commemorative certificate. The 2022 Creative Promise Prizes are awarded to Markita del Carpio Landry, Hani Goodarzi, and Harris Wang.

Markita del Carpio Landry

Markita del Carpio Landry receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science for the development of probes to visualize neurochemical communication in the brain, and for breakthroughs in gene-editing technologies with applications for agriculture and the development of biologic drugs. Born in Quebec, Canada, to a Bolivian mother and French Canadian father, del Carpio Landry is an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Hani Goodarzi

Hani Goodarzi receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science for using disease modeling, computational methods, and experiments on mouse models and clinical samples to uncover the mechanisms of cancer metastasis and reveal therapeutic targets in cancer. He is the principal investigator of the Goodarzi Lab at the University of California, San Francisco, where he is an assistant professor. Under his leadership, the Goodarzi Lab discovered that the protein SNRPA1 drives metastasis in breast cancer and that controlling the protein’s levels in cancer cells alters their ability to metastasize. Goodarzi was born in Tehran, Iran.

Harris Wang

Harris Wang receives the Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science for the development and application of Multiplex Automated Genome Engineering (MAGE), a new framework for manipulating DNA to produce synthetic or engineered recombinant genetic material, and for his use of CRISPR technology to track and record transient cellular processes in the human gut microbiome. Born in Beijing, China, Wang is an associate professor at Columbia University in New York.

The 2022 Vilcek Foundation Prizes in Biomedical Science are a part of the Vilcek Foundation Prizes program. In 2022, the foundation is awarding the Vilcek Foundation Prizes in Biomedical Science, the Vilcek Foundation Prizes in Dance, and the Vilcek Prize for Excellence.