SLU Professor Receives Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation Award

SLU Professor Receives Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation Award

Saint Louis University assistant professor Stephen Ferris, Ph.D., has been named one of eight recipients of the 2026 Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovation Award.

First-year recipients receive $400,000 over two years, and will have the opportunity to receive two additional years of funding (for a potential total of $800,000). This year, the foundation awarded $3.2 million overall to early-career scientists.

Ferris is an assistant professor in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology. His project, titled "Defining the Interactions Between NKT Cells, Tumors, and Lipid Antigens," focuses on understanding how natural killer T cells, or NKT cells, recognize and respond to cancer.

The Innovation Award is designed to provide funding to exceptionally creative thinkers with a revolutionary idea who lack sufficient preliminary data to obtain traditional funding. The awardees are selected through a highly competitive and rigorous process by a scientific committee comprised of leading cancer researchers with their own history of innovative work. 

Ferris said he will use the funding to study how NKT cells target tumor cells.

"These cells act as a bridge between innate and adaptive immunity, rapidly responding to targets through their distinctive receptor," Ferris said. "We currently do not know what tumor lipids can activate NKTs or how NKTs could help the immune system attack tumors."

His research will examine how NKT cells are activated by tumor lipids and identify which lipids trigger that response. The work aims to expand understanding of fundamental immunological processes and explore the potential for developing immunotherapies that target multiple cancer types using NKT cells.

The Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovation Award supports high-risk, high-reward research with the potential to significantly affect cancer prevention, diagnosis or treatment. This year, the foundation awarded $3.2 million to early-career scientists.
This program was established thanks to the generosity of Andy and Debbie Rachleff.