We received a large number of high-quality applications from researchers around the world. The strength of the submissions made the selection process exceptionally competitive, and after review by an advisory committee of Illumina scientists and Medical Affairs representatives, three grant recipients were selected instead of one.

Congratulations to:

Alfonso Bellacosa, MD, Professor, Nuclear Dynamics & Cancer Program, Cancer Epigenetics Institute, Fox Chase Cancer Center (USA), whose research explores the genetic, epigenetic, and immune determinants of response and resistance to immunotherapy in lung cancer and melanoma, with the goal of identifying new predictive biomarkers.

Jacob Blum, MD-PhD Candidate in the Cellular and Molecular Medicine Graduate Program at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (USA), whose project aims to improve detection of minimal residual disease in non-small cell lung cancer using an integrated multiomic approach that combines genomic and epigenetic signals from a single cfDNA library.

Richard Tothill, PhD, Senior Research Fellow and Genomics Group Leader, The University of Melbourne (Australia), whose research will apply Illumina 5-Base whole-genome sequencing to study how integrated genomic and DNA methylation information can support tissue-of-origin classification and molecular characterization of cancers of unknown primary.