Two new Hunter College graduates were among the inaugural class of four young scientists chosen for the prestigious Damon Runyon Scholarship for Advancing Research and Knowledge.
Sangita Chakraborty ’24 and Jayati Mondal ’24 were picked by the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation from among the best young college students and recent graduates tackling longstanding challenges in cancer research, the foundation said.
SPARK Scholars will conduct research in the lab of a current or former Damon Runyon scientist at a partnering institution around the country. Each Scholar will receive a stipend of up to $50,000, along with a living allowance and a travel stipend.
A Yalow Honors Merit and John P. McNulty scholar at Hunter, Chakraborty has done research in the Funabiki lab at Rockefeller University, uncovering how proteins regulate their DNA binding properties.
As a SPARK Scholar, Chakraborty will join the lab of Lydia Finley, PhD, at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where she will study how cellular metabolic pathways regulate cell differentiation in stem cells and cancer cells.
Mondal, also a Yalow Scholar and Biological Sciences major, as an undergraduate joined the lab of Andrew L. Wolfe, PhD, where she explored the potential of peptide nucleic acids to target lung and colorectal cancer cells with KRAS mutations. She will now return to the Wolfe Lab as a SPARK Scholar.
Founded in 1946 to memorialize the iconic journalist Damon Runyon, who died of throat cancer, the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation has invested nearly $450 million and funded nearly 4,000 scientists, according to its literature. Winning SPARK candidates exemplify academic excellence and are “evaluated by their demonstrated commitment to a future in research and thirst for knowledge.”
