The talented and dedicated researchers working at the Mass General Research Institute are pushing the boundaries of science and medicine every day. In this series, we highlight some of the individuals who have recently received awards or honors for their research achievements:

Shawn Demehri, MD, PhD

Physician Investigator (Cl), Cutaneous Biology Research Center, Mass General Research Institute
Associate Professor of Dermatology, Harvard Medical School

Shawn Demehri, MD, PhD received the 2022 LEO Foundation Award. This award recognizes outstanding young researchers and scientists whose work represents extraordinary contributions to skin research and has the potential to pave the way for new treatments.

This award will provide Dr. Demehri and his team with unrestricted funds to explore key questions on a topic that is fundamental to cancer prevention, “How do highly mutated tissues of our body maintain their normal architecture, and what is the role of the immune system in this process?”

 “I am honored and proud to receive this prestigious award for work that my team and I are very passionate about. It certainly will stimulate me to continue the further exploration of key questions in skin cancer prevention and pass on my passion for cancer immunoprevention in the skin and other organs.”

– Shawn Demehri, MD, PhD

David Fisher, MD

Chief of Dermatology, Massachusetts General Hospital
Director, Melanoma Program, Mass General Cancer Center
Director, Cutaneous Biology Research Center, Mass General Research Institute

David Fisher, MD, director of the Mass General Cancer Center Melanoma Program and the Cutaneous Biology Research Center, and chief of Dermatology at Mass General, received the Melanoma Academy Leadership Award from the Melanoma Research Program.

Fisher will now serve as director of the Melanoma Academy, a virtual academy that builds relationships between established leaders in melanoma research and/or patient care and early-career investigators.

This award, while largely focused on mentoring of junior faculty researchers, provides funding to support research projects. including collaborations with a group of independently selected junior faculty researchers.

It is anticipated that the support will permit novel strategies to be tested, together with attempts to innovate and push technologies vigorously in order to advance melanoma prevention.

“I am excited by the opportunity to work with investigators studying a diversity of melanoma-related topics, and to assist them with both their research and their career advancement. From fundamentals of laboratory basic science to highly applied clinical innovations, the Academy will attempt to build a new pipeline of discovery, hopefully enlightening fundamental biomedical principals while also improving outcomes for patients.”

– David Fisher, MD

Trisha Pasricha, MD, MPH

Research Fellow in the Department of Medicine
Division of Gastroenterology, Massachusetts General Hospital

Trisha S. Pasricha, MD, MPH received the American Gastroenterological Association Research Scholar Award.

This award supports early-career investigators who have demonstrated exceptional promise in digestive disease research.

“When I was an internal medicine resident, I was struck by how many times patients with debilitating disorders of gut-brain interaction had been told it was all in their heads.

As a team, we often treated their symptoms palliatively, almost as if they had cancer.  But unlike oncology, the lack of translation from basic enteric neurobiology to efficacious treatments was startling and often led to misconceptions on the nature of their illnesses.

Although I grew disappointed when my search for disease-modifying treatments came up short, I also learned that enteric neuroscience was rapidly advancing. I decided then to become a neurogastroenterologist and to contribute at such an exciting moment in the field.

That way, the next time I met one of these patients, I could tell them that even though I did not yet have a perfect treatment, at least, I intended to be part of the solution. This award will allow me the opportunity to do just that.”

– Trisha S. Pasricha, MD, MPH

Jill Goldstein, PhD, MPH

Founder and Director, Innovation Center on Sex Differences in Medicine, Mass General Research Institute
Helen T. Moerschner Endowed MGH Research Institute Chair in Women’s Health, Mass General Research Institute
Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

Jill Goldstein, PhD, MPH, received the 2022 Samuel W. Perry III, MD Distinguished Award in Psychiatric Medicine from the Weill Medical College of Cornell University.

Goldstein was recognized for her work on sex differences in the comorbidity of disorders of the brain and heart and her dedication to mentoring the next generation about women’s health and sex differences in medicine.

“I am incredibly honored to receive this distinguished award in psychiatric medicine. My lab and the center I launched at MGH in 2018 – the Innovation Center on Sex Differences in Medicine (ICON-X) – has the mission of enhancing discoveries of sex differences in medicine and translating them into the development of sex-dependent therapies.

We need public investment in our mission because we are proposing novel ideas that will change the culture in medicine and hopefully at MGH. The time is right for incorporating the impact of sex and gender into the development of therapies, and we are looking for partners to join us.”

– Jill Goldstein, PhD, MPH

Paulo Bispo, PhD

Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology, Mass Eye and Ear and Massachusetts General Hospital

Paulo Bispo, PhD, infectious disease microbiologist in the Department of Ophthalmology, received the Mallinckrodt Uveitis Research Fellowship from the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology.

This award will fund Bispo’s project to develop a rapid and unbiased metagenomic sequencing approach to detect uveitis pathogens.

“I am deeply honored to have been selected to receive the 2021 ARVO Foundation/Mallinckrodt Uveitis Research Fellowship. In the past, this generous grant from Mallinckrodt has supported the work of very talented young ophthalmologists and scientists and I feel privileged to become part of this select group. The support will be essential in advancing ongoing efforts in my laboratory aiming to improve care of patients with sight-threatening infections through the development of the next generation of precision diagnostics.”

– Paulo Bispo, PhD

About the Mass General Research Institute
Research at Massachusetts General Hospital is interwoven through more than 30 different departments, centers and institutes. Our research includes fundamental, lab-based science; clinical trials to test new drugs, devices and diagnostic tools; and community and population-based research to improve health outcomes across populations and eliminate disparities in care.
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