Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce that the winners of the JPM 2021 Young Investigator Awards are Dr. Simone Di Franco and Dr. Catriona Hippman.

Dr. Simone Di Franco is an Assistant Professor of the Department of Surgical Oncological and Stomatological Sciences at University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy. Dr. Di Franco’s research interests are in Cancer Stem Cells, Tumor Microenvironment, Combinatorial and Targeted Therapies, Cancer Biology, Cell Signaling, Molecular Cloning, and Gene Expression. He received his PhD in 2014 and has an outstanding publication record, comprising 32 publications in peer-reviewed international journals. Dr. Di Franco’s Scopus Scientific Citations number 1060 and his Hirsch index is 16. He is clearly a rising star in the field of Molecular Oncology. This is an outstanding achievement in today’s competitive environment. Please join us in congratulating Dr. Di Franco for his outstanding achievements.

Dr. Catriona Hippman is a Postdoctoral Fellow of the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada, and is cross-appointed to the Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Dr. Hippman’s research interests are in pharmacogenomics, personalized medicine, psychiatric genetic counselling and reproductive mental health. She received her PhD in 2020 and has an outstanding publication record, with 33 publications in peer-reviewed international journals. Dr. Hippman’s Scopus Scientific Citations number is 285 and her Hirsch index is 11. She is clearly a rising star in the field of personalized medicine. In the past year, Dr. Hippman has secured 4 fellowship awards in support of her work, which is an outstanding achievement in today’s competitive environment. Please join us in congratulating Dr. Hippman for her outstanding achievements.

As the awardees, they will each receive a prize of 1000 CHF, an offer to publish a paper free of charge before 31st May in JPM after peer-review, and an engraved plaque.

We would like to thank all the nominators from various fields of study for their participation and all the Award Committee Members for their evaluation of the abundant excellent nominations.

Prof. Dr. David Alan Rizzieri
Editor-in-Chief, JPM