image: Marcus Ruscetti, PhD, associate professor of molecular, cell & cancer biology, receives 2026 Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Prize from the Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance, to explore how cells in the liver experiencing senescence—a cellular state in which cells stop dividing due to stress or aging—create an immune-suppressive environment that enables pancreatic cancer metastasis.
Credit: Bryan Goodchild, UMass Chan Medical School
Marcus Ruscetti, PhD, is one of 13 investigators to receive the prestigious 2026 Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Prize from the Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance. Given annually to leading U.S. scientists who are accelerating cures for cancer through innovative research, the three-year, $750,000 prize will be used by Dr. Ruscetti, associate professor of molecular, cell & cancer biology, to understand how cells in the liver experiencing senescence—a cellular state in which cells stop dividing due to stress or aging—create an immune-suppressive environment that enables pancreatic cancer metastasis.
Ruscetti’s research focuses on cellular senescence. If activated in tumor cells, this process could serve as a therapy for halting the growth of tumor cells. This process could also be used to reengage the immune system’s surveillance apparatus, allowing it to recognize tumor cells.
“The Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Prize will allow us to take our foundational work on tumor cell senescence and its impact on immune responses in a totally new direction to determine the role of senescence in benign tissues on chronic inflammation and metastasis spreading, and evaluate whether therapeutic agents targeting pathological senescent cells could be effective in preventing metastasis,” said Ruscetti.
He joined UMass Chan in 2020 after earning his PhD in molecular biology from UCLA and completing his postdoctoral studies at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. As a postdoctoral researcher at Memorial Sloan Kettering, Ruscetti discovered that shutting down the RAS pathway—a critical cell signaling cascade that regulates cell growth, differentiation and survival—induces cellular senescence and activates immune surveillance and tumor clearance of some cancers.
Since establishing his lab at UMass Chan, Ruscetti has continued to pioneer novel approaches to rewire inflammatory signaling from senescent cells as a novel immunotherapy approach to treat certain tumor types such as pancreatic and prostate cancers, which are surrounded by cells that suppress the immune system. Activation of senescence allows the immune system to recognize and see the cancer cells. More recently, his group found that different cell types—including nontumor cells at the tumor site and even in surrounding normal organs—can undergo senescence and contribute to chronic immune suppression that fuels tumor progression and even distant metastasis.
By elucidating the markers and mechanisms that differentiate pro-tumorigenic from tumor-suppressive senescent cells, Ruscetti hopes to develop innovative treatment strategies incorporating therapies targeting senescent cells or their inflammatory profiles to not only treat advanced disease but potentially prevent metastasis formation in cancer patients.
“It has become increasingly clear that beyond genetic mutations that may predispose us to cancer, other routine stresses that our bodies experience, such as aging, diet and inflammation, are necessary to fuel its spread,” said Ruscetti. “However, the mechanisms through which stress contributes to cancer progression, and approaches to effectively target it for cancer therapy, are not fully understood and have yet to be pursued. The Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Prize will allow us to apply our expertise in senescence biology to investigate how this cellular stress program contributes to metastasis and through that design therapies to effectively target senescent cells for cancer treatment.”
Established in 2013 through a partnership between the Pershing Square Foundation and the Sohn Conference Foundation, the prize aims to empower early-career investigators to pursue groundbreaking research projects during critical stages when traditional funding is often insufficient. Awarded to independent investigators with two to six years’ experience running their own labs, the funding seeks to accelerate cancer treatments by giving investigators the freedom to take risks and pursue their boldest research while fostering collaboration between academia and industry.
In addition to funding, winners gain access to a unique network of leaders in academia, industry and philanthropy, and are invited to participate in select programs designed to accelerate their research and collaborations. The Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Prize supports 90 early-career scientists at 24 institutions in the U.S., fostering groundbreaking discoveries in cancer research.
About UMass Chan Medical School
UMass Chan Medical School, one of five campuses of the University of Massachusetts system, comprises the T.H. Chan School of Medicine; the Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences; the Tan Chingfen Graduate School of Nursing; ForHealth Consulting at UMass Chan Medical School, a public service health care consulting division; and MassBiologics, the only nonprofit, FDA-licensed manufacturer of vaccines, biologics and viral vector gene therapies in the United States; and a thriving Nobel-Prize-winning biomedical research enterprise.
UMass Chan is advancing together to improve the health and wellness of our diverse communities throughout Massachusetts and across the world by leading and innovating in education, research, health care delivery and public service. UMass Chan has built a reputation as a world-class destination for biomedical research. It is ranked among the best medical schools in the nation for primary care education and biomedical research by U.S. News & World Report. In 2021, the Medical School received a $175 million gift from The Morningside Foundation and was renamed UMass Chan Medical School. Learn more at www.umassmed.edu.