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Inaugural Finberg memorial award winners to present at Innate Immunity Day

Program in Innate Immunity hosting May 10 conference with national scientific leaders and winners of Robert W. Finberg, MD, Memorial Research Training Award

Liraz Galia, PhD; Kevin Gao; and Samantha Tse are the inaugural recipients of The Robert W. Finberg, MD, Memorial Research Training Award.
Liraz Galia, PhD; Kevin Gao; and Samantha Tse are the inaugural recipients of the Robert W. Finberg, MD, Memorial Research Training Award.

The Program in Innate Immunity at UMass Chan Medical School is hosting Innate Immunity Day 2023: Mechanisms and Consequences of Cell Death on Wednesday, May 10, in the Albert Sherman Center auditorium. In addition to scientific talks from leaders in the field, the inaugural winners of the Robert W. Finberg, MD, Memorial Research Training Award will present their research.

Speaking at the event will be Hau Wu, PhD, the Asa and Patricia Springer Professor of Structural Biology and professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology at Harvard Medical School; Thirumala-Devi Kanneganti, PhD, the Rose Marie Thomas Endowed Chair and vice chair of immunology at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital; Feng Shao, PhD, deputy director at National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing, China; Clare Bryant, PhD, professor of innate immunity in the Departments of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine in the University of Cambridge; and Chris Gabel, PhD, vice president of biology at NodThera Limited.

The award winners presenting their work are: Liraz Galia, PhD, postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Katherine Fitzgerald, PhD, the Worcester Foundation for Biomedical Research Chair III, professor of medicine, associate vice provost for basic science research, vice chair of research in the Department of Medicine, chief of the Division of Innate Immunity and director of the Program in Innate Immunity Lab; Samantha Tse, MD/PhD student in the lab of Read Pukkila-Worley, MD, associate professor of medicine; and Kevin Gao, MD/PhD student in the labs of Dr. Fitzgerald and Ann Marshak-Rothstein, PhD, professor of medicine.

The purpose of the awards, funded by the Robert W. Finberg MD Fund, is to incentivize students and postdoctoral scholars at UMass Chan to produce highly competitive research in the fields of innate immunity and inflammation in honor of the late Robert W. Finberg. Chair emeritus and distinguished professor of medicine, Dr. Finberg died in 2021, after a distinguished career spanning four decades as a physician, infectious disease researcher and teacher.