The Pershing Square Foundation Announces Its 2026 Lotus Award Recipients

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Pershing Square Foundation (the “Foundation”) today announced $6 million in funding to support eight pioneering scientists advancing innovative ovarian cancer research across the United States.

For more than a decade, the Foundation has advanced transformative cancer research through the Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance (“PSSCRA”). Building on its longstanding commitment to cancer research and women’s health, the Foundation is now in the second year of a dedicated ovarian cancer initiative focused on accelerating scientific discovery and raising awareness around one of the most lethal and underfunded cancers affecting women today.

Despite being the deadliest gynecologic cancer, ovarian cancer has historically received insufficient attention and investment. Nearly 80% of women are diagnosed at an advanced stage, when treatment options are limited and survival rates decline dramatically. With few effective early detection tools and limited therapeutic advances, ovarian cancer remains an urgent public health challenge.

In partnership with the PSSCRA network of leading scientists and physician-scientists, the Foundation created this dedicated funding opportunity to support bold, interdisciplinary research aimed at improving early detection, expanding treatment options, and ultimately saving lives.

“Ovarian cancer is a mangrove labyrinth: a forest so tangled in its own channels that you can be inside it without ever knowing where you are. The Lotus program is dedicated to the art of finding the path: discovering new cures, training a new generation of researchers and clinicians, and giving women the maps they have never had,” said Neri Oxman, PhD, Co-Trustee of The Pershing Square Foundation. “Like the lotus, which rises clean from the mud that grew it, we believe healing begins where the tangle is deepest.”

Leveraging the Foundation’s established PSSCRA network, the initiative supports scientists whose work directly addresses ovarian cancer, as well as researchers translating breakthroughs from adjacent fields with transformative potential. Awardees were selected for their scientific rigor, originality, and potential to drive meaningful advances in a disease where progress is urgently needed.

“As someone who has personally overcome ovarian cancer, I know firsthand that progress against this disease is possible because of scientists like the ones in our network,” remarked Olivia Tournay Flatto, PhD, President of The Pershing Square Foundation. “This year’s awardees are pursuing innovative approaches across immunotherapy, genomics, precision medicine, and tumor biology. Their work reflects the power of bold ideas and scientific excellence to change the future for women facing ovarian cancer.”

The 2026 Lotus Award recipients are:

• Swarnali Acharyya, PhD, Columbia University: Dr. Acharyya will investigate how ovarian tumors may activate stress-hormone pathways in the brain that, in turn, promote metastasis. Her work will examine the role of corticotropin-releasing hormone, a key regulator of the body’s stress response, and test whether brain-penetrant drugs that block this pathway could be repurposed to prevent relapse in ovarian cancer.
  
  
• Jose Conejo-Garcia, MD, PhD, Duke University School of Medicine: Dr. Conejo-Garcia aims to build a more accessible, off-the-shelf CAR T cell therapy for ovarian cancer using gamma delta T cells derived from donated umbilical cord blood. These tumor-seeking immune cells will be engineered to recognize citrullinated vimentin, a marker found on ovarian cancer and tumor-supporting cells, to support future clinical testing in patients with treatment-resistant disease.
  
  
• Tal Danino, PhD, Columbia University: Dr. Danino is developing engineered probiotic bacteria that can travel to ovarian tumors and deliver therapeutic payloads directly within the tumor environment. His team will optimize these living therapies for safety, tumor targeting, and localized release of immune-boosting molecules, with the goal of helping the immune system attack ovarian cancer while limiting toxicity to healthy tissues.
  
  
• Richard Gregory, PhD, UMass Chan Medical School: Dr. Gregory will study METTL3, an RNA-modifying enzyme that may help ovarian cancer cells grow, resist chemotherapy, and evade the immune system. This project will test whether blocking METTL3 with an inhibitor can slow tumor growth and restore sensitivity to existing treatments for high-grade serous ovarian cancer.
  
  
• Dan Landau, MD, PhD, Weill Cornell Medicine: Dr. Landau will search for new immune targets in ovarian cancer by identifying tumor-specific antigens that arise from mis-splicing and reactivated transposable elements. Using advanced sequencing techniques, his team will discover and validate targets that could enable more precise immune recognition and elimination of ovarian cancer cells.
  
  
• Ernst Lengyel, MD, PhD, University of Chicago: Dr. Lengyel will investigate how the methionine cycle reprograms fibroblasts into tumor-supporting cells in high-grade serous ovarian cancer. His team will study how enzymes at the intersection of metabolism and methylation reshape tumor growth, affect gene regulation and immune responses in the tumor microenvironment, and test whether a selective methylation inhibitor can render ovarian tumors less aggressive and more responsive to immune therapies.
  
  
• Scott Lowe, PhD, Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research: Dr. Lowe will test a strategy to prevent ovarian cancer relapse by targeting both residual cancer cells and the supportive tissue environment that helps them survive after treatment. His team will focus on uPAR, a marker found on aggressive ovarian cancer cells and nearby tumor-supporting cells, and evaluate uPAR-targeted antibody-drug conjugates designed to eliminate the cells that allow disease to return.
  
  
• Ie-Ming Shih, MD, PhD, Johns Hopkins University: Dr. Shih is studying how to better predict ovarian cancer risk in women with inherited BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations after surgical removal of the fallopian tubes and ovaries to reduce the ovarian cancer risk. Using 3D imaging, his team will examine entire fallopian tubes for early precancerous lesions and identify which lesions are most likely to progress, helping guide more precise monitoring and treatment decisions.

About The Pershing Square Foundation: The Pershing Square Foundation (PSF) is a family foundation established in 2006 to support exceptional leaders and innovative organizations that tackle important social issues and deliver scalable and sustainable global impact. Pershing Square Philanthropies, which includes The Pershing Square Foundation, has committed more than $930 million in grants and investments in target areas including health and medicine, education, economic development and innovation. Bill Ackman and Neri Oxman are co-trustees of the Foundation. For more information, visit: pershingsquarephilanthropies.org.