Winship cancer biology graduate student Allyson Koyen is the 2018 recipient of the Radiation Research Society's Marie Curie Award for showing the highest potential for successful radiation research.
July 5, 2018
Winship cancer biology graduate student Allyson Koyen is the 2018 recipient of the Radiation Research Society's (RRS) Marie Curie Award, a Scholars-in-Training travel award given to an applicant who has shown the highest potential for successful radiation research. Koyen works in Dr. David Yu's lab which researches how cells respond to DNA replication stress and damage and how this dysregulation leads to development of disease, including cancer. Koyen's dissertation focuses on identifying proteins that mediate chemotherapy resistance in small cell lung cancer, understanding the roles proteins play in the DNA damage response, and using this knowledge to develop improved therapeutic targets for small cell lung cancer patients.
As a recipient of the Marie Curie Award, Koyen has been invited to present her research at the annual RRS Conference which will be held September 23-26 in Chicago.
"Working in the field of biomedical research, I am surrounded by so many brilliant, talented, and hardworking people," says Koyen, "I owe a great deal to the support I have received from my mentor Dr. Yu, the colleagues in my lab, my thesis committee and from the larger cancer biology program at Emory, who have continually challenged me and helped me grow over the years into a better scientist. I am looking forward to sharing my research with the RRS community this September!"