Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance Awards Rosalind Franklin Prize to Roswell Park’s Dr. Kunle Odunsi

BUFFALO, N.Y. — One of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center’s most distinguished researchers has been recognized again for his contributions to advance the fight against ovarian cancer. Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance (OCRA) awarded its Rosalind Franklin Prize for Excellence in Ovarian Cancer Research to Roswell Park Deputy Director Kunle Odunsi, MD, PhD, FRCOG, FACOG, earlier this month during the organization’s 2019 Ovarian Cancer National Conference in Seattle, Washington.

OCRA awards a single $10,000 prize each year to recognize and support an individual researcher’s outstanding contributions to basic science, translational or clinical research in ovarian cancer. The Franklin Prize pays tribute to Dr. Rosalind Franklin, a molecular biologist who played a vital role in discovering the structure of DNA and who died of ovarian cancer in 1958, at age 37.

Dr. Odunsi oversees Roswell Park’s science programs and also serves as Chair of the Department of Gynecologic Oncology, the M. Steven Piver Professor of Gynecologic Oncology and Executive Director of the Center for Immunotherapy at the Buffalo cancer center. The award will support his ongoing work to develop more effective treatments for ovarian cancer and related diseases.

On staff at Roswell Park since 2001, Dr. Odunsi followed a medical degree from the University of Ife, Ile-Ife, Nigeria with postgraduate training in obstetrics and gynecology at the Rosie Maternity and Addenbrooke's Hospitals, University of Cambridge, UK; a research fellowship and doctoral studies in molecular oncology at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund Laboratories, Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, UK; residency training in obstetrics and gynecology at Yale University School of Medicine; and a clinical fellowship in gynecologic oncology at Roswell Park. He is a Fellow of both the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, in the UK, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Dr. Odunsi is a member of the prestigious National Academy of Medicine. He also serves on the Transplantation, Tolerance and Tumor Immunology Study Section within the National Institutes of Health’s Center for Scientific Review and is Co-Chair of the Ovarian Task Force of the National Cancer Institute’s Gynecologic Cancer Steering Committee. 

OCRA is the oldest and largest ovarian cancer charity in the world. Incorporated in 1994, the organization has raised over $100 million in its quest to end ovarian cancer. 

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Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center is a community united by the drive to eliminate cancer’s grip on humanity by unlocking its secrets through personalized approaches and unleashing the healing power of hope. Founded by Dr. Roswell Park in 1898, it is the only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center in Upstate New York. Learn more at www.roswellpark.org, or contact us at 1-800-ROSWELL (1-800-767-9355) or ASKRoswell@RoswellPark.org.