Oncology Fellows Highlights 2025 ESMO Fellowship Winners

In this issue’s edition of the awards/grants spotlight, Oncology Fellows highlights the hematology/oncology fellows who were awarded research fellowship grants during the 2025 ESMO Congress.¹ We also spotlight the winners of the 2025 Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCAN) Fellowships.²

ESMO Research Fellowship Awardees

The ESMO Research Fellowship is a 1-year project with the option to extend to a second year upon request and approval by the Fellowship Committee.¹ The program includes translational and clinical focuses. The translational focus includes bench-to-bedside training and offers the chance to learn about the latest developments in translational cancer research. The clinical focus consists of clinical research conducted in European cancer centers and aims to expand professional networks. The fellowship was first introduced in 1989.

Adelina Gheorghe, PhD, MSc

Project: Predicting late recurrence in hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer: a focus on therapy-induced senescence and iron dysmetabolism.
Home institute: Institute of Oncology "Prof. Dr. Al. Trestioreanu" Bucharest, Romania.

Host institute: Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology, Barcelona, Spain.
Start date: January 1, 2026

Giulio Martinelli, MD

Project: Overcoming Early Relapse on Adjuvant CDK4/6 Inhibitors in Estrogen Receptor-Positive Breast Cancer: Mechanisms of Resistance and Therapeutic Strategies (The ORCHID Study).
Home institute: University Hospital of Modena, Italy.

Host institute: Fundació de Recerca Clínic Barcelona - Institut d’Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Spain.
Start date: February 1, 2026

Giuseppe Di Grazia, MD

Project: RETRACER: RET Expression TRacking to Assess CDK4/6-Inhibitor and Endocrine therapy Resistance emergence.
Home institute: Humanitas Istituto Clinico Catanese, Italy.

Host institute: Fundació de Recerca Clínic Barcelona - Institut d’Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Spain.

Start date: March 1, 2026

Marco Meazza Prina, MD

Project: KALYX (KRAS And Lung cancer: eXposome study) - The exposome study in KRAS-mutant non–small cell lung cancer patients.
Home institute: Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, Milan, Italy.

Host institute: Fundació de Recerca Clínic Barcelona - Institut d’Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Spain.
Start date: March 1, 2026

Maria Ibanez Alda, MD

Project: BRIGHT: B Cells' Role in HER2-positive Breast Cancer and Immune Response to Trastuzumab-Based Treatment.
Home institute: Hospital Universitario Marqués de Valdecilla, Santander, Spain.

Host institute: Institut Gustave Roussy, Villejuif, France.
Start date: January 15, 2026

Matteo Maria Naldini, MD

Project: Spatial Proteomic Profiling of Myeloid Cells in Early Triple-Negative Breast Cancer to Identify Predictive Biomarkers of Immune Checkpoint Blockade Response.
Home institute: IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Rome, Italy.

Host institute: Cancer Research UK Cambridge.
Start date: October 20, 2025

Matthieu Roulleaux Dugage, MD, PhD

Project: Impact of EZH2 inhibitors on the anti-tumor immune response
Home institute: Gustave Roussy, Villejuif, France.

Host institute: University College London Cancer Institute, United Kingdom.
Start date: December 1, 2025

Najib Ben Khaled

Project: Global mapping of drug synergies through combinatorial CRISPR/Cas screening in cholangiocarcinoma.
Home institute: Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany.
Host institute: Institute of Molecular Oncology and Functional Genomics - Technical University of Munich, Germany.
Start date: August 1, 2025

Paolo Ciracì, MD

Project: RE-SELECT: REfining the molecular SELECTion for anti-EGFR re-treatment in RAS and BRAF wild-type chemorefractory metastatic colorectal cancer patients by liquid biopsy.
Home institute: University of Pisa, Italy.

Host institute: Hospital del Mar Research Institute, Barcelona, Spain.
Start date: January 12, 2026

Valentino Martelli, MD

Project: Dissecting gEnomiC and strOmal Drivers of rEsistance to first-line therapy in RAS wild-type metastatic colon cancer – the DECODE study.
Home institute: Hospital del Mar Research Institute, Barcelona, Spain.

Host institute: IRCCS Ospedale Policlinico San Martino - University of Genoa, Italy.
Start date: March 1, 2026

PanCAN Fellowship Awardees

The PanCAN Fellowship is a 2-year program which is supported by the François Wallace Monahan Fund.² The program offers an award of $175,000; junior investigators of French heritage who are training under former PanCAN grantees are eligible for the fellowship.

Alice Dejoux, PhD

Project: Decoding and leveraging autoantibodies to the dark genome proteins in pancreatic cancer.
Home institute: Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Boston.

Jérémy Nigri, PhD

Project: CAF-driven sensory innervation and pain in pancreatic cancer progress.
Home institute: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Laurel Hollow, New York.

References

1. Research Fellowship: Awardees & Reports. ESMO. Accessed January 27, 2026. https://www.esmo.org/career-development/oncology-fellowships/awardees-and-reports/research-fellowship
2. PanCAN Invests in new research grants amid federal funding challenges, advancing innovation and hope for patients with pancreatic cancer. News release. Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. November 24, 2025. Accessed January 27, 2026. https://pancan.org/press-releases/pancan-invests-in-new-research-grants-amid-federal-funding-challenges-advancing-innovation-and-hope-for-patients-with-pancreatic-cancer/