Established by Bengt Sjöberg 2016
The Sjöberg prize
The Statutes, § 7, shows that The Sjöberg Foundation each year will distribute the Sjöberg Prize:
"The Foundation will also award an annual scholarship, "The Sjöberg Prize", to a prominent scientist or group of scientists in Sweden or any other country. The scholarship will amount to the equivalent of 1 million US dollars in today's value of money. The prize will to 1/10 concern encouragement and be used freely by the receiver, and the remaining 9/10 will be used for future research in cancer. "
The commission to appoint laureates and administer prize work, the foundation has transferred to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Laureates
2024
This year’s Sjöberg Prize of one million dollars is awarded to Catherine J. Wu, Dana-Faber Cancer Institute, Bostonfor her discoveries concerning tumor neoantigens and the immune response to tumor cells as basis for cancer vaccine development.
2023
This year’s Sjöberg Prize of one million dollars is awarded to professor Kevan Shokat, University of California, USA, who became the first scientist to succeed in blocking one of the mutated proteins that cause most cancer cases. This is a huge scientific breakthrough that can result in new cancer medicines.
2022
Arul M. Chinnaiyan, University of Michigan, USA, is awarded this year’s Sjöberg Prize, worth one million US dollars, for his discovery of the fusion gene responsible for more than half of all prostate cancer cases. This has significantly improved our understanding of one of the most common types of cancer and already contributed to better diagnostics. It also holds great potential for improving the care of thousands of patients in the future.
Further information is provided by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' website:
2021
This year’s Sjöberg Prize, worth one million US dollars, was awarded Benjamin L. Ebert, USA, for his research into how lenalidomide works as a treatment for blood cancer. His discovery of the mechanism that promotes protein breakdown in cancer cells may be vitally important to the future development of new pharmaceuticals.
Further information is provided by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' website:
2020
The Sjöberg Prize 2020 of one million US dollars will be awarded to Michael Hall and David Sabatini as decided by the Royal. Academy of Sciences. The two researchers have radically changed the view of cell growth, an important factor in the onset of cancer. They have thus laid the foundation for the development of new forms of cancer treatment.
Further information can be found in the press release on the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences website: Sjöberg Prize 2020
2019
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award cancer researchers Dennis Slamon and Brian Druker the Sjöberg Prize 2019, worth one million US dollars. The two researchers have developed entirely new ways of beating cancer and have been revolutionary in the development of targeted treatments that improve the prognosis for, and survival of, thousands of patients.
Further information is provided by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' website: The Sjöberg Prize
2018
The Sjöberg Prize 2018, worth one million US dollars, is awarded to cancer researchers Zhu Chen, Anne Dejean and Hugues de Thé. They have succeeded in curing one of the deadliest forms of cancer using a unique treatment method that is based on arsenic and retinoic acid. This method shows how cancer treatment is becoming more targeted as we learn more about the mechanisms responsible for the disease.
Further information is provided by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' website: The Sjöberg Prize
2017
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award The Sjöberg Prize 2017 to Professor James P. Allison, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX and Professor Tony Hunter, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA, USA "for pioneering studies of cellular processes which led to the development of new effective cancer drugs."
Further information is provided by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' website: The Sjöberg Prize.
Photo: Per Brydolf