The Pershing Square Foundation Launches $5.25M Ovarian Cancer Challenge Grant to Tackle One of the Deadliest and Most Underfunded Women’s Cancers

New Funding Mobilizes World-Class Scientists to Target Urgent Gaps in Detection and Treatment

The Pershing Square Foundation (the “Foundation”) today announced that it has awarded $5.25M to seven groundbreaking scientists at five premier institutions. For over a decade, the Foundation has advanced health initiatives in New York City by funding pioneering cancer researchers through the Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance (“PSSCRA”). Expanding on its enduring commitment to cancer research and its broader investments in women’s health over the years, the Foundation has launched a new initiative focused on raising awareness to spotlight ovarian cancer. This bold initiative tackles one of the most lethal and underfunded cancers impacting women today, bringing together some of the world’s most brilliant minds to address this critical public health crisis.

Despite being the deadliest gynecologic cancer, ovarian cancer has long suffered from a lack of attention and investment. With four out of five women diagnosed at a late stage, and only a 27% five-year survival rate for those patients, ovarian cancer remains a devastating diagnosis with few early detection tools and limited treatment options. In partnership with the PSSCRA network of leading scientists and physician-scientists, the Foundation has created a dedicated funding opportunity to accelerate progress in this field. This new initiative aims to fill a critical void: investing in ovarian cancer research with urgency, innovation, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

“Inspired by those who fought ovarian cancer, leaving behind learnings and legacies, we are empowered to approach a research manifold still thin in knowledge yet deep in shape and opportunity,” remarked The Pershing Square Foundation Co-Trustee Neri Oxman, PhD. “Look deep, and you will find the power to create, to preserve and to save lives.”

Leveraging the Foundation’s established PSSCRA network, the challenge grant focused on scientists exploring ovarian cancer directly, or translating breakthroughs from other fields with potential high impact. Projects were chosen for their scientific rigor, innovation, and potential to deliver meaningful progress in a disease where too few women survive to share their stories. As part of the selection process, The Pershing Square Foundation relied on the guidance of a highly accomplished scientific advisory board.

“This is a disease that takes too many lives and receives too little attention,” said Olivia Tournay Flatto, PhD, President of The Pershing Square Foundation. “By spotlighting ovarian cancer, we’re expanding the frontier of cancer research to where it’s most urgently needed. This initiative brings together scientific excellence, bold thinking, and a powerful community—hallmarks of our approach at the Foundation. We believe targeted investment can change that story.”

The 2025 Ovarian Cancer Challenge Grant recipients are:

• Jef Boeke, PhD, NYU Grossman School of Medicine: Recent research has shown that the retrotransposon L1 is highly overexpressed in high-grade serous ovarian cancer, driving genomic instability. Dr. Boeke’s project, performed in collaboration with Kathleen Burns of Dana Farber Cancer Center, seeks to assess an L1-encoded protein as a potential blood-based biomarker for early ovarian cancer detection, while also investigating whether amplifying L1-induced DNA damage could serve as a novel therapeutic approach.
• Juan Cubillos-Ruiz, PhD, Weill Cornell Medicine: Dr. Cubillos-Ruiz’s research focuses on harnessing the immune system to fight ovarian cancer. In this project, his lab seeks to activate a novel network of immune cells that reside in the abdominal cavity to eliminate metastatic cancer cells and generate anti-tumor memory responses. The study will uncover how these immune cells coordinate long-term protection and explore new ways to strengthen this immune barrier to prevent ovarian cancer recurrence.
• Ronny Drapkin, MD, PhD, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania: Dr. Drapkin and his team discovered that a specific type of sensory nerve grows into ovarian tumors and helps fuel their growth. When these nerves are blocked—either through genetic tools or drugs—tumor growth slows down significantly, and patient outcomes improve. In this project, the Drapkin lab will study how these sensory nerves and cancer cells communicate and will work to develop new treatments that target this nerve–tumor interaction.
• David Lyden, MD, PhD, Weill Cornell Medicine: Dr. Lyden and his collaborative team aim to advance understanding of ovarian cancer metastasis and accelerate biomarker discovery. By analyzing patient-derived samples, they will characterize both the premetastatic niche and the metastatic tumor microenvironment using integrated multi-omics approaches. Their goal is to identify extracellular vesicle protein biomarkers that could enable the early detection of ovarian cancer and inform future therapeutic strategies.
• Benjamin Neel, MD, PhD, NYU Grossman School of Medicine: The lab of Dr. Neel proposes to investigate both tumor-intrinsic and extrinsic factors that drive ovarian cancer evolution, with a focus on identifying genes that contribute to tumorigenesis and immune or therapy resistance. Using a range of experimental models, this study will explore how tumor genotype, mutations, and the microenvironment shape cancer evolution, and how these factors drive immune evasion and therapeutic response.
• Michel Sadelain, MD, PhD, Columbia University Irving Medical Center: While CAR T cell immunotherapy has transformed blood cancer treatment, it remains less effective in solid tumors like ovarian cancer. Dr. Sadelain proposes a new strategy to direct T cells against target antigens of low abundance that elude conventional immunotherapeutic agents. His team will develop highly sensitive chimeric antigen receptors, termed HIT receptors, specific for CD70 and other candidate targets, and establish a diagnostic test to identify tumors that may be responsive to this immunotherapeutic approach. The team will also evaluate dual-targeting strategies that combine HIT and CAR receptors to avert antigen escape.
• Dmitriy Zamarin, MD, PhD, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai: Physician-scientist Dr. Zamarin focuses on overcoming the immunosuppressive microenvironment in ovarian cancer to boost immune-mediated tumor clearance. This study will investigate a new therapy as a strategy to enhance the effectiveness of immunotherapy. In parallel, the team will employ a cutting-edge platform combining CRISPR screening, imaging, and spatial transcriptomics to uncover critical parts of the immune system that influence immune recognition and resistance.

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. PSF has committed more than $930 million in grants and social investments in target areas including health and medicine, education, economic development and social innovation. Bill Ackman and Neri Oxman are co-trustees of the Foundation. For more information, visit: pershingsquarephilanthropies.org.

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