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Arul Chinnaiyan wins Harrington Prize for medical innovation
The award recognizes physician-scientists for achievements highlighting innovation, creativity, and clinical potential.
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Rwittika Chakraborty - Wed, 25, Mar 2026
- 04:34 EDT
- 24
Arul M. Chinnaiyan, director of the Michigan Center for Translational Pathology and S.P. Hicks Endowed Professor of Pathology at Michigan Medicine / medschool.umich.edu/
Arul M. Chinnaiyan, director of the Michigan Center for Translational Pathology and S.P. Hicks Endowed Professor of Pathology at Michigan Medicine, has received the 13th annual Harrington Prize for Innovation in Medicine in recognition of his identification of a gene fusion that drives prostate cancer.
The Harrington Prize for Innovation in Medicine was established in 2014 by the Harrington Discovery Institute at University Hospitals and the American Society for Clinical Investigation.
The award recognizes physician-scientists for notable achievements, underscoring innovation, creativity, and potential for clinical application.
Chinnaiyan shared the honor with Charles L. Sawyers, the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Chair in Human Oncology and Pathogenesis at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Chinnaiyan and Sawyers were selected following a review by a committee of members from the ASCI Council and the Harrington Discovery Institute Scientific Advisory Board, which assessed nominations from academic medical centers across seven countries.
Chinnaiyan discovered the TMPRSS2-ERG gene fusion, the most common genetic alteration in prostate cancer, which has become the basis for early diagnosis and a driver of precision oncology strategies.
Along with Sawyers, he co-led a team that identified high rates of mutations in advanced prostate cancers that make them susceptible to a class of drugs now used as a standard treatment.
Chinnaiyan and Sawyers helped create the contemporary framework for diagnosing and treating advanced prostate cancer, laying the groundwork for next-generation therapies. The Harrington Prize recognized their impact on improving outcomes in the disease.
In addition to the $20,000 honorarium, Chinnaiyan and Sawyers will deliver the Harrington Prize Lecture at the 2026 AAP/ASCI/APSA Joint Meeting on April 17.
They will also be featured speakers at the 2026 Harrington Scientific Symposium on May 20 and have been invited to publish an essay in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
Chinnaiyan is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and earned both his PhD and MD from the University of Michigan Medical School in 1999.
He previously received the American Association for Cancer Research Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cancer Research at the AACR annual meeting in April 2008 in San Diego.
His other honors include the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Clinical Scientist Award in Translational Research and the Ramzi Cotran Young Investigator Award from the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology.
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