WORLDSymposium 2027 Young Investigator Awards Announced
Congratulations to the ten individuals selected to receive the 2027 WORLDSymposium Young Investigator Award. The award is a partial scholarship towards attendance at WORLDSymposium. 87 investigators-in-training submitted an application for the award. The depth and high quality of submissions made the Committee’s decisions especially challenging, a reflection of the remarkable talent advancing lysosomal disease research worldwide. WORLDSymposium would like to congratulate all of the applicants for their hard work. The following individuals will receive the WORLDSymposium Young Investigator Award at the 23rd Annual Scientific Meeting on Tuesday, February 2, 2027 at 08:00 PST.
- Isidro Arévalo-Vargas, Fundación Española para el Estudio y Terapéutica de la Enfermedad de Gaucher y Otras Lisosomales
- Sarah Berger, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
- Julia De la Garza, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
- Claudia Beatriz Del Toro Runzer, Stanford University, Palo Alto California, United States
- Naomi Fisher, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States
- Jessica Gambardella, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy
- Amali Karunathilaka, Nemours Children’s Hospital, Wilmington Delaware, United States
- Evan Kleinboehl, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
- Veronica Lentini, University College London, London, United Kingdom
- Barbara Perez, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, United States
Young Investigators receive certificates and are recognized for their accomplishments on Tuesday February 2, 2027, at the start of the WORLDSymposium Translational Research program.
About the WORLDSymposium Young Investigator Awards
Each year, trainees and recent doctoral graduates are encouraged to apply for the WORLDSymposium Young Investigator Award. The Young Investigator Award provides a partial scholarship to attend WORLDSymposium 2027. To increase opportunities for newer scientists to present their research, WORLDSymposium is offering ten (10) Young Investigator Awards, open to all abstract categories.
Graduate students and those who are within the first 3 years after completing a graduate degree are eligible. Those who submitted an abstract as the first-author are considered eligible for the award, and are selected by the Program Committee on the basis of the content of the abstract.
The option to be considered for the Young Investigator Award for 2027 is in the WORLDSymposium 2027 Abstract Submission System. When submitting an abstract, applicants will have the ability to check “Yes” to apply for the Young Investigator Award for the abstract being submitted. All eligible applicants will be notified by November 3, 2026 of the status of their application for the award.
The Program Committee will select awardees from the first authors of abstracts submitted by the October 1, 2026 deadline.
The partial scholarship includes:
- Registration for LIVE, in-person WORLDSymposium 2027, The Patient Voice, and the Robert J. Gorlin Symposium
- 5 nights room and tax at the Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego (WORLDSymposium special group rate)
- Access to WORLDSymposium 2027 On Demand sessions
- All other expenses are the recipient’s responsibility
Recipients must be present to receive the award. If the recipient is unable to travel to receive the Young Investigator Award an alternate abstract will be selected.
The deadline for submitting an abstract to WORLDSymposium and to be considered for the Young Investigator Award was 17:00 CDT October 1, 2026.
Past Award Recipients:
2026: Jose Victor Alvarez Gonzalez, Maria Athanasopoulos, Matthias Dierick, Melissa Greco, Mahin Hossain, Alex Huang, Sampurna Saikia, Ryunosuke Sanada, Pau Sarlé Vallés, Udayanga Wanninayake
2025: Pratikshya Adhikari, Aimee Donald, Allan Feng, Angelica Maria Herreno Pachon, Andres Felipe Leal, Connor J. Lewis, Anna Reinelt, Krystyna Noelle Rytel, Roselena S. Schuh, Ewa A. Ziolkowska
2024: Tomas Baldwin, Betul Celik, Esteban Gonzalez, Sarah Hurt, Vi Pham, Luisa Pimentel Vera, Edina Poletto, Irene Serrano Gonzalo, Yuki Shiro, Lena Marie Westermann
2023: Nissrine Ballout, Hannah Best, Chloé Dias, Neil Kasaci, Roselena S. Schuh, David Smerkous, Jason A. Weesner, Anna-Maria Wiesinger, Zhenting Zhang, Xiangli Zhao
2022: Tierra Bobo, Jillian Gallagher, Ik Hui Kho, Oriana Mandolfo, Travis Moore, Sireesha Murala, Marya Sabir, Linda Scheffers, Mahsa Taherzadeh, Fiona Weaver
2021: Su Jin Choi, Jason Glanzman, Tyler Harm, Jane Kinsella, Stephanie Newman, Allegra Quadri, Allen Seylani, Miles Smith, Brianna Yund, Wei Zhu
2020: Joao B. Augusto, Nicholas Bascou, Nuthana Prathivadi Bhayankaram, Poulomee Bose, Eric Joshua Garcia, Mohammad A. Hossain, Jeffrey Y. Huang, Sarah Kim, Chelsie Poffenberger, Michael Przybilla, Weihua Tian
2019: Rhea Ashmead, Hojun Choi, Chloe Christensen, Jenny Do, Areian Eghbali, Eric Joshua Garcia, Francyne Kubaski, Murtaza Nagree, Yanyan Peng, Hiroyuki Yamakawa
2018: Rebecca Ahrens-Nicklas, Natalia Gomez-Ospina, Zhirui Jiang, Christina Mikulka, Salvatore Molino, Murtaza Nagree, Yanyan Peng, Roselena Schuh, Jenny Serra Vinardell, Nadav Weinstock
2017: Brendan Beaton, Carolina Cardona, Shahzeb Hassan, Shih-hsin Kan, Francyne Kubaski, Reid Martin, Stephanie Newman, Li Ou, Vincent Puy, Dora Lucia Vallejo Ardila
2016: Elma Aflaki, Allison Bradbury, Fu-Pang Chang, Camila de Britto Para de Aragao, Chrissa Dwyer, Arunabha Ghosh, Zhirui Jiang, Mari Mori