Hockfield Cancer Research Prize

The Hockfield Cancer Research Prize is awarded biannually to an individual who has made significant contributions to cancer research or cancer advocacy, and to mentorship in the field. The prize is named for Dr. Susan Hockfield, who served as MIT’s sixteenth president and was both the first life scientist and first woman in that role. During her tenure, she distinguished herself as a champion for breakthroughs emerging from the historic convergence of the life sciences with the engineering and physical sciences, in fields from clean energy to cancer, including the founding of the Koch Institute, IMES, and the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard. With her vision and support for a collaborative, interdisciplinary cancer research model, she was a driving force in transforming the former MIT Center for Cancer Research into the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and helping the institute become the gold standard for convergence.

The 2025 Hockfield Cancer Research Prize 

Research pioneer, advocate and leader David Baltimore, PhD is the 2025 recipient of the Hockfield Prize. President Emeritus and Professor of Biology at the California Institute of Technology, Baltimore began his research career in the 1960s focusing on virology and immunology including transcriptional and post-transcriptional control of the inflammatory process, particularly genes controlled by NF-κB, and normal and pathological functions of microRNAs and their roles in controlling immune cells. 

A founding faculty member of the MIT Center for Cancer Research, Baltimore received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his paradigm-shifting discovery of reverse transcriptase, showing that genetic information can move bidirectionally between DNA and RNA. Reverse transcriptase is now used widely in science and biomedical applications. He then founded the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, serving as inaugural director from 1982-1990, before becoming president of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) from 1997-2006.

From notable beginnings as a co-organizer of the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA in 1975, Baltimore has long been an influential and effective advocate for science, impacting national policy debates on topics such as recombinant DNA research—which plays a crucial role in cancer research—the AIDS epidemic, and most recently, genome editing. He has also served on a number of national advisory committees and headed professional organizations and initiatives, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Award Lecture:

On the afternoon October 14, 2025, Dr. Baltimore will give his award lecture in Huntington Hall (10-250). Koch Institute and MIT community members are welcome to attend, and the lecture will be followed by programming for alumni of the Koch Institute and former MIT Center for Cancer Research.

About Susan Hockfield

Susan Hockfield, PhD is Professor of Neuroscience and President Emerita at MIT. As the sixteenth president (2004-2012), she was the first woman and the first life scientist to lead the Institute. After earning degrees from the University of Rochester and Georgetown University School of Medicine, Dr. Hockfield was an NIH postdoctoral fellow at the University of California at San Francisco before joining the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory scientific staff. In 1985, Hockfield became a faculty member at Yale University, where she was the William Edward Gilbert Professor of Neurobiology, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (1998-2002), and Provost (2003-2004). Her research focused on brain development and glioma (brain tumors), pioneering the use of monoclonal antibody technology in brain research. 

Nationally, Dr. Hockfield is a leader and long-time champion of scientific convergence, the advancement of women in science, and public support and funding of research.  She helped shape national policy for energy and next-generation manufacturing, including as President Obama’s appointee to co-chair the steering committee of the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, and as a member of a 2015 Congressional Commission evaluating the Department of Energy laboratories. Hockfield has also served as a U.S. Science Envoy with the U.S. Department of State, promoting public private partnerships to improve collaboration and the importance of competition in driving innovation. Active in science’s professional and corporate exercise, Hockfield is former president and an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and serves on several industry and non-profit boards. She is a co-founder of the Faculty Founders Initiative, which aims to increase the number of woman-founded companies in biotech, and the author of The Age of Living Machines, which offers a glimpse into a possible future driven by the convergence of biology and engineering.