SSO Research and Education Fund awards Roheena Panni, MD, MPHS $25,000 Young Investigator Award.
Surgeon-scientist, Roheena Panni, MD, MPHS, was awarded the $25,000 Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) Young Investigator Award for 2025. Panni is an Assistant Professor of Surgery in the Section of Surgical Oncology. She treats patients at the Center for Advanced Medicine at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.
The Young Investigator Award is designed to promote clinical and translational research advancing novel ideas and concepts whose purpose is to improve health outcomes through advances in the delivery of cancer-related care. The award is designated for one year beginning on May 1 of the award year and concluding April 30 of the following year. Eligible applicants must hold an MD, PhD, or equivalent degree and must be a member of SSO, within five years of completion of fellowship or related training.
This grant will support Panni’s work focusing on developing novel therapeutic combinations for future clinical trial to improve responses of neoantigen-specific vaccines in pancreatic cancer.
“This award is a pivotal step in advancing the validation of vaccine efficacy, directly influencing future clinical trial designs and expanding access to pancreatic cancer vaccines for a broader patient population,” says Panni.
Panni’s research has been previously recognized, having won first place at Wells Resident Research Day in 2017 for the category of Basic Science. In 2018 she also received the SSO Harvey Baker Travelling Fellow Award for basic science presentation, as well as the GI Symposium (2018) Conquer Cancer Foundation Merit Award.
Her research interests encompass understanding immune responses to cancer and utilizing novel treatment modalities to improve patient response to conventional therapies. After her general surgery residency training, Panni’s interest in hepatobiliary and gastrointestinal treatment and outcomes led her to pursue fellowship training.
After completing her training as a Leslie H. Blumgart fellow in Hepatopancreatobiliary Surgery and Complex General Surgical Oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, Panni returned to WashU Medicine to join the faculty.
As a member of WashU Medicine faculty, Panni runs a research lab whose focus is on developing strategies to train the immune system to enhance the body’s ability to fight cancer. Her efforts target pancreatic cancer, known to resist traditional treatments. The lab is collaborating with the Division of Surgical Sciences, which seeks to ease the burden of acquiring funding through grants for junior researchers.