Dr. Robert Winn, Professor or Medicine, received the Continuing Umbrella of Research Experiences (CURE) Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Cancer Institute.

Lifetime Achievement honorees are former CURE scholars who have successfully navigated the CURE pipeline. They are leaders in their fields and have made significant contributions to cancer research and workforce diversity.

Dr. Winn acknowledges that the CURE program has meant everything to him. The mentoring and support he received as recipient of a Workforce Diversity Award (R21) in 2010 was invaluable, providing a foundation for his subsequent R01. Additional federal grants — spanning over a decade — include an NCI Transition Career Development (K22) Award to Promote Diversity and four U awards for a total of nine federally supported grants in pulmonary and critical care medicine, generally utilizing community-based research to support disparities reduction. This work, in turn, has resulted in numerous scientific publications. Having served on multiple academic and faculty committees and NIH grant reviews, Dr. Winn is a firm believer in paying forward. He looks forward to continuing to share the wisdom and benefits he gained from CURE with the next generation of students and investigators working in cancer and cancer health disparities research.

Dr. Winn is Associate Vice Chancellor for Community-Based Practice and Director of the University of Illinois (UI) Cancer Center at the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System. He is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago in the division of pulmonary, critical care, sleep, and allergy and a PI on the All of Us Precision Medicine grant.

Congratulations on this achievement!