In 2021, LUNGevity Foundation, the nation’s leading lung cancer-focused nonprofit organization, announced that Montefiore Einstein’s Neel Chudgar, MD, was a recipient of the LUNGevity/Janssen R&D Health Equity and Inclusiveness Junior Investigator Award for the study titled “Investigating incidental pulmonary nodules in underserved communities.

The LUNGevity/Janssen R&D Health Equity and Inclusiveness Junior Investigator Award program supports physician-scientists interested in conducting lung cancer clinical research with the goal of bridging health disparities in underrepresented communities and medically underserved populations.

Awardees are mentored by senior lung cancer experts at their own institutions, as well as receive guidance from LUNGevity Scientific Advisory Board members.

“Ethnic and racial minority representation within clinical and research-related professions is currently a major issue, with Black men making up less than 3% of physicians in 2020,” explained VCU Massey Cancer Center Director and LUNGevity board member Robert Winn, MD. “As health care inequity continues to be a major problem within underserved communities, having increased access to clinicians who understand their unique needs can play a pivotal role in bridging this gap. I am delighted to see the first cohort of recipients of the LUNGevity/Janssen R&D Health Equity and Inclusiveness Research Awards tackling important issues in lung cancer screening and biomarker testing in the lung cancer care continuum.”

“We are delighted to support the 2021 class of LUNGevity/Janssen R&D Health Equity and Inclusiveness research awardees. Bridging health disparities and working to ensure that patients have access to the best care possible is a major focus for us. Partnering with LUNGevity Foundation and supporting these young leaders is an important step toward achieving this goal,” said Sylvie Laquerre, PhD, Solid Tumors Disease Area Leader at Janssen Research & Development, LLC.

Under the stewardship of LUNGevity’s Scientific Advisory Board, a group of 25 prominent scientists and researchers, LUNGevity ensures that its grants are awarded to those researchers whose proposals demonstrate the greatest potential for extending and improving lives of those affected by lung cancer. LUNGevity awardees are working on finding a better way to detect lung cancer and to better diagnose, treat, and prevent its recurrence. The Foundation’s overall research program is a crucial factor in moving the science forward to improve outcomes for people living with lung cancer.

LUNGevity’s Health Equity and Inclusiveness Lung Cancer Research Awards Research Program is supported by Janssen R&D. LUNGevity’s Translational Science Research Program is supported by Bristol-Myers Squibb, Genentech, The Thomas G. Labrecque Foundation, the Schmidt Legacy Foundation, and individual donors.