Awards
Don Listwin Award for Outstanding Service/Support for Cancer Early Detection
About the award
The Don Listwin Award for Outstanding Service/Support for Cancer Early Detection recognizes a sustained contribution to, or singular contribution in, the cancer early detection field.
The award is named in honor of Don Listwin, Founder, Chairman & CEO of Canary Foundation. Listwin has been personally involved in cancer early detection since the early 2000s following his mother's death from ovarian cancer. His contributions have helped establish and propel the field of cancer early detection, and he is a persistent advocate for research in this area.
Eligibility applies to any individual or team that has contributed to the field of cancer early detection either through an outstanding sustained commitment or a singular achievement in advocacy, service or support of scientific research. Donors to research are exempt from this award. The main criterion for judging nominations is their impact on cancer early detection. This impact may be advocacy or other supporting roles not directly involved with scientific research.
Inaugural recipient
Lisa Newcomb, PhD
Canary Foundation is pleased to announce Lisa Newcomb, PhD, as the inaugural recipient of the Don Listwin Award for Outstanding Service/Support for Cancer Early Detection.
Established in honor of Don Listwin, Founder, Chairman & CEO of Canary Foundation, the award recognizes an individual or team whose sustained commitment or singular achievement has made a significant impact on the field of cancer early detection through advocacy, service, or support of scientific research.
Dr. Newcomb is being recognized for her extraordinary leadership and sustained commitment to the Canary Prostate Active Surveillance Study (PASS), the largest multi-site cohort of prostate cancer patients managed with active surveillance in the world.
Since helping establish PASS in 2008, Dr. Newcomb has played a central role in building and sustaining the study from its original vision as a three-year, six-site project supported by $2 million in funding into a nearly 20-year, multi-institutional research program. Through her leadership, collaboration, and determination, PASS has secured more than $22 million in support from federal grants, academic research collaborations, commercial partnerships, and philanthropy.
The infrastructure created through PASS has enabled researchers to investigate biomarkers and other tools to distinguish prostate cancers that can safely be monitored from those that require treatment—advancing the goal of detecting aggressive disease early, while reducing unnecessary treatment for cancers that may never cause harm.
As Deputy Director of PASS, Dr. Newcomb oversees the operational infrastructure that makes this research possible while also managing a portfolio of translational research projects that leverage the PASS cohort and biospecimen repository to improve care for people diagnosed with low-grade prostate cancer.
Her nearly two decades of service to PASS have helped create an enduring research resource that continues to generate new knowledge and advance early detection and precision care for prostate cancer. Thank you, Lisa, for your exceptional service to the cancer early detection community!