Dr Ken Youner
The Cecile and Ken Youner IKCC Scholarship was established in 2019 to honour Dr Ken Youner, the Emeritus Board member who helped establish IKCC. The scholarship is awarded annually to a student (undergraduate, graduate, resident or fellow) nominated by a member of the IKCC Medical Advisory Board who is or intends to become a clinician or an allied healthcare professional and is interested in the field of kidney cancer.
The winner of the Cecile and Ken Youner IKCC Scholarship is awarded a travel grant to attend the IKCC Global Kidney Cancer Summit creating an opportunity for this future leader to experience patient engagement and activation in the hope it will be embraced in their medical practice and ethos going forward.
Past Winners
2025 | |
 | Dr Hatice Bölek was awarded the prize for her work on enhancing quality of life and symptom management in metastatic renal cell carcinoma through a web-based eHealth application. |
2024 | |
 | Dr Wen Kong from the Shanghai Renji Hospital in China was awarded the prize for his work on novel treatment and imaging approaches for fumarate hydratase deficient kidney cancer. |
2023 | In 2023, two Cecile and Ken Youner IKCC Scholarships were awarded. |
 | Amanda Ikegami from the A.C. Camargo Cancer Centre in Brazil was awarded the prize for her work on the involvement of neutrophils - cells of the immune system - in the progression of renal cell carcinoma. |
 | Dr Yuly Andrea Remolina Bonilla from the Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubrian in Mexico was awarded the prize for her work on the existing healthcare system inequities in Mexico and its impact on survival outcomes in Mexican patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC). |
2022 | |
 | Dr Jesus Cendejas-Gomez, Society of Urologic Oncology accredited fellowship program of urologic oncology at University of Western Ontario, London, Canada presented his work on the evaluation of renal cell cancer care in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic. |
2021 | In 2021, two Cecile and Ken Youner IKCC Scholarships were awarded. |
 | Dr Charlotte Spencer from The Francis Crick Institute, London, UK was awarded the prize for her work on the characterisation of the histological appearance of genomic alterations in clear cell RCC, and harnessing machine learning to predict genetic mutations to ultimately predict patient outcomes. |
 | Dr Elshad Hasanov from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, US was awarded the prize for his work on the molecular characterisation of RCC brain metastases from genomic features and nucleus sequencing and comparing them with other metastatic sites. |
2020 | |
 | Dr Adriano Beserra from the A.C. Camargo Cancer Centre, São Paulo, Brazil was recognised for his work on developing patient-derived xenografts for renal cell carcinoma as an experimental model to study new kidney cancer treatment. |
2019 | |
 | Dr Lewis Au, MD, FRACP, Clinical Research Fellow at the Renal & Melanoma Unit, Royal Marsden Hospital and Transitional Researcher at the Francis Crick Institute, London UK presented his work on ‘Liquid Biopsies in Renal Cell Carcinoma’ at the 2019 IKCC Global Kidney Cancer Summit. |