Cigall Kadoch was inspired to become a medical researcher as a teenager when her caretaker, whom she saw as a mentor, got sick and died suddenly.
“She played a huge role in our lives, and she was the only person my parents trusted,” Kadoch, associate professor of pediatric oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, told JNS. “Around when I was bat mitzvah age, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and passed away within a few months in front of our eyes.”
Kadoch struggled to understand and process what was happening.
“I was frustrated because I was told I was smart but I didn’t have an explanation for what claimed her life. It was like an accident or a fire,” she told JNS. “This was something within the human body that I couldn’t explain or find answers for because they weren’t in textbooks yet.”
Kadoch, 39, was also confused when she shadowed a family member, who worked with cancer patients, at a clinic.
“I would watch him treat patients, but I couldn’t understand why some got better and others died,” she said. “I asked him why some cancers respond to treatments and others don’t and he couldn’t answer me, so I thought I would become medically trained as a way to understand.”
Kadoch not only trained as a medical researcher—in college at the University of California, Berkeley and then a doctorate in cancer biology from Stanford School of Medicine—but after establishing her own lab, at age 28, in 2014, she is “one of the youngest scientists ever appointed to the Harvard Medical School faculty,” per her Dana-Farber bio.
Last month, she landed one of the most prestigious scientific awards in the United States, the 2024 Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists. She credits much of her success, and her outlook, to her Jewish identity.
Fixing the world
Kadoch grew up in San Francisco, the daughter of an American mother who never converted formally but lives a Jewish life, and a Moroccan Jewish father who grew up in Israel and served in the Six-Day War in 1967 before moving to the United States. Her mother spent a year in Israel and raised her children, including Kadoch, “fully Jewish, with Hebrew as a second, co-learned language,” she told JNS.
“Through the lens of my parents’ appreciation for this life we wanted to build, I always thought of ways to make the world better,” Kadoch said. “Because I was raised with this culture, I was always thinking of tikkun olam and how I can make the world a better place.”
As an Israeli-American scientist, Kadoch is inspired by her father’s service in Israel.
“Understanding what my dad faced as a soldier in the army in the setting of an active war really put into perspective how lucky I am to be able to make the most of this thing I call life,” she said.
“The sense of resilience is indeed a part of the culture and religious aspects of Judaism,” she added. “A huge part of that is embodied in the constant threat that Israel faces and the constant need to defend itself. I think it comes from a hardwired understanding that the way to live there is to be resilient.”
Since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, even more resilience has been required, including of Kadoch’s colleagues in Israel.
“The fact that Israeli scientists can do this in light of what is happening has motivated me and my peers to support that network of people, to make sure that those scientists have every bit of support they can get, have mentors all over the world, and to make sure that the resilience is carried forward,” she said.
‘Most promising’ researchers
This year was the second time that the Blavatnik Family Foundation and The New York Academy of Sciences awarded the national prizes—each of which is worth $250,000—to three women scientists, the duo stated in a release.
The prizes recognize “America’s most promising, faculty-level scientific researchers under 42,” per the foundation, which said that the three, including Kadoch, were culled from 331 nominations from 172 institutions in 43 states. (Another 15 finalists receive $15,000 each.)
Kadoch, the life sciences laureate, and her team “discovered, characterized and worked to pharmacologically target a major mechanism that upholds and supports human cancer,” she explained.
BAF chromatin remodeling complexes—as these mechanisms are called—“are large molecular machines that roll along our DNA and dictate which genes turn on and off,” Kadoch said.
“BAF complexes are mutated or at fault in over 20% of human cancers, and further, a large number of cancers—up to 50%—depend on their activities for survival, acting as Achilles’ heels, making them promising drug targets,” she added.
Foghorn Therapeutics, the company that Kadoch founded, is currently developing first-in-class molecules targeting those BAF complexes.
The fact that she is part of a trio of women laureates isn’t lost on Kadoch.
“Never have we seen so many women taking the helm of leading positions at organizations,” she said. “I have two young children, and it’s very hard to balance jobs like mine, so conversations about needing to support women as both mothers and professionals hit home.”
Thinking back on her career to date, she again reflects on her Jewish identity.
“As a kid I always felt unique,” she told JNS. “I was always wondering why my name is spelled like this and sounded different from friends’, but I also think it gave me a sense of identity.”
“Now, looking back on it, I am proud,” she said. “My name is unique. What I’ve done with my life is unique, and it all together goes along with the picture of who I became.”