In her new role, Werner will oversee the division’s clinical, research, and educational priorities while helping guide strategic efforts to expand access to innovative cancer care, advance clinical and translational research, and support the development of future oncology leaders. The position carries particular weight at a comprehensive cancer center serving a vast and geographically dispersed region, where the division’s faculty must balance the demands of subspecialty patient care with the infrastructure required to design, launch, and sustain clinical trials. Werner’s mandate, as described by institutional leaders, is to serve as a critical connector between academics, University of Utah Health, and Huntsman Cancer Institute, aligning the division’s academic mission with the real-world needs of cancer patients and their families throughout Utah and the surrounding Mountain West states.

Werner already holds several of the institution’s most senior research and administrative posts. She serves as deputy director of the Comprehensive Cancer Center at Huntsman Cancer Institute and is a member of the Huntsman Cancer Institute CEO Cabinet, giving her a seat at the table where the cancer center’s institutional strategy is set. Within the school of medicine, she is a tenured professor in the Department of Internal Medicine and an adjunct professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, a dual appointment that reflects the gynecologic focus of her clinical and research work. She also holds the Karen H. Huntsman Presidential Endowed Chair in Women’s Cancer Research, an endowed professorship that supports her sustained investigation into cancers that disproportionately affect women and that have historically presented some of the most difficult challenges in oncology.

As a clinician, Werner specializes in gynecologic malignancies, caring for patients with ovarian, endometrial, cervical, fallopian tube, and primary peritoneal cancers. Her practice spans the full continuum of cancer care, from initial treatment planning and enrollment in clinical trials through the management of treatment-related toxicities, survivorship, and end-of-life care. That breadth is notable in an era of increasing subspecialization, and it informs her research agenda, which addresses not only how new therapies can be developed but how patients experience treatment across its entire arc. She also brings extensive experience in breast cancer research and treatment, extending her reach beyond gynecologic oncology and positioning her to lead a division whose faculty cover the full spectrum of solid tumor and hematologic malignancies.

Werner’s research portfolio centers on experimental therapeutics for gynecologic and breast cancers, with particular emphasis on targeted therapies, immunotherapy, PARP inhibitors, biomarkers, and the design of early-phase clinical trials. PARP inhibitors, which exploit defects in DNA damage repair pathways to selectively kill tumor cells, have transformed the treatment landscape for ovarian cancer in particular, and investigators such as Werner have been central to translating that biology into clinical benefit. Her work has advanced the understanding of tumor heterogeneity, treatment resistance, and genomic predictors of cancer outcomes, and has explored novel approaches for patients with recurrent and treatment-resistant disease, populations for whom options have historically been limited. As an internationally recognized investigator, she has led and contributed to numerous clinical trials that have helped define standards of care in her field.

Her influence extends well beyond Utah. Werner serves on the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Ovarian Cancer Panel and the NCCN Ovarian Cancer Guidelines Value Pathways Panel, bodies that help shape the national treatment guidelines and clinical resources used by oncologists across the United States. She also sits on the NCCN Guidelines Steering Committee and the NCCN Oncology Research Program, and she has served as a special expert for the National Cancer Institute Gynecologic Cancer Steering Committee, contributing to multiple national cervical and endometrial cancer planning initiatives. Since 2013, she has served as institutional principal investigator for NRG Oncology, representing Utah in the national cancer clinical trial leadership activities of one of the major cooperative groups that conducts practice-changing trials across the country. She is a recipient of the National Cancer Institute Cancer Clinical Investigator Team Leadership Award and a member of the Society of Huntsman Translational Scholars.

Werner has also played a significant role in strengthening the operational machinery of clinical research nationally. Through the Association of American Cancer Institutes, she serves on the Physician Clinical Leadership Initiative and is former chair of the AACI Clinical Research Innovation Steering Committee. She was instrumental in establishing the AACI Clinical Trials Office Medical Directors Forum and the Associate Directors of Clinical Research Forum, national platforms through which the leaders of cancer center clinical trials offices share strategies for improving trial operations, accrual, and innovation. Within her own institution, her prior leadership record includes service as senior director of clinical research before her deputy director role, medical director of the Huntsman Cancer Institute Clinical Trials Office, and associate director of the University of Utah Hematology and Oncology Fellowship Program. In the trials office role, she worked to recruit and train physician-scientists to lead clinical trials and implemented professional training for clinicians and staff, broadening the institution’s portfolio of investigator-initiated, pharmaceutical, national cooperative group, and Phase 1 research.

Institutional leaders framed the appointment as a natural culmination of that record. John Inadomi, MD, investigator at Huntsman Cancer Institute and chair of the Department of Internal Medicine at the U, described Werner as an exceptional physician-scientist, educator, and leader whose contributions have strengthened the institution’s work across cancer care, research, and education, noting that she is deeply respected by colleagues and trainees alike for her collaborative leadership style, commitment to excellence, and focus on improving the lives of patients with cancer. Bradley Cairns, PhD, chief executive officer of Huntsman Cancer Institute, said Werner brings an extraordinary combination of exceptional patient care, scientific leadership, and institutional experience to the role, and emphasized her ability to connect clinical care with research and discovery as a strength that will help deliver meaningful advances to patients throughout Utah and the Mountain West. Sachin Apte, MD, MS, MBA, chief clinical officer and physician-in-chief at Huntsman Cancer Institute, cited her national leadership, clinical expertise, and commitment to mentorship as qualities that position her to guide the division’s continued growth and innovation.

Werner succeeds Saundra Buys, MD, a Huntsman Cancer Institute investigator and Distinguished Professor who served as chief of the Division of Oncology for many years and played a pivotal role in advancing the division’s clinical, research, and educational missions. The institution also expressed appreciation to Sarah Colonna, MD, oncologist and medical director of the Family Cancer Assessment Clinic at Huntsman Cancer Institute and associate professor of internal medicine, who provided leadership as interim co-chief of the division alongside Werner during the transition. For her part, Werner described it as a privilege to lead a division with such a deep commitment to patients and such extraordinary strength in discovery, clinical research, education, and care, pledging to build on the foundation established by Buys to bring promising advances to patients more quickly. Outside of medicine, she draws leadership lessons from family life and from volunteering in youth swimming and volleyball, pointing to the value of showing up consistently, creating opportunities for growth, celebrating progress, and helping people develop confidence in their own abilities. Research at Huntsman Cancer Institute is supported by the National Institutes of Health and National Cancer Institute, including cancer center support grant P30 CA042014, as well as by the Huntsman Cancer Foundation.

Subject of Research: Leadership appointment in academic oncology and cancer clinical trials at Huntsman Cancer Institute

Article Title: Theresa Werner, MD, named chief of the Division of Oncology

Article References: Theresa Werner, MD, named chief of the Division of Oncology. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: Theresa Werner, Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah, Division of Oncology, gynecologic oncology, clinical trials, PARP inhibitors, NCCN, NRG Oncology, cancer research, physician-scientist, leadership appointment

The core idea behind Solidec is deceptively simple but technically demanding. Rather than manufacturing chemicals in enormous facilities and shipping them across continents, the company builds generators that can sit directly at the point of use, converting readily available feedstocks into the molecules a business needs, when it needs them. The technology gives businesses greater control over their chemical supply chains while reducing the storage, transportation, waste and carbon emissions that come with conventional distribution. According to the company, its initial commercial focus is hydrogen peroxide, one of the most widely used oxidizers in the world, with a platform capable of producing additional chemicals including formic acid, acetic acid and syngas.

Hydrogen peroxide is a revealing choice for a first product. The compound is indispensable to pulp and paper bleaching, textile processing, wastewater treatment, mining and semiconductor manufacturing, yet nearly all of it is produced in a centralized, energy-intensive anthraquinone process that involves hydrogenation and oxidation steps followed by extraction and concentration. The resulting solution, often shipped at relatively dilute concentrations for safety reasons, carries an enormous logistical burden: vast quantities of water are transported alongside the active chemical, and the product can decompose during storage, generating waste and hazard. An electrochemical route that synthesizes hydrogen peroxide directly from air, water and electricity at the customer’s site eliminates much of that burden, producing the chemical only in the quantities required and only at the moment it is needed.

The climate logic of distributed chemical generation extends well beyond a single compound. The global chemical industry is among the largest industrial emitters of carbon dioxide, and a substantial share of those emissions is embedded not in the reaction chemistry itself but in the movement of products: compression, refrigeration, packaging, trucking, ocean freight and the construction of depots. Decentralized generators that run on electricity, particularly when that electricity is increasingly supplied by renewable sources, can drive those embedded emissions toward zero while simultaneously insulating buyers from the price volatility and disruption risks that have repeatedly roiled chemical markets in recent years. In effect, Solidec is proposing to do for chemicals what distributed solar did for electricity generation.

The platform approach is what gives the company its ambition. Because the underlying electrochemical architecture can in principle be tuned to different target molecules, the same core technology that produces hydrogen peroxide could produce formic acid, a chemical used in leather tanning, agriculture and as a promising liquid hydrogen carrier; acetic acid, the key ingredient in vinyl acetate and countless industrial solvents; or syngas, the carbon monoxide and hydrogen mixture that serves as the feedstock for fuels, plastics and fertilizers. If the platform scales as envisioned, a single product line could address multiple multi-billion-dollar markets, each with its own concentrated production footprint and supply chain fragility.

Ryan DuChanois, founder and chief executive officer of Solidec, said the award carries significance well beyond its monetary value. Winning the Wilkes Climate Innovation Prize means a great deal to the team, he noted, adding that the company is thrilled to join the Wilkes community. He explained that the award will help Solidec deploy its chemical generation systems with its early customers, producing low-carbon chemicals on site for buyers who currently have them trucked in. That last phrase captures the company’s beachhead strategy: rather than competing for new customers in unfamiliar markets, Solidec is targeting businesses that already depend on regular deliveries of these chemicals and simply want a cleaner, more reliable way to obtain them.

The Wilkes Climate Innovation Prize, now in its latest annual cycle, was established to identify and accelerate top global ideas for combating climate change. Its designers emphasize that the prize supports solutions with genuine potential for impact but facing significant uncertainty, where traditional funding pathways or market adoption routes remain limited. Eligible solutions can be technological, policy-driven, operational, financial or hybrid in nature. Beyond the headline award itself, the Wilkes Center describes its broader mission as building an innovation ecosystem around high-potential climate solutions, connecting founders with the mentorship, networks and visibility needed to make measurable progress toward real-world deployment.

The competitive process behind this year’s award was notably rigorous. Solidec emerged from a pool of 504 total submissions, which an expert panel narrowed to nine finalists before selecting the winner. Judges evaluated candidates across five dimensions: climate-system impact and relevance; plausibility and clarity of the proposed solution; differentiation and quality of insight; clear co-benefits beyond carbon reduction; and team expertise and organizational capability. The breadth of the applicant pool is visible on an interactive world map published by the Wilkes Center, which plots the geographic origins of this year’s applications and underscores how widely distributed climate innovation has become.

Three other ventures received recognition alongside the winner. Gyre Energy, a runner-up, combines physics-based artificial intelligence, thermal energy storage and automated controls to reduce cooling costs and energy consumption for cold storage facilities, data centers and buildings, a segment of the economy whose energy demand is growing rapidly in the age of artificial intelligence. The second runner-up, WoodSyn, develops biogenic construction composites based on wood-wool cement technology, transforming restoration timber into durable building materials that store carbon over their lifetime. FABUMIN received an honorable mention as a circular food-technology company that converts legume cooking water, known as aquafaba, into a functional plant-based powder capable of replacing egg ingredients in food applications while reducing water waste, costs and environmental impact.

The formal announcement took place on Wednesday, September 23, 2026, at an in-person event in New York City timed to Climate Week, hosted at the Explorer’s Club on East 70th Street, with a simultaneous watch party at the Wilkes Center’s L. S. Skaggs Applied Science Building in Salt Lake City. Solidec co-founder and chief technology officer Yang Xia and Wilkes Center managing director Fielding Norton were available for interviews at the event. For the startup, the $250,000 prize arrives at a pivotal moment, providing non-dilutive capital to support early customer deployments and, equally important, validation from a university-based institution that has made climate innovation its central mandate. For the broader climate technology community, the award signals growing confidence that decarbonizing the invisible plumbing of the industrial economy, the chemicals that flow through factories and treatment plants every day, deserves a place at the center of the climate agenda.

Subject of Research: Distributed electrochemical on-site generation of industrial chemicals to reduce supply chain emissions

Article Title: Wilkes Center awards $250,000 Climate Innovation Prize to Solidec

Article References: Wilkes Center awards $250,000 Climate Innovation Prize to Solidec. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: Solidec, Wilkes Climate Innovation Prize, University of Utah, hydrogen peroxide, on-site chemical generation, electrochemistry, supply chain emissions, climate technology, decarbonization, formic acid, acetic acid, syngas