McCray receives Emily’s Entourage 2024 Trailblazer Award

Paul McCray Jr., MD, UI professor of pediatrics-pulmonary medicine, has received the prestigious 2024 Trailblazer Award from Emily’s Entourage (EE), a 501(c)(3) foundation accelerating research for new treatments and a cure for the final 10% of people with cystic fibrosis (CF). This award celebrates leaders who demonstrate innovation, courage, and tenacity in advancing life-saving research for the CF community. 

McCray was honored at EE’s invitation-only reception during the North American Cystic Fibrosis Conference on Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Boston, Mass. The reception gathered nearly 200 of the world’s leading CF researchers, care providers, and industry leaders. 

“Paul is a visionary, compassionate researcher and physician who is transforming the future of CF care,” said Emily Kramer-Golinkoff, MBE, co-founder of Emily’s Entourage. “Through his cutting-edge work in gene therapy and his partnership with EE, he is opening doors to groundbreaking treatments for people in the final 10%, who do not benefit from current CFTR modulator therapies. We are thrilled to honor him with this year’s Trailblazer Award.” 

McCray’s research has been pivotal in advancing genetic therapies for lung diseases, including CF. His work focuses on improving gene delivery systems to respiratory epithelial cells. In May 2024, McCray’s team received EE’s first collaborative grant of $858,932 to explore Novel Approaches to Targeted Airway Delivery in Cystic Fibrosis Treatments. The project aims to identify the most effective AAV capsid variants for delivering genetic therapies to human airway epithelia and evaluate their efficacy. These advances are critical for CF patients with ineligible mutations, adverse reactions, or suboptimal responses to current treatments. 

In addition to his work at the lab bench, McCray is a scientific founder and advisor at Spirovant Sciences — formerly Talee Bio — a biopharmaceutical company conceived of and seed funded by EE that is focused on developing novel gene therapy approaches for cystic fibrosis.  

“Dr. McCray’s pioneering work in gene therapy holds extraordinary promise for transforming lives,” said Chandra Ghose, PhD, EE’s Chief Scientific Officer. “Specifically, his focus on targeted airway delivery offers new hope for those with mutations that current therapies can’t reach, bringing us closer to the transformative advances the CF community so urgently needs.” 

An internationally recognized leader in CF research, McCray’s work is at the forefront of gene therapy for genetic lung diseases. His lab develops viral and non-viral vectors for gene addition and editing in airway epithelial cells, addressing conditions like CF and primary ciliary dyskinesia that have their onset in childhood.