Three Technion-Israel Institute of Technology faculty members have been awarded research grants from the Israel Cancer Research Fund (ICRF), a fund dedicated to turning cancer into a manageable chronic disease by supporting Israeli cancer researchers until it can be eradicated.
Professor Irit Ben Aharon received a Research Professorship grant to support her research into the effects of chemotherapy administered to pregnant women on their children.
Ben Aharon is a faculty member at the Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, director of the Fishman Oncology Center at Rambam Health Care Campus, and head of the gastrointestinal malignancies field at Rambam.
“Cancer during pregnancy is relatively rare, but its prevalence is increasing due to rising cancer rates among young people and the postponement of childbearing. The effects of cancer and chemotherapy treatments during pregnancy have so far been examined in limited clinical studies that followed children only through childhood, while our research maps the short-term and long-term effects using a preclinical model,” Ben Aharon said.
“Our findings so far indicate that the apparent effect in some of the offspring follows a latent, or delayed, pattern and emerges in adulthood rather than during childhood or adolescence, something that has not previously appeared in the existing clinical literature. We are studying this late-onset morbidity and whether there is a way to identify offspring who may be at risk of developing it.”
Research into tumor secondary survival strategies
Dr. Ido Livneh received a Project grant to support his research into the “backup systems” that sustain cancer cells.
“Despite advances in cancer treatment, many malignancies still cannot be cured,” Livneh said.
“Many patients respond well to initial treatment, but their disease later returns. Our current research is based on the hypothesis that malignant cells activate secondary survival strategies, a type of backup system that allows them to survive for months or even years, even before they develop resistance to treatment,” Livneh added.
Livneh, a faculty member at the Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, a graduate of the faculty’s MD/PhD program, and a diagnostic pathology resident at Rambam Health Care Campus, is combining interventional laboratory experiments with analyses of samples from patients with various types of cancer to uncover common survival strategies between the different cancers.
Research conducted on shared heart disease and cancer
Dr. Shira Landau received a Career Development Award to support her research into the mechanisms shared by heart disease and cancer, and the ways in which the two affect each other.
Landau, a faculty member at the Technion’s Faculty of Biomedical Engineering and a graduate of the faculty, is working to develop a human heart and cancer Organ-on-a-Chip model that will allow the research team to study the effect of the tumor on the heart and the heart on the tumor in a controlled environment.
“Heart disease and cancer are the world’s two leading causes of death, but in recent years it has become clear that there is reciprocal biological communication between them that affects the progression of both diseases,” Landau said.
The research will focus on the role of macrophages, key cells in the immune system, and examine how they affect the interaction between the heart and cancer, with the aim of uncovering new mechanisms that will lead to safer and more precise treatments for cancer patients,” Landau added.
