Prof. Emeritus Zvi Fishelson from the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, The Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University.
Prof. Fishelson is a Board Member of the Israel Society for Cancer Research and the Israel Immunological Society. Advisory Editor of Molecular Immunology; Associate Editor of Frontiers in Immunology.
Research Interest:
Molecular Analysis of Immunoresistance.
We investigate the multiple facets of the cross-talk between pathogens, cancer cells, and the innate immune system.
We have unveiled molecular mechanisms that enable pathogens and cancer cells to become immune resistant and to escape immune attacks. Several of the proteins driving the resistance mechanisms have been identified and are being further investigated. These include the chaperones Mortalin/GRP75, Hsp70, and Hsp90, protective protein kinases, and cell surface complement regulators. These proteins are expressed at elevated levels in cancer cells and act as major obstacles in cancer immunotherapy.
Our long-term goal is to take advantage of this deeper insight in cancer immune resistance for designing novel reagents that will sensitize cancer cells to cell death and to develop them for precision therapy of immune-resistant cancers.
