Yoav Shaul, PhD

About the Investigator:

Dr. Yoav Shaul joins the Faculty of Medicine’s Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology following eight years as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT and the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research in Cambridge, MA, and a one-year Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department of Biological Regulation. Dr. Shaul completed his BSc in Biology at the Hebrew University and his MSc and PhD in the Weizmann Institute’s Department of Neurobiology and Department of Biological Regulation, respectively. Dr. Shaul was born in Mercaz Shapira, a small town next to Ashkelon, Israel, and is married with four children.

About the Research:

In the United States, breast cancer accounts for 30% of all new annual cancer cases in women. Despite significant advances in understanding and treating this disease, many breast cancer patients, unfortunately, still do not survive. A significant reason for this high mortality rate is the development of resistance to conventional therapies. Thus, identifying new drugs to target these resistant cells holds great promise for improving cancer outcomes. Recent studies have shown that these therapy-resistant cells are susceptible to a unique form of cell death called ferroptosis. However, a significant clinical challenge lies in identifying tumors that are sensitive to ferroptosis and developing drugs to induce this type of cell death.

Based on Dr. Shaul’s preliminary results, his team proposes that an enzyme called DPYD serves as a marker to predict ferroptosis sensitivity. Furthermore, his grant aims to uncover the mechanisms by which DPYD promotes ferroptosis, providing insights into its role in cancer therapy. Building on these findings, he proposes a drug that could be used to treat patients with therapy-resistant breast cancer, offering a potential new avenue for improving survival rates in this challenging disease.