Adit Ben-Baruch, PhD

About the Investigator:

Dr. Adit Ben-Baruch completed her PhD studies as a cancer immunologist at Tel Aviv University (TAU) and Post-Doctorate in molecular immunology at the National Cancer Institute, USA. Since 2010, she has served as a Full Professor at TAU. She was the Head of the Cancer Biology Research Center (2006-2010), and Head of the Ela Kodesz Institute for Research on Cancer Development and Prevention (2010-2019). She served as Head of The Department of Cell Research and Immunology at the Faculty of Life Sciences (2013-2017) and in 2021 was nominated Incumbent of The David Furman Chair for Immunobiology of Cancer at TAU.

About the Research:

Triple-negative breast cancers (TNBCs) are highly aggressive tumors; therapies aimed at the revival of anti-tumor immune activities by inhibiting the PD-L1/PD-1 axis have demonstrated relatively low success rates in TNBC, highlighting the need to determine the roles of PD-L1 in regulating disease progression in breast cancer.

Dr. Ben-Baruch’s published studies have provided novel findings on the ability of PD-L1 to act directly on the cancer cells, leading to their increased pro-metastatic activities, in vitro and in animal model systems; these findings suggest that immune checkpoint blockades targeting PD-L1 should be included in any therapeutic regimen used in TNBC. Her team has demonstrated that the process depended on the S283 residue of PD-L1, on PD-L1 N-linked glycosylation and on the transcription factors STAT3/STAT1.

To further identify key mechanisms accounting for the intrinsic activities of PD-L1, the team will explore a novel aspect of PD-L1 activities by determining the roles of the nuclear form of PD-L1 in promoting its pro-metastatic activities in breast cancer cells. Her research hypothesis is that the nuclear form of PD-L1 has active roles in regulating intracellular molecular events giving rise to cell-autonomous pro-metastatic activities in BC cells. This will be investigated by functional and mechanistic in-culture studies, combined with animal model systems and analyses of breast cancer patient tumors.

Dr. Ben-Baruch’s findings may indicate that nuclear expression of PD-L1 by cancer cells may lead to improved stratification of breast cancer patients in terms of therapy, proposing immunotherapies targeting PD-L1 to patients based on nuclear expression of PD-L1.