Efrat Shema, PhD

About the Investigator:

Dr. Efrat Shema is an Assistant Professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science. She conducted her postdoctoral research at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, where she pioneered a novel technology to study the epigenome using single-molecule imaging. (Epigenetics refers to how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work.) In her lab at the Weizmann Institute, Dr. Shema’s research passion is to understand human genome regulation by the development and application of novel single-molecule and single-cell technologies to visualize the epigenome. Her goal is to reveal basic mechanisms of epigenetic deregulation in cancer, identify epigenetic vulnerabilities of cancer cells, and pave the way to new therapeutic opportunities that would benefit patients.

About the Research:

Pediatric diffuse midline gliomas (or DMGs) are very aggressive and deadly brain tumors found in children, with a median survival time of less than 1.5 years after diagnosis. Tracking how well treatments are working for these brain tumors is difficult compared to other types of cancer. Like other cancers, these brain tumors release their DNA and proteins into the blood, which means they could potentially be diagnosed and monitored using blood tests instead of invasive surgery.

Dr. Shema and her team have recently developed a new, single-molecule technology that can detect these cancer markers in the blood with high sensitivity. In a preliminary study, this method accurately detected early-stage colorectal cancer. They now plan to use this technology to diagnose and monitor children with these brain tumors by analyzing blood plasma samples taken from DMG patients before, during, and after treatment. If successful, this method could be used in clinics to help children with DMG tumors, and could ultimately lead to personalized treatment plans for each patient.