Erez Hasnis, MD, PhD

About the Investigator:

Dr. Erez Hasnis has focused his clinical and investigative career on the treatment of pancreatic cancer. He completed his MD and PhD studies at the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion. After serving as a medical officer in the Israeli Defense Force, completing his internal medicine residency and gastroenterology fellowship, he continued his education as a post-doctoral fellow at the Sanford-Burnham-Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in La Jolla, California. In addition to running a research lab in the Clinical Research Institute at Rambam, he is a Senior Physician and a Senior Specialist in the GI Malignancies Prevention Unit within the Gastroenterology Institute at Rambam.

About the Research:

Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest cancers, with a five-year survival rate of less than 10%. This high mortality rate is due to the cancer often being diagnosed late, when surgery is no longer an option, and because the tumor cells are extremely resistant to various treatments. A key reason for this resistance is that the tumor cells can inhibit the local immune system.

Immunotherapy is a cancer treatment that uses the body’s own defenses to fight the disease. However, the local suppression of the immune system by pancreatic cancer cells can significantly reduce the effectiveness of immunotherapy. Research in Dr. Hasnis’ lab suggests that pancreatic cancer cells increase the level of a protein called OASL, which inhibits the activation of interferons. Interferons are a crucial part of the immune response
that helps prevent cancer cells from growing. This increase in OASL might be one of the ways pancreatic cancer suppresses the immune system locally.

Dr. Hasnis and his team aim to understand how OASL functions within the tumor environment to suppress the immune system. The knowledge gained could lead to new treatments that enhance the effectiveness of standard therapies for pancreatic cancer