Eric Shifrut, PhD

About the Investigator:

Dr. Shifrut is a senior lecturer at Tel Aviv University and a principal investigator at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center. Eric completed his graduate studies at the Weizmann Institute of Science, mapping the TCR repertoire in health and disease. For his postdoctoral training, he joined UCSF and Gladstone Institute to pioneer CRISPR discovery platforms to study primary human T cells. Today, Eric leads an independent team with the mission to leverage these achievements in CRISPR engineering to design best-in-class T cell therapies against cancer.

About the Research:

In recent years, adoptive cell therapy has shown promise in treating certain blood cancers, but its effectiveness against solid tumors remains limited. One of the major challenges is the presence of low oxygen levels, or hypoxia, within solid tumors. This condition leads to high levels of a molecule called adenosine, which suppresses the function of immune cells known as T cells. Dr. Shifrut’s research project aims to overcome this obstacle by engineering T cells to resist the suppressive effects of adenosine, thereby enhancing their ability to fight solid tumors.

The Shifrut lab has identified specific genes, including FAM105A, whose deletion makes T cells resistant to adenosine-induced suppression. However, they still need to understand how these genes interact with the adenosine signaling pathway. To address this gap, they will use advanced genetic tools to study the adenosine signaling pathway in T cells and investigate the role of FAM105A in this process. Another approach that they will explore involves overexpressing specific adenosine receptors in T cells to counteract the effects of adenosine.

Dr. Shifrut and his team plan to evaluate the effectiveness of these engineered T cells in fighting solid tumors in animal models with high adenosine levels. Overall, their research aims to uncover how T cells respond to adenosine and how to develop strategies to enhance T cell function in high adenosine environments within solid tumors. This knowledge could lead to the development of more effective T-cell therapies for treating solid tumors in the future.