Ido Amit, PhD

About the Investigator:

Prof. Ido Amit is a world leader and pioneer in the single cell genomics field. His research focuses on developing single cell genomic technologies and big data analytics to study the cellular and molecular circuitry of immune cells in health and disease. He conducted his PhD at the Weizmann Institute of Science and continued his postdoctoral training at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Afterwards, he returned to the Weizmann Institute where he is now a Full Professor in the Department of Systems Immunology.

About the Research:

The treatment of blood cancer patients suffering from Acute Leukemia has advanced significantly in recent years with the development of a revolutionary immunotherapy called Bispecific T-cell Engagers (or BiTEs). These are sophisticated and promising therapeutic antibodies designed to bind to the tumor cells and immune cells at the same time, thus re-activating the immune system to target the cancer. However, many patients fail to respond well to this groundbreaking therapy for reasons not fully understood.

Prof. Amit and his team plan to apply advanced single cell technologies to pinpoint specific cell types and signals that may determine whether a patient will respond well to BiTE therapy. By analyzing samples from patients before and after treatment, they aim to understand how their cells react to the therapy. His lab will develop laboratory models to test and observe these interactions in order to create an artificial intelligence tool to help doctors predict how patients will respond to BiTE therapy.

This project should be a major step towards more personalized and effective cancer treatments, potentially transforming how we approach blood cancer therapy and improving patient outcomes.