Named Grant:

Dr. Jerry Gross Memorial Project Grant

About the Investigator:

Dr. Liran Shlush is a physician-scientist in the Department of Immunology at the Weizmann Institute of Science. He received his BSc, MD, and PhD degrees from the Technion, and completed clinical and postdoctoral fellowships in leukemia treatment and stem cell biology at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto, Canada. He is currently a Senior Scientist at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, as well as a Visiting Physician at Rambam Healthcare Campus in Haifa. Dr. Shlush’s research and clinical activities focus on the early stages of leukemia development.

About the Research:

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a devastating disease, especially among the elderly. While it was long believed that death was imminent within weeks if left untreated, it is now known that most AML patients have a long latent period before diagnosis, during which pre-leukemic cells accumulate. Dr. Shlush has shown that specific mutations accumulate in pre-leukemic cells of otherwise healthy individuals. Access to the electronic health records of 3.2 million Israelis allowed him to develop algorithms for AML prediction based on routine clinical information. The goal of this proposal is to establish that these mutations can be used, not only to predict eventual tumor development, but also as targets for therapies that prevent and treat disease.

The project will focus on specific mutations in the spliceosome machinery which have been identified almost exclusively in healthy individuals who go on to develop AML. Dr. Shlush and his team have identified inhibitors that can selectively target mutant cells. They plan to establish the mechanism of action of these inhibitors and improve their safety and efficacy so that they can ultimately be translated into clinical trials.