Ruth Perets, MD, PhD

About the Investigator:

Dr. Ruth Perets is a medical oncologist and researcher at Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Israel, who treats women with gynecologic cancers and leads a research group focused on ovarian cancer. The Perets team works on understanding the main factors driving this cancer and creating drugs to target them. Dr. Perets also manages a clinical trials unit that offers new experimental treatments to patients who have no other options and, additionally, directs the MD/PhD program at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, training future physician-scientists.

About the Research:

Ovarian cancer has a high mortality rate, highlighting the urgent need for better treatments. Dr. Perets’ team is studying a protein called PAX8, which is crucial for ovarian cancer cells’ survival and spread, but is rarely found in normal cells. This makes PAX8 an ideal target for new cancer treatments with minimal side effects. However, targeting PAX8 is challenging due to its structure.

In their latest research, based on a previous ICRF grant, Dr. Perets’ team has developed a novel method to inhibit PAX8. Preliminary results show their new approach can effectively kill cancer cells. They propose to further validate this method and identify other proteins that regulate PAX8, aiming to discover additional drug targets for ovarian cancer. This research should ultimately lead to new treatments for ovarian cancer, but also sets the stage for developing drugs for other hard-to-target proteins involved in various diseases.

By advancing this innovative approach, Dr. Perets’ research holds promise for improving ovarian cancer
therapies and potentially offering new hope to patients.