About the Investigator:

Dr. Efroni studies how the immune response fights cancer. His approach combines biochemical and computational analyses to define how the immune response transitions from a normal to disease state. Dr. Efroni received his BA degree from Tel-Aviv University, his MA degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and his PhD degree from the Weizmann Institute of Science, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the US National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Life Sciences at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel.

About the Research:

Outcomes in ovarian cancer depend on timely diagnosis and access to appropriate surgery and systemic therapy. However, robust screening methods for early detection of ovarian cancer are currently not available. Disease is often diagnosed late, which makes effective treatment more challenging. The goal of Dr. Efroni’s research is to develop a method for early detection of ovarian cancer. The immune response monitors changes in the body, in order to defend against infectious disease and cancer. The immune cells that fight cancer circulate in the blood stream and with careful analysis they can be used to report on a great variety of clinically important conditions. Dr. Efroni proposes to leverage this natural surveillance system to detect ovarian cancer in the earliest stages of development. Starting with a simple blood sample, his team will identify a molecular signature that is the hallmark of disease by analyzing the changes in the expression and sequence of genes critical to the immune response to ovarian cancer. Success in this effort will provide a reliable and much-needed tool for ovarian cancer screening.