About the Investigator:

Dr. Shaked is a Full Professor and the Director of the Rappaport-Technion Integrated Cancer Center. He pioneered the term “host response to anti-cancer therapy,” which can explain resistance to therapy and help personalize treatment in oncology. After his PhD studies at the Hebrew University, and subsequent postdoctoral training at the University of Toronto, he established his lab at the Technion. Throughout his academic career, he obtained prestigious grants (e.g., ERC, ICRF) and awards, and commercialized his translational studies which are currently being tested in the clinic.

About the Research:

Immunotherapy has become a significant treatment modality in some cancers, due to its substantial therapeutic activity in advanced cancer stages. This treatment acts on our immune system and educates it to act against cancer cells. It is a promising anti-cancer treatment modality that results in a long-term response in patients with non-curable diseases. However, a significant issue with this treatment approach is that only a tiny proportion of patients (approximately 20-40%) respond to the therapy. Thus, most patients are still resistant and do not benefit from this therapy. In addition, recent clinical observations raised a concern that in some cases, the treatment causes tumors to grow faster, sometimes at metastatic sites such as in the brain, for reasons that are not yet clear. Therefore, there is an urgent need to search for the mechanisms involved in metastasis development, especially in patients who resist immunotherapy.

In this cancer research project, Dr. Shaked will study the mechanisms involved in the risk of developing brain metastases in patients resistant to immunotherapy. His research team will search for the potential targets that inhibit these devastating effects, reducing the risk of brain metastases formation in cancer patients. This study should pave the way to optimize immunotherapy and reduce its terminal side effects.