Prof. Michal Lotem - Hadassah Cancer Research Institute

Prof. Michal Lotem, MD

Head Of The Hadassah Cancer Research Institute

The founder and Head of the Hadassah Cancer Research Institute, Professor Michal Lotem is an international expert in skin cancer and clinical oncology, driving cutting-edge scientific innovation at the HCRI since its inception in 2019. Her vision for HCRI is to investigate the nature of various cancers and enable HRCI’s physicians, scientists and researchers to develop new and personalized ways to manipulate the immune system to cure cancer, with the goal of eradicating cancer.

Michal’s research interests aim to immunize patients against cancer by discovering novel adoptive cell therapies, as well as the development of immunotherapies for malignant melanoma. In her lab [Cancer Immunotherapy], Prof. Lotem and her research team are working toward developing anti-cancer therapies that harness the body’s own immune system via an approach that combines innovative basic research with a personalized treatment protocol that only a handful of global oncology centers can offer.
In addition to managing the HCRI, Prof. Lotem is the Head of the Center for Melanoma and Cancer Immunotherapy at Hadassah Medical Center, leads CancerRNA, a global science research consortium that aims to apply RNA-based therapeutics to successfully unlock anti-cancer immune responses, and lectures on Clinical and Radiation Oncology at Hadassah Hebrew University Hospital.
The recipient of numerous global grants for cancer research projects, Prof. Lotem serves as a scientific advisor to several startups developing novel cancer therapies. She is also currently a partner in the Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, researching ITN T-OP Training Network for Optimizing Adoptive T cell Therapy of Cancer. In addition to her academic experience in Israel, Michal has been a visiting Professor at Stanford University’s Division of Oncology and a visiting scholar at the MIT’s Broad Institute.
Prof. Lotem received her MD from Tel Aviv University’s Sackler School of Medicine, and did residencies in the Department of Dermatology and the Department of Oncology at Beilinson Medical Center. After completing her residency in oncology, she joined the Department of Dermatology at Hadassah University Hospital. During her service in the Israel Defense Forces, Michal served as a Flight Surgeon and the Commander of Medical Services at an Air Force base.

Recent Key Publications

The role of immune checkpoint receptors in the malignant phenotype of cutaneous T cell lymphoma. Immunologic Research, 2022. Rony Shreberk-Hassidim, Anat Geiger-Maor, Galit Eisenberg, Sharon Merims, Emma Hajaj, Jonathan E. Cohen, Shiri Klein, Shoshana Frankenburg, Lilach Moyal, Emilia Hodak, Abraham Zlotogorski & Michal Lotem.
Exploring the Mechanisms Underlying the Cardiotoxic Effects of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor Therapies. Vaccines, 2022. Daniel Ronen, Aseel Bsoul, Michal Lotem, Suzan Abedat, Merav Yarkoni, Offer Amir and Rabea Asleh.
COVID-19 vaccine as a cause for unilateral lymphadenopathy detected by 18F-FDG PET/CT in a patient affected by melanoma. European Journal of Nuclear Medicine & Molecular Imaging, 2021. Avner M, Orevi M, Caplan N, Popovtzer A, Lotem MC, Cohen JE.
Alternative splicing of the inhibitory immune checkpoint receptor SLAMF6 generates a dominant positive form, boosting T cell effector function. Cancer Immunology Research, 2021. Hajaj E, Zisman E, Tzaban S, Merims S, Cohen J, Klein S, Frankenburg S, Sade-Feldman M, Tabach Y, Yizhak K, Navon A, Stepensky P, Hacohen N, Peretz T, Veillette A, Karni R, Eisenberg G, Lotem MPI.
TP53 missense mutations in PDAC are associated with enhanced fibrosis and an immunosuppressive microenvironment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, 2021. Maddalena M, Mallel G, Nataraj NB, Shreberk-Shaked M, Hassin O, Mukherjee S, Arandkar S, Rotkopf R, Kapsack A, Lambiase G, Pellegrino B, Ben-Isaac E, Golani O, Addadi Y, Hajaj E, Eilam R, Straussman R, Yarden Y, Lotem M, Oren.
PD-L1 recruits phospholipase C and enhances tumorigenicity of lung tumors harboring mutant forms of EGFR. Cell Reports, 2021. Ghosh S, Nataraj NB, Noronha A, Patkar S, Sekar A, Mukherjee S, Winograd-Katz S, Kramarski L, Verma A, Lindzen M, Garcia DD, Green J, Eisenberg G, Gil-Henn H, Basu A, Lender Y, Weiss S, Oren M, Lotem M, Geiger B, Ruppin E, Yarden Y.
https://lautenbergcenter.org/people/faculty/prof-michal-lotem/

Prof. Michal Lotem, MD

Head Of The Hadassah Cancer Research Institute

Recent Key Publications

HCRI

Immuno Oncology

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