Coordinator: Professor Howard (Haim) Cedar
Department of Developmental Biology and Cancer Research, Faculty of Medicine, haimc@ekmd.huji.ac.il

Scientific Background

The goal of epigenetics is to understand the internal switches that carry out the reprogramming process that causes cancer cells to grow in a malignant manner.

Research Hub Goals and Activities

• Bringing together scientists and physicians working in the fields of cancer biology, cancer therapy, epigenetics and preventative medicine in order to find new approaches for understanding and conquering cancer
• Deciphering the epigenetic makeup of cancer to discover the most promising routes for treating and preventing cancer
• Encouraging funding opportunities for collaborative projects and offering new graduate courses that integrate the subjects of tumor biology with epigenetics
• Acquiring funding for common equipment such as the sophisticated microarray and sequencing instruments needed for carrying out genome-wide epigenetics analysis
• Organizing and establishing a local mouse repository for tumor models

Existing Industry Collaborations

Tiltan Pharma, an Israeli start-up company developing an anti-angiogenic treatment for cancer

Agilent Technologies, a major life sciences company

Hub Members and Focus

• Prof. Howard Cedar – DNA methylation and chromatin structure, major effectors in all forms of cancer
• Dr. Yuval Dor – Biology of the pancreas, diabetes and pancreatic cancer
• Prof. Yehudit Bergman – Stem cell biology; molecular biology of lymphomas and leukemias; DNA methylation
• Dr. Dina Ben-Yehuda – Clinical and molecular biology of lymphomas and leukemia
• Dr. Tamar Peretz – Clinical and molecular biology of breast cancer
• Dr. Asaf Hellman – Epigenetics of populations
• Prof. Yechiel Friedlander – Population biology of cancer
• Dr. Ittai Ben-Porath – Animal models of breast, prostate and colon cancer; epigenetics of cancer
• Prof. Eli Pikarsky – Tumor pathology; animal models of liver cancer
• Prof. Shmuel Ben-Sasson - Tumor biology