Researchers at the Israel Institute of Science and Technology are making great strides in how the disease is both detected and treated

Technion professors and graduates are continuing to make significant contributions in the field of cancer research. 

Professor Yuval Shaked, along with startup, OncoHost, has created a blood test that will allow doctors to provide personalised treatment plans to cancer patients, Ibex Medical Analytics, headed up by Dr Daphna Laifenfeld (who researched it during her time at the university), has created an Artificial Intelligence-based cancer diagnostic software, while NanoGhost, co-founded by Professor Marcelle Machluf, is another technology “that targets cancer cells with modified adult stem cells loaded with medicine.”

Having already raised $5 million, NanoGhost – which innovatively delivers cancer medicine directly to tumour cells, allowing the potency to be reduced by a factor of a million – has been treating pancreatic, lung, breast, prostate and brain cancer successfully in mice.

Professor Machluf says: “This integration turns the NanoGhost platform from a ‘taxi’ that delivers the drug to the target into a ‘tank’ that participates in the war. 

“The integrated platform delivers the drug to the tumour and enables a significant reduction in drug dosage yet still does the job. We also showed that our method does not harm healthy cells.”

NanoGhost is on track to begin clinical trials in 2023.