Sheba's Prof. Shai Izraeli Awarded the Swiss Bridge Award
for Research into Rare Tumors and Childhood Cancer

Prof. Shai Izraeli of the Sheba Cancer Center and the Sheba Department of Pediatric Hemato-Oncology was this week awarded the 2011 Swiss Bridge Award (150,000 Swiss francs), for his research into rare tumors and childhood cancers, especially leukemia.

The president of the Swiss Cancer League scientific committee, Professor Gordon McVie of the European Institute of Oncology in Milan, presented the award in Zurich.

Also awarded were Professor Jürg Schwaller of the University of Basel, and Professor Monika Hegi of the University Hospital Lausanne.

Prof. Izraeli is an internationally known expert on childhood leukemia, and an associate professor in molecular genetics and biochemistry at the Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University. He has discovered new and less perilous methods for treating Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, and discovered a novel cause of childhood leukemia, specifically an abnormal activation of a cell surface molecule - the receptor for interleukin 7 - which causes childhood leukemia.