Dana Ishay-Ronen, MD PhD

Positions: 

Physician – scientist program

Principal investigator: Cancer cell plasticity and Trans-differentiation therapy, Cancer Research Center

Resident in Medical Oncology, Oncology Institute 

Areas of Expertise: Cancer cell plasticity, epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), trans-differentiation, cancer-adipogenesis, patient-derived organoids 

Dana Ishay-Ronen received her MD from the Medical University of Vienna, Austria (2013). She then moved to the University of Basel in Switzerland for a PhD in Cell Biology under the supervision of Professor G. Christofori (with a two year Botnar Stiftung PhD-fellowship grant) and graduated Summa Cum Laude.

During her PhD Dana developed a novel therapeutic approach to target invasive EMT-derived breast cancer cells by forcing their trans-differentiation into non-dividing fat cells. A proof-of-concept study was published in 2019 in Cancer Cell.

This pioneer work received outstanding impact, highlighted by high-impact reviews in the cancer field and by F1000Prime exceptional research. Based on this work, Dana has established in 2019 a new research group studying Cancer cell plasticity and trans-differentiation therapy as part of the Oncology institute at the Sheba Medical Centre. As a main model system, the group successfully optimized patient-derived organoid cultures to study cell plasticity allowing basic and translational research.

While being in full-time residency in Oncology, Dana’s research is being widely acknowledged and she had already received esteemed research grants and awards such as the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) and the TEMTIA 2022 Betty Hay award.

Education

2013, MD, Medical University of Vienna, Austria

2016, PhD summa cum laude, Cell Biology, University of Basel, Switzerland. Supervisor: Professor G. Christofori (with two-year Botnar Stiftung PhD-fellowship grant)

Residencies and Further Training

Physician-scientist program, Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, Israel

2019, Residency, medical oncology, Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, Israel

Affiliations

Oncology Institute, Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, Israel

Research Interests

Susceptibility of tumors to EMT and cancer cell plasticity

Trans-differentiaion of cancer cells into adipocytes to impede cancer progression

Patient-derived organoids for disease modeling

Publications

A list of publications for Dr. Ishay-Ronen is in PubMed. PubMed is a database that includes a listing of scientific articles in the fields of medicine and life sciences.