The National Science Foundation announces the grant winners in the field of personalized medicine

11 research proposals were selected in the third round of the research program in personalized medicine, which includes unique collaborations between researchers from diverse fields of knowledge and specialization from various health institutions and organizations * The total research grants in the current round of submissions is approximately NIS 32 million - the total scope of grants in the first three rounds is approximately 152 million NIS  

• 11 The winning research proposals in the current round were selected from 99 Proposals submitted in a wide variety of topics related to human biology and its medical aspects
• The RMA program enables the expansion and deepening of personalized medicine research in Israel, while building a strong network and encouraging collaboration between research institutions, hospitals and health organizations, and supports excellent research that is expected to lead to breakthroughs at the forefront of global science in the field
• The winning proposals were selected in a competitive process, on the basis of scientific excellence, by an international judging panel headed by Nobel Prize laureate in chemistry, Prof. Roger Kornberg
• The scope of grants for the project is one of the highest given to Israeli researchers by an Israeli body
• The studies lead to a deeper understanding of health and disease states in humans and promote the use of advanced technologies and the application of new therapeutic approaches
• The total budget of the RMA program, approx.210 million NIS,  will enable financing of 4 Submission cycles when the duration of each project - up to 4 years of funding
• The research program is based on pooling resources in which the Planning and Budgeting Committee of the Council for Higher Education, the Ministry of Health, the National Digital System in the Ministry of Economy, Yad Hanadiv and the Kellerman Family Foundation (Boston) take part.
• The RMA program is managed and operated by the National Science Foundation
• In the coming months, another call for the fourth and final cycle of the program is expected to be published.

Prof. Yuval Dor, chairman of the field of biology and medicine at the National Science Foundation: "In the third cycle of the program for personalized medicine, we once again witnessed an abundance of excellent research programs that reflected the scientific depth and the spirit of cooperation between researchers and doctors in Israel and between universities, hospitals and health insurance funds. We are happy that we were able to maintain the competitive judging process by international committees in order despite the challenges of the Corona virus. The winning proposals come from a variety of universities and medical institutions, deal with essential questions for human health and are expected to lead to important scientific insights and medical applications."

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The research in the field of personalized medicine is based on extensive interdisciplinary collaborations, which combine scientific and medical knowledge, theory, in-depth analyzes of huge medical data and extensive experimental work. The winning studies used information found in tissue repositories and the unique databases of the health institutions in Israel, while strictly maintaining the privacy of the patients. It should be noted that Israel has a huge comparative advantage in the field in light of the extensive scope and high reliability of these databases.

The international judging team headed by Nobel Prize laureate in chemistry, Prof. Roger Kornberg from Stanford University chose, after a thorough examination, the 11 The leading research proposals in the third cycle of the Rama program, which will be awarded research grants in the total amount of approx. 32 million NIS. Rama is a new research program - the first of its kind in Israel which was launched about three years ago (summer 2018) with a total budget of approx 210 million NIS,  The program operates in four submission cycles. The duration of each study is up to 4 Years.

Background on the RMA program and its essence:

The RMA (personalized medicine) program focuses on a deep understanding of the differences and mechanisms responsible for variations in health and disease characteristics in different people and works to promote innovative, ground-breaking research that will lead to a deep understanding of human biology and the mechanisms involved in human diseases. Many studies, carried out over the past few years, indicate that people who are sick with the same disease (for example: diabetes, various types of leukemia, breast cancer, Crohn's disease, etc.) may develop a different manifestation of the disease, including - a different rate of development of the disease, differences in the severity of the disease , and variation in response to treatment.

The existence of considerable variation between patients has been recognized in the world of medicine for a long time, but the understanding of the reasons that cause this variation is still limited. In the absence of established information on the causes of variation, it is more difficult to optimally adapt treatment to the disease for each and every patient.

The RMA program is designed to deal with these challenges, using a wide variety of technologies, activating multidisciplinary research teams, including doctors, basic researchers, theorists, experimentalists, computational biologists, computer science and data scientists, engineers, statisticians, epidemiologists, and more.

The partners in financing the program: The Planning and Budgeting Committee of the Council for Higher Education (VAT), משרד הבריאות, The National Digital Array in the Ministry of Economy and two philanthropic foundations: Keren the benevolent hand In Israel and the Kellerman Family Foundation in the USA. The program is operated and managed by National Science Foundation.

The program allows Israeli researchers to promote wide-ranging research in the fields of human health, based on extensive collaborations between researchers in higher education institutions and medical institutions in Israel, on populations of healthy and sick volunteers, as well as on the basis of huge data (big data) found in the databases of hospitals and health insurance funds in Israel.

The collaborations between the researchers at the universities and the health institutions significantly advance the research capabilities in the field in Israel, and help accelerate the pace of discoveries and the application potential of new therapeutic approaches, while positioning Israel as a pioneer at the forefront of global science in the field of personalized medicine.

The new projects that won funding

Below is the list of the 11 selected research proposals, which includes the names of the researchers and their specialization, the research topic and the total amount of the grant:

1. Prof. Aryeh Edmon (Biology, Technion), Prof. Vivian Drury (Neurology, Sourasky Tel Aviv Medical Center), Prof. Eran Hornstein (Molecular Neurobiology and Molecular Genetics, Weizmann Institute of Science), Prof. Eran Perelson (Physiology and Pharmacology, Tel Aviv University). Total grant: 3.6 million NIS.

Primals - a precision medicine study to identify new markers for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) are based on the signals relevant to the pathology. Primals (RPIMALS) is a research program in the field of personalized medicine that uses advanced research technologies to identify new biological markers (biomarkers) in degenerative brain diseases. The program will begin its activity with advanced cellular models based on stem cells and will continue to an advanced stage that will include the performance of innovative blood tests for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients. The researchers expect breakthroughs in the study of degenerative brain diseases and in approaches to developing disease markers.

• Prof. Yunina Elder, (Electrical Engineering, Weizmann Institute of Science), Dr Ahuva Grobstein (Images, Rabin Medical Center - Billinson). Total grant: 3.6 million NIS.

Improving the diagnosis and sonographic follow-up of breast cancer and Crohn's disease using artificial intelligence and super-resolution algorithms. The aim of the research is to pave the way towards a more personalized diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer and Crohn's disease. In order to achieve this goal, the researchers use advanced methods, such as algorithms that make it possible to see tiny blood vessels in ultrasound imaging and artificial intelligence.

• Dr Ronen Arbel (Technological Marketing, Sapir Academic College), Prof. Martin Ellis (Blood Bank and Hematology Institute, Meir Medical Center), Dr Yosef Azuri (Department of Family Medicine, Maccabi Health Services), Prof. Yuval Shahar (Software and Information Systems Engineering, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev). Total grant: 2.8 million NIS.

Individual optimization of drug treatment in atrial fibrillation patients. The research will use methods from the fields of artificial intelligence and data science, to personally and optimally adjust the treatment for patients with atrial fibrillation, a common heart rhythm disorder.

• Prof. Itay Ben Porat (Israel-Canada Medical Research Institute, Faculty of Medicine of the Hebrew University), Dr Amir Sonnenblick (Oncology, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center), Dr Uri Ben-David (Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry, Tel Aviv University, Faculty of Medicine). Total grant: 2.2 million NIS.

 Characterization of cells in a state of cellular aging (senescence) in breast cancer cells and its tumor environment and harnessing them for treatment. When a cancerous tumor develops, the cells in it are exposed to different types of damage and stress, in response to which the cells may adopt a senescence-like state. This study examines how the presence of cells in a state of "cellular senescence" in breast cancer tumors affects the development of the disease, and examines whether drugs that kill these senescent cells may improve its treatment.

• Prof. Michal Lotem (Oncology, Hadassah Ein Kerem University Hospital), Dr Yonatan Cohen (Sharet Institute of Oncology and Wahl Institute for Translational Medicine, Hadassah Medical Center and Faculty of Medicine, Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Dr. Liat Keren (Molecular Biology of the Cell, Weizmann Institute of Science). Total grant: 2.8 million NIS.

Characterization of the immune environment in melanoma metastases in multidimensional imaging. Metastatic melanoma is a serious disease, with approximately 50% mortality five years from the date of diagnosis. In recent years, the importance of the immune system in the cancer process has become clear, and there is a branch of development of immunotherapy drugs that help the cells of the immune system to attack the cancer. However, diagnostic tools are lacking to adapt the treatment to the patient. In the current study, the researchers will use a new multidimensional imaging technology (Multiplexed Ion Beam Imaging by Time of Flight) to investigate the immune environment in dozens of melanoma patients treated at Hadassah Hospital. The goal is to produce clinical indicators (predictors) for choosing the appropriate treatment for the patient and establishing personalized medicine.

• Prof. Efrat Levy-Lahad (Medical Genetics, Internal Medicine, Shaare Zedek Medical Center), Dr Yuval Tabah (Developmental Biology and Cancer Research, Hebrew University School of Medicine), Dr Pinchas Rehnbaum (Medical genetics, internal medicine, Shaare Zedek Medical Center). Total grant: 2.2 million NIS.

Rare hereditary diseases: optimization of the identification of the genetic basis and the treatment by a multi-stage computational and functional system. The genetic basis of rare inherited diseases often remains unknown despite significant advances in genomic sequencing and analysis. In addition, there is a minority of specific treatments for these diseases. To face these challenges, the goal of the research is to develop a comprehensive platform based on the parallel evolution of gene groups. This system will also lead to the identification of new genes for the disease in humans, and will also enable appropriate treatment, by identifying existing drugs that have been approved for other indications, but are expected to be effective in rare diseases.

• Prof. Eran is a poet (Genetics, Hebrew University, Edmond Y. Safra Campus), Prof. Miracles in Nevanisti (Genetics, Hebrew University, Edmond Y. Safra Campus), Prof. Shulamit Levenberg (Biomedical Engineering, Technion), Prof. Birek fan (Genetics, Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev). Total grant: 2.8 million NIS.

Modeling and defining personalized treatments of neurological diseases using human pluripotent stem cells. The research groups of Professors Birk, Benvanisti, Levenberg and Schorr create two-dimensional (neuronal differentiation) and three-dimensional (creation of small "brain" brain structures) models for neuronal diseases using pluripotent human stem cells. The models will be used for genetic scans and the search for relevant drugs.

• Prof. Nir Friedman (School of Engineering and Computer Science, Hebrew University, Edmond Y. Safra Campus), Prof. Eitan Galon (Institute for Genetic Therapy, Hadassah Ein Kerem University Hospital). Total grant: 3.6 million NIS.

Liquid biopsy for liver diseases. The study will test the feasibility of using a new method to measure free DNA that is released from dead cells to non-invasively investigate a variety of liver pathologies in humans. The method has the potential for early diagnosis of diseases and examination of the condition of the liver without the need for a biopsy.

• Prof. Aharon Chachanover (Faculty of Medicine, Technion Interdisciplinary Center for Cancer Research, Technion), Prof. Michael Elad (Faculty of Computer Science, Technion), Prof. Tsila Zuckerman (Hematology, Rambam - the Medical Council for Human Health), Dr Yaniv Zohar (Institute of Pathology, Rambam - the Medical Council for Human Health). Total grant: 3.6 million NIS.

"Metabolic "incarceration" of the proteasome complex of the ubiquitin system in the cell nucleus, as the Achilles heel of tumor growth: use for the development of an individualized clinical management platform and personalized innovative treatment. The cells of all living things have a system to unload proteins, the ubiquitin-proteasome system (Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2004). Among its many roles is to break down non-essential proteins in times of stress and supply building blocks for the production of necessary proteins. As part of the research, a way was found to mislead the cells, and despite the stressful conditions to order them not to activate the system, which leads to their death. The death is selective and mainly affects malignant cells, this is due to their accelerated metabolic rate - which causes their sensitivity to stressful conditions to a greater extent than that of healthy cells. Since the deception is mediated through compounds found in food, it is not toxic, and its use has the potential to develop a cure for cancer that is not among the conventional treatment groups.     

1. Prof. Ron Kimmel (Computer Science, Technion). Total grant: 1.4 million NIS.

Prognosis, response to treatment and molecular profiling of cancer using computerized analysis of histological and cytological images. The research will use advanced methods in computational learning to help understand histopathological images for effective and early interpretation of different types of cancer. The early results on tiny tissue arrays indicate the ability to predict estrogen and progesterone markers in breast cancer from tissue staining with hematoxylin.

1. Dr trail sparrow (Institute for Gastroenterology, Nutrition and Liver Diseases, Schneider Pediatric Center in Israel), Dr. His Itzkowitz (Department of Molecular Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science), Dr Ruth Shertz-Shuval (Department of Biomolecular Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science), Dr You are Yanai (Gastroenterology, Rabin Medical Center - Billinson). Total grant: 2.8 million NIS.

Characterizing the link between fibroblast markers and structural damage and clinical outcomes in patients with ulcerative colitis. Ulcerative colitis is a chronic inflammatory disease of the colon that affects millions of people worldwide. The study examines how fibroblasts, cells that build the connective tissue and give each organ its structure, contribute to the development of inflammation and recovery processes in the colon among children and adults with ulcerative colitis. In addition, the researchers will examine whether unique characteristics of tissue damage to the intestine at the time of diagnosis can indicate the complications of the disease over time.