Announcing the Awardees of Cancer Bioinformatics and Artificial Intelligence Grants

We are excited to announce the awardees of the new joint funding program by the following Centers :

• The Cancer Biology Research Center (CBRC)
• Djerassi Oncology Center
• Edmond J. Safra Center for Bioinformatics
• Tel Aviv University Center for AI and Data Science (TAD)

The grants support collaborative research projects between clinicians and basic research scientists, to combine bioinformatics, and artificial intelligence with translational research on the causes, mechanisms, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of cancer. 

A total of 900,000 NIS will be awarded with up to 200,000 NIS per grant. The program will be also supported with sponsorship and professional mentorship from Teva pharmaceutical Industries Ltd for two of the selected projects.

Awardees of the grants for the year 2022-2023:

• Irit Avivi, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, and Yohai Bar Sinai, School of Physics, TAU
  "Sensitive detection of diffuse large B cell Lymphoma by neural network assisted circulating microRNA classification"
   
• Orit Furman, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Leor Zach, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, and Raja Giryes, Department of Electrical Engineering, TAU
  "Developing radiological biomarkers for brain metastases response to radiotherapy treatment, using deep learning analysis of MRI and radiation plans"
   
• Shai Izraeli, Schneider Children's Medical Center, and Yuval Ebenstein, School of Chemistry, TAU
  "A personalized approach for childhood cancer: Whole-genome Cell-free DNA methylation for molecular monitoring"
   
• Oren Pleniceanu, Sheba Medical Center, and Lior Wolf, School of Computer Science, TAU
  "AI-based analysis of tumor organoids and in-vivo xenograft models as a novel approach to improve cancer treatment: kidney cancer as a proof of concept"
   
• Ilan Volovitz, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, and Roded Sharan, School of Computer Science, TAU
  "Deep learning based deconvolution of gene expression data of human glioblastomas for improving future immunotherapy"
   
• Rinat Yerushalmi, Rabin Medical Center, and Ran Elkon, Faculty of Medicine, TAU
  "Improving early breast cancer detection in diverse ethnic groups in Israel"

Congratulations to the awardees!

Many thanks to the applicants and to the reviewers. We appreciate your participation and hope these grants will lay the foundation for larger and advanced collaborations in the future.

We thank the grant committee: Prof. Yael Cohen (Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center), Prof. Dinorah Friedmann-Morvinski (Faculty of Life Sciences, TAU), Prof. Malka Gorfine-Orgad (Faculty of Exact Sciences, TAU), Prof. Rina Rosin-Arbesfeld (Faculty of Medicine, TAU) and Prof. Tamir Tuller (Faculty of Engineering, TAU).