Prof. Zvi Fishelson

Emeritus in Cell and Developmental Biology
Medicine Dean & Assoc. Deans

Email: lifish@tauex.tau.ac.il
Phone: 03-6409620
Another phone: 03-6406038
My CRIS profile: My CRIS profile
Website: Website
Office: School of Medicine, 422

ביולוגיה תאית והתפתחותית אמריטוס

Positions

Professor Emeritus, Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University

Advisory Editor, Molecular Immunology

Associate Editor, Frontiers in Immunity

Curriculum vitae

Research Associate, Department of Immunology, Research Institute of Scripps Clinic, La Jolla, California 1980-June 1983.

Assistant member (Assistant Professor), Department of Immunology, Research Institute of Scripps Clinic, La Jolla, California, July-September 1983.

Scientist, Department of Chemical Immunology, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel, September 1983 - September 1985.

Scientist, Head of Complement Unit, R. Ben Ari Institute of Clinical Immunology, Kaplan Hospital, Rehovot, Israel, January 1984 -September 1985.

Senior Scientist, Department of Chemical Immunology, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel, October 1985 - 1990.

Associate Professor, Department of Chemical Immunology, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel, October 1990 - June 1992.

Visiting Scientist, MRC Immunochemistry Unit, Dept. of Biochemistry, University of Oxford, Oxford, U.K., June 1991- August 1992.

Associate Professor, Department of Cell Biology and Histology, Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel, September 1992 - November 2003.

Visiting Scientist, Lab. Cell Biology, National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD, U.S.A., Feb 1999 - Feb. 2000.

Chairman, Department of Cell and Developmental Biology (ex: Cell Biology and Histology), Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel, Sept. 2001 - August 2005.

Full Professor, Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel, from December 2003.

Tel Aviv University, Small Senate member, 2007-2008, 2012-2016.

Tel Aviv University, member of Board of Governors, 2014-2016.

Professor Emeritus, Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel, 2019-

Research

Molecular Analysis of Cancer Immunoresistance

Prof. Fishelson research focuses on characterizing the response between the natural immune system and cancer cells and the molecular mechanisms that allow cancer cells to withstand immunotherapy.
The study identified several proteins that help cancer cells protect themselves from immune response and avoid its damage.

The proteins studied are proteins that expressed the cell membranes and block the activation of the complement system and intracellular protective proteins, the mortal proteins hsp90 and hsp70, which block the damage and allow the cell to regenerate itself.
The research team develops new cancer therapies aimed at weakening cancer cell defenses and increasing their sensitivity to immunotherapy.

(Most recent) Publications

Hillman Y., Mazkereth N., Farberov L., Shomron N. and Fishelson Z., Regulation of complement-dependent cytotoxicity by microRNAs miR-200b, miR-200c and miR-217, J. Immunol. 196: 5156-5165, 2016.

Mazkereth N., Rocca F., Schubert J.-R., Geisler C., Hillman Y., Egner A. and Fishelson Z., Complement triggers relocation of mortalin/GRP75 from mitochondria to the plasma membrane, Immunobiology, 221:1395-1406, 2016.

Jubran R, Kocsis J, Garam N, Maláti É, Gombos T, Barabás L, Gráf L, Prohászka Z, Fishelson Z., Circulating mitochondrial stress 70 protein/mortalin and cytosolic Hsp70 in blood: Risk indicators in colorectal cancer. Int. J. Cancer. 141: 2329-2335, 2017.

Rozenberg P., Ziporen L., Gancz D., Saar-Ray, M. and Fishelson Z., Cooperation between Hsp90 and mortalin/GRP75 in resistance to cell death induced by complement C5b-9. Cell death and Disease, 9, 150, 2018.

Lusthaus M., Mazkereth N., Donin N. and Fishelson Z., RIPK1, RIPK3 and MLKL are activated by sublytic complement and participate in complement-dependent cytotoxicity. Front. Immunology 9, 306, 2018.

Hillman Y, Mardamshina M, Pasmanik-Chor M, Ziporen L, Geiger T, Shomron N, Fishelson Z., MicroRNAs affect complement regulator expression and mitochondrial activity to modulate cell resistance to complement-dependent cytotoxicity. Cancer Immunol Res. 2019 Dec; 7(12):1970-1983. doi: 10.1158/ 2326-6066.CIR-18-0818.

Jubran R, Saar-RayM, Wawruszak A, Ziporen L, Donin N, Bairey O and Fishelson Z. Mortalin peptides exert antitumor activities, and act as adjuvants to antibody-mediated complement-dependent cytotoxicity, Int, J. Oncol. 57, 1013-1026, 2020.

Avraham M, Sinkovits G, Hurler L, Prohászka Z and Fishelson Z., Circulating mortalin in blood and activation of the alternative complement pathway as risk indicators in COVID-19 infection, Front Immunol. 15:1337215, 2024.

Fattal I, Steinmetz T, Donin N, Tobar AF, Rozen-Zvi B, Rahamimov R, Nesher E, Shirazi I, Mor E, Babai I, Fishelson Z., Comprehensive Analysis of Thrombotic Microangiopathy Following Renal Transplantation, Int. J. Nephrol. 2024:4396051, 2024.

Ron Yefet , Leandro Battini, Mathieu Hubert, Lilach Abramovitz, Florence Guivel-Benhassine, Noam Rattner, Francoise Porrot, Katya Rakayev, Gilad Ostashinsky, Noam Ben-Shalom, Jeanne Postal, Ksenia Polonsky, Maya Ralph-Altman, Sireen Sweed¹, Tal Korner, Nadav Friedel, David Hagin, Eli Sprecher, Zvi Fishelson, Oren Kobiler, Lihi Adler-Abramovich, Olivier Schwartz, Pablo Guardado-Calvo, Natalia T Freund, Potent Neutralization by Antibodies Targeting the Mpox A28 Protein, Nature Communication 16: 11455, 2025.

Dodd RB, Enomoto M, Zhou Y, Satoh K, Zhang Y, Chen F, Acheson B, Ghaffari D, Sayn-Wittgenstein E, Manning JJ, Dukas GV, Patel R, Burguete AS, Kralovec MJ, Rashid M, Hall JL, Tamucci KA, Chatila ZK, Liu M, Lee AJ, Vardarajan BN, Taga MF, Pollari S, Rabinovitch A, Rillahan CD, Bobkov AA, Sergienko E, Meadows W, Qamar S, Randle SJ, Johnson CM, Sevalle J, Griffin J, Bohm C, Ikura M, Xian X, Herz J, Kelly MA, West J, Satapathy S, Wilson MR, Javitch JA, Fraser PE, Bennett DA, De Jager PL, Fishelson Z, Frenkel D, Asher WB, Bradshaw EM, St George-Hyslop P., CD33 and clusterin interact biophysically and genetically to modulate Alzheimer risk, Nature Communication 17: 8983, 2026.

Reviews

Fishelson Z, Kirschfink M. Complement C5b-9 and Cancer: Mechanisms of Cell Damage, Cancer Counteractions, and Approaches for Intervention. Front Immunol. 2019 Apr 10;10:752. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2019.00752. eCollection 2019.

Sun Z, Huang J, Fishelson Z, Wang C, Zhang S., Cell-Penetrating Peptide-Based Delivery of Macromolecular Drugs: Development, Strategies, and Progress, Biomedicines 11, 1971, 2023. doi: 10.3390/biomedicines11071971.