Healing Melanoma

The 2014 Ziegler award was bestowed upon Dr. Gal Markel for developing an innovative treatment for melanoma.

Dr. Gal Markel, 35, was presented with the 2014 Ziegler award, on November 21st, for developing an innovative treatment for melanoma. The ceremony included a lecture entitled “Phenomena Resulting from Iodine Deficiency” given by Prof. Zaki Kraiem of the Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, where the event took place.

Dr. Markel, of Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine and Sheba Medical Center, is an intern specializing in immuno-oncology, an area of medicine that focuses on the treatment of cancer using the immune system. Dr. Markel received the award for developing a new antibody against the CEACAM1 protein, which plays a central role in the development of the aggressive and fatal metastatic disease. The protein is expected to be used in the immunotherapy of malignant melanoma, and clinical trials are scheduled to begin this coming year. Dr. Markel’s award ceremony lecture was entitled “Cancer under the Radar”, and discussed the way in which cancerous tumors can “hide” and thus avoid detection by the immune system.

Reuven Ziegler (z”l) was born in 1907 in Bóbrka, Poland. He survived the Holocaust along with his wife and son, Zvi Ziegler, who currently is a faculty member at the Technion’s Department of Mathematics. In 1946, the family immigrated to Israel and settled in Jerusalem, where a daughter, Edna Schechtman (currently a professor of statistics at Ben-Gurion University) was born. In 1948, the Ziegler family moved to Haifa, where Reuven was involved in the timber trade and was an active member of the city’s chamber of commerce.

In 1971, Reuven Ziegler died of a malignant disease, and his family decided to honor his memory by establishing a fund that would bestow awards upon young physicians-researchers for applied medical research. The award, which is for 7,000 NIS, has been presented every other year since 1974 and candidacy is open to researchers from all universities, research institutes and medical centers in Israel. To date, the Ziegler award has been presented to 20 researchers, seven of whom are from the Technion. “It seems like the Ziegler award is a predictor of future success”, said Prof. Michael Aviram, who acted as master of ceremony for the event, “since many of the recipients have ended up in very respectable positions in medicine and in medical research, both in Israel and abroad.” The award committee members are Michael Aviram (Chairperson), Israel Vlodavsky, Ze’ev Hochberg, Nathan Karin, Zaid Abassi, and Asya Rolls.

Photo: Dr. Gal Markel