{"id":666945,"date":"2026-05-26T23:34:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T23:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/666945\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T23:34:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T23:34:15","slug":"in-a-world-first-israeli-scientists-find-memory-b-cells-can-target-ovarian-tumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/666945\/","title":{"rendered":"In a world first, Israeli scientists find ‘memory’ B cells can target ovarian tumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science announced Tuesday they have discovered, in a world first, that specialized immune cells known as memory B cells can recognize and attack ovarian cancer tumors.<\/p>\n

Ovarian cancer is the deadliest gynecological cancer worldwide, with a five-year survival rate below 50 percent.<\/p>\n

The peer-reviewed study, conducted in Prof. Ziv Shulman\u2019s lab in Weizmann\u2019s Department of Systems Immunology, challenges the scientific assumption that immune memory B cells only respond to external invaders such as viruses and bacteria.<\/p>\n

The research, led by Dr. Nachum Nathan, appeared in Immunity<\/a>. It identified memory cells that zeroed in on ovarian tumors and produced effective antibodies against them.<\/p>\n

The findings pave the way for the development of vaccines and therapies that harness immune memory to fight cancer.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tGet The Times of Israel’s Daily Edition
\n\t\t\tby email and never miss our top stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tBy signing up, you agree to the terms<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIf we suggest that there are memory cells, antibody-forming cells that remember the tumor, and we can activate them with a vaccine, then we can make cancer vaccines that stimulate these cells,\u201d said Shulman, who supervised the research. \u201cI\u2019m very excited. It\u2019s a new idea, a totally new approach to vaccines for cancer patients.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tScavenger cells (green) engulf activated Memory B cells (pink), thereby suppressing local immune
response. The cells were imaged in three dimensions using a confocal microscope. (Courtesy\/Weizmann Institute of Science)<\/p>\n

Ovarian cancer<\/p>\n

Contrary to what was formerly believed, scientists now recognize that the most common ovarian cancer, high-grade serous ovarian carcinoma, or HGSOC, does not begin in the ovaries but in the fallopian tubes close to the ovaries, Shulman explained.<\/p>\n

Inherited BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations are the most significant known risk factors for ovarian cancer. Jewish women of Ashkenazi descent face a significantly higher lifetime risk of developing ovarian cancer since they are about 10 times more likely to carry these faulty genes than the general population.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tIllustrative image: a doctor holds up a pink ribbon for breast cancer awareness. (dragana991 via iStock by Getty Images)<\/p>\n

When there is a mutation in the BRCA gene, it can no longer produce the essential proteins needed to repair cellular DNA damage, thereby triggering aggressive tumor growth.<\/p>\n

Currently, there is no reliable screening test to diagnose ovarian cancer, and a cervical cancer smear test, or a Pap test, cannot detect it.<\/p>\n

Its symptoms, which include persistent abdominal bloating and pelvic pain, are often confused with less severe illnesses. Most women are diagnosed only after the cancer has already advanced and spread.<\/p>\n

There were 492 new cases of ovarian cancer in Israel in 2022, and 353 deaths from the disease, according to World Health Organization statistics.<\/p>\n

Enhancing the immune system to kill cancer cells<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m an immunologist, I\u2019m not a cancer guy,\u201d Shulman said of his research, adding that\u00a0he studies B cells and antibody-mediated immune responses to pathogens and infectious diseases.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is my expertise, what I know how to do best,\u201d Shulman said.<\/p>\n

He said he went into cancer research from the field of \u201cstudying the B cell and antibody side, rather than from the cancer side.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to understand how we can boost the immune system to allow it to enhance its ability to kill tumor cells, and this is what we do with immunotherapy,\u201d Shulman said.<\/p>\n

He started studying the role of B cells fighting cancer in 2015 on a hunch.<\/p>\n

I want to understand how we can boost the immune system to allow it to enhance its ability to kill tumor cells, and this is what we do with immunotherapy<\/p>\n

\u201cBack then, people were more interested in T cells,\u201d another form of lymphocytes that fight cancer, Shulman said. \u201cNobody really cared about B lymphocyte cells,\u201d a type of white blood cell that tracks down and destroys cancer cells.\n<\/p>\n

However, Shulman was still intrigued. When a physician whose mother died from ovarian cancer came to do a PhD in his lab, \u201che only wanted to study ovarian cancer, so we got to work,\u201d Shulman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found that B cells infiltrate tumors and produce antibodies against cancerous ovarian tumors,\u201d Shulman said.<\/p>\n

He published a study to that effect in 2022.<\/p>\n

In the most recent study, the research team analyzed samples collected from 11 patients with the most common type of ovarian cancer, HGSOC, in collaboration with Prof. Ram Eitan and Dr. Oded Raban from Rabin Medical Center.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tIllustrative: White blood cells attack a tumor (wildpixel; iStock by Getty Images)<\/p>\n

They looked for B cells in the lymph node and tumor of the same patient.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach cell has its own unique antibody with its own sequence. It\u2019s like a barcode,\u201d Shulman said. \u201cWe found the same barcode in both the lymph node and the tumor.\u201d<\/p>\n

The memory cells can be a targeted weapon against ovarian cancer. This is something that nobody ever did before<\/p>\n

This means, he said, that they both had the same ancestor, which \u201cgave rise to these cells, perhaps in the lymph node, and then the cells migrated and moved to the tumor.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

This provides \u201cvery strong evidence\u201d that memory cells can move from the lymph node to the tumor, secreting antibodies that can be beneficial to the patient, he said.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tDr. Ruth Perets, head of early phase clinical trials and the Women\u2019s Cancers Research Lab at Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa. (Courtesy)<\/p>\n

The researchers produced the antibodies artificially in the lab.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were amazed to find that more than a third of these antibodies bound strongly to ovarian cancer cells,\u201d Shulman said. \u201cThe memory cells can be a targeted weapon against ovarian cancer. This is something that nobody ever did before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Immunotherapy, which harnesses the immune system to fight cancer, \u201chas transformed oncology and shown major success in many cancer types, but in ovarian cancer it has so far been only minimally effective,\u201d said Dr. Ruth Perets, head of early phase clinical trials and the Women\u2019s Cancers Research Lab at the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa.<\/p>\n

Perets was not involved in the study.<\/p>\n

She said that Shulman\u2019s latest research \u201cshows that ovarian cancer patients naturally produce B lymphocytes that can recognize their tumors, but these cells remain inactive. These findings suggest that in the future, activating these naturally occurring anti-cancer B lymphocytes could offer a new and potentially effective immunotherapy strategy for ovarian cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shulman said that he hopes the next step will be clinical trials for a B lymphocyte vaccine.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis puts a new therapeutic option out there for people to use in clinical trials,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science announced Tuesday they have discovered, in a world first, that specialized…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":666946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[687,8869,97,291344,57218,30319,101858,10545,36103,6472,291343],"class_list":["post-666945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-cancer","tag-cancer-research","tag-health","tag-immune-therapy","tag-immunization","tag-immunotherapy","tag-israeli-science","tag-medical-research","tag-ovarian-cancer","tag-scientific-research","tag-weizmann-institute"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}