{"entity":{"id":"jacob-schachter","kind":"person","name":"Jacob Schachter","aka":[],"tldr":"Built the melanoma and immunotherapy institute at Sheba that has been growing patients' own tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes and giving them back since 2006, more than a decade before any regulator approved the idea.","summary":"Jacob Schachter directs the Ella Lemelbaum Institute for Immuno-Oncology and Melanoma at Sheba Medical Center, one of very few centres outside the United States to run a tumour-infiltrating lymphocyte programme at scale and for long enough to report durable outcomes. The institute's intent-to-treat analysis, published in Clinical Cancer Research with Michal Besser as first author, enrolled 80 patients with stage IV melanoma and treated 57 with unselected or \"young\" TIL and high-dose interleukin-2 after non-myeloablative lymphodepletion. The overall response rate was 29 percent for all enrolled patients and 40 percent for those treated, with five complete and 18 partial remissions; all complete responders remained in unmaintained remission at a median 28 months and three-year survival among responders was 78 percent. Twenty-three patients could not be treated, mostly because they deteriorated while the cells were being grown, which is the honest cost of a three-week manufacturing step. Schachter has also been an investigator on the pivotal pembrolizumab melanoma trials.","asOf":"2026-09-25","links":[{"label":"Ella Lemelbaum Institute, Sheba Medical Center","url":"https://www.shebaonline.org/departments/cancer-center/"},{"label":"PubMed author search","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Schachter%20J%5BAuthor%5D%20melanoma%20Sheba"}],"tags":["clinician-scientist","immunotherapy"],"related":[],"cancers":["melanoma"],"sections":["cell-therapy","immunotherapy"],"technologies":["til-therapy","checkpoint-inhibitor"],"targets":[],"drugs":["pembrolizumab"],"companies":[],"institutions":["sheba","tel-aviv-university"],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":["b-manufacturing-cell-therapy"],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"role":"Director, Ella Lemelbaum Institute for Immuno-Oncology and Melanoma, Sheba Medical Center","institutionId":"sheba","specialisms":["Melanoma","Immunotherapy","Adoptive cell therapy","Clinical trials"],"profiles":[{"label":"Ella Lemelbaum Institute, Sheba Medical Center","url":"https://www.shebaonline.org/departments/cancer-center/"},{"label":"PubMed author search","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Schachter%20J%5BAuthor%5D%20melanoma%20Sheba"}],"papers":[{"title":"Adoptive transfer of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes in patients with metastatic melanoma: intent-to-treat analysis and efficacy after failure to prior immunotherapies","journal":"Clinical Cancer Research","year":2013,"doi":"10.1158/1078-0432.ccr-13-0380"},{"title":"Pembrolizumab versus ipilimumab in advanced melanoma (KEYNOTE-006): post-hoc 5-year results","journal":"The Lancet","year":2017,"doi":"10.1016/S0140-6736(17)31601-X"}]},"route":"/people/jacob-schachter/","neighbours":{"cancer":[{"id":"melanoma","kind":"cancer","name":"Melanoma","route":"/cancers/melanoma/"}],"section":[{"id":"cell-therapy","kind":"section","name":"Cell Therapy","route":"/fronts/cell-therapy/"},{"id":"immunotherapy","kind":"section","name":"Immunotherapy","route":"/fronts/immunotherapy/"}],"technology":[{"id":"checkpoint-inhibitor","kind":"technology","name":"Immune checkpoint inhibitors","route":"/technologies/checkpoint-inhibitor/"},{"id":"til-therapy","kind":"technology","name":"TIL therapy","route":"/technologies/til-therapy/"}],"drug":[{"id":"pembrolizumab","kind":"drug","name":"Pembrolizumab","route":"/drugs/pembrolizumab/"}],"institution":[{"id":"sheba","kind":"institution","name":"Sheba Medical Center","route":"/institutions/sheba/"},{"id":"tel-aviv-university","kind":"institution","name":"Tel Aviv University","route":"/institutions/tel-aviv-university/"}],"bottleneck":[{"id":"b-manufacturing-cell-therapy","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Manufacturing cost and time for living and radioactive medicines","route":"/bottlenecks/b-manufacturing-cell-therapy/"}],"paper":[{"id":"paper-besser-til-melanoma-intent-to-treat-ccr-2013","kind":"paper","name":"Adoptive transfer of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes in patients with metastatic melanoma: intent-to-treat analysis and efficacy after failure to prior immunotherapies","route":"/key-papers/paper-besser-til-melanoma-intent-to-treat-ccr-2013/"}]}}