{"entity":{"id":"michal-besser","kind":"person","name":"Michal Besser","aka":[],"tldr":"Runs the laboratory that actually grows the cells. Her papers are the reason anyone outside the United States believed a hospital could manufacture tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes reliably.","summary":"Michal Besser leads cell therapy laboratory work at Sheba's Ella Lemelbaum Institute and is first author of its intent-to-treat report on tumour-infiltrating lymphocyte therapy in metastatic melanoma, which found blood lactate dehydrogenase, sex, days in culture and the number of infused CD8-positive cells to be independent predictors of outcome. Her laboratory has published the practical protocols that others copy: how to establish and expand TIL cultures, how to transduce them retrovirally with a chimeric antigen receptor or a T-cell receptor, and how microRNA expression in the infused product tracks with response. Work of this kind is why a small country with one dominant referral centre can run a cell therapy programme that larger health systems find hard to reproduce.","asOf":"2026-09-25","links":[{"label":"Sheba Medical Center cancer centre","url":"https://www.shebaonline.org/departments/cancer-center/"},{"label":"PubMed author search","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Besser%20MJ%5BAuthor%5D%20tumor-infiltrating%20lymphocytes"}],"tags":["scientist","cell-therapy"],"related":[],"cancers":["melanoma"],"sections":["cell-therapy"],"technologies":["til-therapy","car-t"],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":["sheba","tel-aviv-university"],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":["b-manufacturing-cell-therapy"],"keyPapers":["paper-besser-til-melanoma-intent-to-treat-ccr-2013"],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"role":"Head of the Ella Lemelbaum Institute cell therapy laboratory, Sheba Medical Center; Gray Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, Tel Aviv University","institutionId":"sheba","specialisms":["Tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes","Adoptive cell therapy","T-cell manufacturing","Genetic modification of T cells"],"profiles":[{"label":"Sheba Medical Center cancer centre","url":"https://www.shebaonline.org/departments/cancer-center/"},{"label":"PubMed author search","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Besser%20MJ%5BAuthor%5D%20tumor-infiltrating%20lymphocytes"}],"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":"Genetic modification of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes via retroviral transduction","journal":"Frontiers in Immunology","year":2020,"doi":"10.3389/fimmu.2020.584148"}]},"route":"/people/michal-besser/","neighbours":{"cancer":[{"id":"melanoma","kind":"cancer","name":"Melanoma","route":"/cancers/melanoma/"}],"section":[{"id":"cell-therapy","kind":"section","name":"Cell Therapy","route":"/fronts/cell-therapy/"}],"technology":[{"id":"car-t","kind":"technology","name":"CAR-T cell therapy","route":"/technologies/car-t/"},{"id":"til-therapy","kind":"technology","name":"TIL therapy","route":"/technologies/til-therapy/"}],"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/"}]}}