Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, opened in 1925, runs the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School jointly with Hadassah Medical Center and the Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada. Its most consequential oncology contribution is pegylated liposomal doxorubicin: Yechezkel Barenholz's Laboratory of Membrane and Liposome Research, working with the clinician Alberto Gabizon, devised the ammonium-sulfate remote-loading gradient and the polyethylene-glycol coat that let doxorubicin circulate for days and accumulate in tumours, and the product was approved by the FDA in 1995 as Doxil, the first nano-drug any regulator approved. Barenholz's own retrospective in Journal of Controlled Release sets out the three unrelated principles it combined and what twenty years of use taught. The university's technology transfer company, Yissum, licensed the patents. Barenholz's laboratory continues to publish on liposome and PEGylation chemistry from the Hadassah Medical School campus.