Sima Lev

Sima Lev is an Israeli biologist and the Joyce and Ben B. Eisenberg Professorial Chair of Molecular Cell Biology at the Weizmann Institute of Science. Her research focuses on the mechanisms that drive the development of triple-negative breast cancer and to identify new therapeutic strategies. She has identified and characterized several novel human genes including PYK2, Nir1, Nir2, and Nir3.

Early life and education Lev is from Israel. She completed her undergraduate and graduate degree at Tel Aviv University. She moved to the Weizmann Institute of Science for her doctoral research, where she studied ATTB sites involved in the recombination of bacteriophages.

Research and career The signalling pathways that determine cell growth are impacted by environmental cues, including nutrients and growth factors. Lev studies how these signalling networks behave in normal and cancerous cells.

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) impacts approximately 20% breast cancer patients. Despite its prevalence, there are no established effective targeted therapies, and standard chemotherapy is the only systemic treatment. As a result, chemo-resistance is a major challenge for the treatment of TNBC. Chemoresistance gives rise to advanced metastatic disease. Lev has investigated new molecular targets for TNBC that regulate the metastasis of TNBC. Her lab combines bioinformatics with transcriptomics to identify the signalling pathways that drive the progression of tumours.

Small vesicles that are below 100 nm in size are known as exosomes. Exosomes are produced by cancer cells, impact disease progression and serve as biomarkers for prognosis. Lev has studied the exosomes of TNBC patients, looking to understand how they respond to treatments and the mechanisms that underpin their production.

Select publications