The Ichilov Clinic Opens a State-of-the-Art Institute of Cell Therapy

Last week, the Ichilov Medical Center in Tel Aviv officially opened the Institute of Cell Therapy, which will allow cancer patients at the hospital to receive innovative treatment. Its construction took several years and cost the state nearly two million dollars.

The institute will feature four modern laboratories equipped with all necessary equipment for handling living cells and their subsequent transplantation. This will enable the clinic to provide its patients with various forms of cancer, primarily hematological cancers, with the latest treatment, which currently has the highest efficacy with minimal side effects.

The opening of the Institute, among other things, will expand the capabilities of the Ichilov Medical Center in implementing the CAR T-cell therapy method, which is considered one of the most promising and groundbreaking in the fight against cancer. This type of immunotherapy involves training the patient's own immune cells to fight cancer in a 'manual' mode.

From the patient's blood, lymphocytes, the main cells of the immune system that fight not only external enemies – viruses and bacteria – but also internal ones – malignant tumours, are isolated. In the laboratory, they are genetically modified using special equipment, equipping them with specific receptors that help them recognize and destroy tumour cells. The modified lymphocytes are then reintroduced into the patient's bloodstream, where they begin to actively multiply and attack the cancer.

The CAR T-cell therapy method, which helps people with the most dangerous forms of oncology that are resistant to other types of treatment, has been used at Ichilov Hospital for the past three years. However, until recently, the cells isolated from the patient's blood had to be sent to other countries where specialized laboratories for their genetic modification exist. Now, all stages of the innovative treatment will be carried out on-site – in the laboratories of the Institute of Cell Therapy.

Representatives of the center at the opening stated that their laboratories are the most sterile in the country, surpassing even operating rooms in this regard. They are also the most technologically advanced, which will allow the clinic to assist cancer patients with diagnoses that were previously considered fatal.