Shimon Slavin

He is currently serving as the medical and scientific director of Biotherapy International Center for Innovative Cancer Immunotherapy & Cellular Medicine in Tel Aviv, Israel and as the medical director at Superinfection, a biotechnology company in Budapest, Hungary. Professor Slavin opened a tumor bank in 2020, in order to boost the development of customized immunotherapy treatments against cancer.

In 2007, Slavin established a new center of excellence in Tel Aviv, the International Center for Cell Therapy & Cancer immunotherapy (CTCI). This center was devoted to develop and apply innovative approaches for treatment of cancer and life-threatening non-malignant disorders, including the use of stem cells for regenerative medicine focusing on the use of proprietary technologies for using bone marrow, cord/placenta and adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) for treatment of neurological disorders, autoimmune diseases, treatment of renal failure and diabetes mellitus, repair of cartilage and regeneration of bone.

Slavin with his team using a vector provided by the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan pioneered the first successful use of gene therapy for treatment of bubble baby born with adenosine deaminase deficiency in 2002 and the treated infant has since then been off any treatment with no evidence of disease for more than 16 years. The same procedure was used by the team in Milan for successful treatment of many additional patients and all were cured by successful gene therapy.

Baxter International recognized the potential of cell therapy and signed an agreement which resulted in major investment with Slavin at Hadassah Medical Center for further development of new approaches based on cell therapy for the treatment of cancer, autoimmune diseases and organ transplantation based on new approaches for regulation rather than non-specific suppression of the immune system. Accordingly, Slavin's research center was established by Baxter International based in Chicago, USA and also supported by the Danny Cunniff Leukemia Research Center. Slavin was founder and director of this research center in 1994–2007.

In the early 1987 Slavin introduced the concept of cancer immunotherapy using donor lymphocytes infusion (DLI) for the treatment and prevention of recurrent disease and pioneered the use of adoptive allogeneic cell-mediated immunotherapy and cytokine activated lymphocytes for both treatment and prevention of relapse following allogeneic and autologous stem cell transplantation for hematologic malignancies and solid tumors.

In 1977 Slavin discovered the first animal model of B-cell leukemia/lymphoma (BCL1) which provided an opportunity to better understand the biology of B cells and to develop new therapeutic strategies based on the preclinical animal model.

In 1975-1978 Shimon Slavin trained in clinical immunology/rheumatology at the Division of Immunology, Stanford University School of Medicine and later on in 1978 trained in clinical bone marrow transplantation under the late Prof. E.D. Thomas at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

Slavin graduated from the School of Medicine at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and got his degree in 1967. He served as the doctor of the Frogman Unit in the Israeli Navy until 1970. He was trained at the Department of Internal Medicine of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem between 1970 and 1975.

Shimon Slavin born in Tel Aviv in 1941, but lived in Jerusalem between 1946 and 2007. Slavin is married with 3 children. Slavin hobbies include music and painting, swimming & diving, tennis and bicycling.