Yaara
Oren

Dr. Yaara Oren is a new faculty member in the Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University.

Yaara’s research merges concepts from evolutionary biology and cancer research, combining computational tools with experimental approaches to understand how cancer cells can evade therapy.

As an Azrieli Fellow, she will generate new systems to study cancer “persister” cells: a rare cell population that is highly tolerant to treatment and lacks any underlying genetic cause. Understanding the basics of cancer persistence will enable the development of better therapies that could potentially delay or even prevent disease recurrence.

Yaara received her BSc and PhD in cell biology and microbiology from Tel Aviv University. In her PhD, under the supervision of Prof. Tal Pupko and Prof. Eliora Ron, she studied the evolution of harmless commensal bacteria into deadly pathogens. As a postdoctoral fellow at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and Harvard Medical School, she studied how a subset of drug-tolerant cancer cells regain proliferative capacity which leads to disease recurrence. Yaara lives in Tel Aviv with her spouse, Lior, and their children, Arielle and Allon. She enjoys exploring different bakeries every week on her way home from the beach.