Zelig Eshhar died in Tel Yitzhak, Israel, on July 3, 2025. He was 84. The Israeli immunologist is best known for pioneering work on chimeric antigen receptors, the basis of CAR T-cell cancer therapy.
He was born Zelig Lipka in Petah Tikva on February 25, 1941, and grew up in Rehovot. After his IDF service in the Nahal corps, he joined Kibbutz Yad Mordechai and became a beekeeper. Science came later. He earned his B.Sc. and M.Sc. at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his Ph.D. at the Weizmann Institute of Science.
From T cells to a therapy
Eshhar worked at the Weizmann Institute and the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center. He twice chaired the Weizmann’s Department of Immunology, in the 1990s and again in the 2000s. His main subject was T cells.
His research became the foundation for a cancer treatment in which T lymphocytes are taken from a patient and genetically modified to produce CAR T-cells. Doctors then inject the cells back into the patient, a process called adoptive cell transfer. In clinical trials in the mid-2010s the approach produced startlingly good results and drew millions of dollars of investment.
Prizes
The honors came mostly in the last dozen years of his life. In 2013 he received the CAR Pioneering award from the ATTACK European Consortium and the European Society of Gene & Cell Therapy’s Outstanding Achievement Award. A year later he shared the Massry Prize with Steven Rosenberg and James P. Allison, and the Pioneer Award with Carl H. June.
The Israel Prize in Life Sciences followed in 2015, and the Cancer Research Institute’s William B. Coley Award in 2019. He was awarded the Dan David Prize in 2021.
Two more came in 2024: the Canada Gairdner International Award and the Warren Alpert Foundation Prize. In December of that year he received the VinFuture Prize for outstanding achievements in emerging fields, together with Carl H. June and Michel Sadelain. The prize committee described CAR T-cell therapy as a “living drug” that is transforming the treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases worldwide.
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