Zelig Eshhar (Hebrew: זליג אשחר) is an Israeli immunologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center.
[2][3] His work has been the basis of the development of a cancer immunotherapy, involving genetic modifications of T lymphocytes extracted from a cancer patient to produce chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-Cells, which are then injected back into the patient in a process called adoptive cell transfer, that produced startlingly good results in clinical trials in the mid-2010s[2] and millions of dollars of investment.
[5] In 2014 he shared the Massry Prize with Steven Rosenberg and James P. Allison[6] and the Pioneer Award with Carl H.
[7] He is the recipient of the 2015 Israel Prize in Life Sciences[8] and the 2019 Cancer Research Institute's William B. Coley Award.
[11] In December 2024, he also received the VinFuture Prize's Outstanding Achievements in Emerging Fields alongside Carl H. June and Michel Sadelain for their contributions to the development and advancement of CAR T cell therapy, a revolutionary "living drug" that is transforming the treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases worldwide.