Tel Aviv Professor receives Young Investigator Award for contributions in melanoma research

Tel Aviv University's Prof. Carmit Levy received the prestigious Young Investigator Award at the 16th International Congress of the Society for Melanoma Research, held November 20-23 in Salt Lake City, Utah, for her "contributions to melanoma research that significantly exceeded the average for this career stage."

Sponsored by the Melanoma Research Foundation, the award is presented to an independent researcher within the first five years of his or her career for discoveries about the mechanisms driving melanoma that have had an undeniable impact on cancer research.

Melanoma can be devastating, creeping up on a person years after initial malignant transformation. Prof. Levy's research has discovered key elements of melanoma metastasis and is laying the groundwork for future therapies. We at Tel Aviv University continue to take great pride in her and her team's remarkable research in cancer development, specifically melanoma."

Professor Karen Avraham, vice dean of TAU's Sackler Faculty of Medicine

Prof. Levy's lab is located at the Department of Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry at TAU's Sackler Faculty of Medicine.

"I am profoundly excited and honored to be awarded the Society for Melanoma Research Young Investigator Award for 2019," said Prof. Levy after the ceremony. "The Society for Melanoma Research is an international organization that centers around the innovative melanoma research being done worldwide.

I began my scientific career attending the society's conferences with these world-leading scientists as my inspiration, so I consider it an outstanding professional achievement to be among the eight scientists who have received this award since its establishment, and to be acknowledged for our contribution to melanoma research.

"Upon establishing my lab at TAU, we discovered pivotal mechanisms in melanoma metastasis initiation, which now opens horizons for new drugs to be used for the prevention of melanoma metastases," Prof. Levy continued. "I am proud to contribute to the global effort cancer researchers are making, day and night around the world, to overcome this devastating disease. As I always say, this is hard teamwork."