Dr. Doris Parnes

Department of Hematology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, December 2015

I would like to express my sincere gratitude for being selected as a recipient of the Charles E. Trobman Data Oncology Fellowship. I am deeply appreciative of your support which will provide me the opportunity to be exposed to new technologies in the field of Molecular Hematology and eventually implement my knowledge in the molecular hematology lab of our institution.

I have been a member of the hematology laboratories at Israel’s Rabin Medical Center since 2007. I graduated with my Master’s Degree and PhD studies at the Weizmann Institute in Israel. After completing my studies in 2000, I expanded my research and technical practice through my former employment experience.

Working on projects such as the development of  immunodiagnostic tools against potential bio-terror pathogens, plant biotechnology, and research on the role of heart and skeletal muscle specific genes, I can honestly say that my current position at the Rabin Medical Center is the most satisfying in my career. I am proud to be a part of a multi-disciplinary team that works together to provide the best individual therapy for each patient.

Our Molecular Hematology Laboratory at the Rabin Medical Center is engaged in the diagnosis of hematological disorders and patient follows up. We detect and quantify the levels of chimeric transcripts in various forms of leukemia such as AML, ALL, CML and detect the mutational status of mutations in various genes involved in myeloproliferative and myelodysplastic syndromes. We also study clonality in lymphoproliferative disorders. The mutational status of disease-related genes is essential information for patient evaluation. However, the current methodologies used in our lab permit the analysis of each mutation individually. Therefore, the mutational status data for each patient is limited and it is difficult to obtain results simultaneously for clinical decision making.

The generous support of the American Friends of Rabin Medical Center allows me to participate in a short term educational program at the Diagnostic Molecular Pathology Laboratory situated at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York, directed by Dr. Maria E. Arcila (MD). This fellowship program will begin December 2015.

This laboratory is equipped with the state of the art Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) platforms, recently evolved to provide accurate and specific detection of parallel wide range of mutations. Through my fellowship, I will be able to experience these new technologies and eventually put them into practice at Rabin Medical Center’s molecular hematology lab. Consequently, it will step us forward to improved treatment and management of the patients in our institution.

Thank you again for supporting this opportunity!

Current and Future Fellows

Past Fellows