Miri Blank

Professor Miri Blank, Ph.D. – field of interest/expertise: clinical immunology, autoimmunity, autoantibodies, T and B cell response, induction of tolerance by tolerogenic dendritic cells, peptides, phage display libraries. Small molecules libraries/ Immunotherapy in animal models (lupus, antiphospholipid syndrome, collagen and adjuvant induced arthritis, pemphigus, vasculitis.

Prof. Miri Blank received her PhD in immunology at Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University. Her Post-doc training was in molecular biology, Tel-Aviv University. She is a Professor of immunology at the department of Microbiology and Clinical Immunology at the Sackler faculty of Medicine Tel-Aviv University. She was a guest scientist for 4 years at The Weizmann Institute of Sciences, Tufts University (Boston, USA), University of Erlangen-Nurnberg (Erlangen, Germany). She gained EULAR group price 2005. Prof. Blank has 6 patents. Recently Prof. Blank developed a molecule based on helminths derivative, which has a potential for therapy for autoimmune diseases. Her CV contains about 400 articles published in several first class journals such as: The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Clinical Investigations, Journal of Autoimmunity, Arthritis & Rheumatology. Prof. Blank is an expert in peptide libraries and functions, molecular biology, bacterial expression systems, clinical immunology, animal models for autoimmune diseases. She instructed Phd & Msc students, MD thesis and basic sciences for MD students. Her major scientific revelation includes: first proof of the pathogenicity of idiotypic autoantibodies in animal models that she had developed;
discovering the infectious origin of antiphospholipid syndrome by molecular mimicry between a pathogen and self-molecules; penetration of autoantibodies as a cause of CNSLUPUS; developing other therapeutic approaches to treat autoimmune conditions and constructing a natural bi-functional molecule for treating autoimmune diseases.