Francesca Levi-Schaffer

Francesca Levi-Schaffer is a Professor at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the Faculty of Medicine. She holds the Isaac and Myrna Kaye Chair in Immunopharmacology. Prof. Levi-Schaffer completed her PharmD degree at the University of Milano, her PhD in Immunology at the Weizmann Institute, Israel, and her post-doctorate at Harvard Medical School. She has published 181 articles in peer-reviewed journals, 104 reviews and editorials and 27 book chapters and has three patents and three provisional patents. She is President-Elect of the International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology (IUPHAR) (2022-2024) and chairperson of the National Committee of IUPHAR representing the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, She was instrumental in the establishment of an Immunopharmacology Section in the IUPHAR and served as its first Chair. Prof. Levi-Schaffer is a member of the Israeli Ministry of Health Committee for Human Experimentation of New Drugs; member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (2019-2024); President of the European Mast Cell and Basophil Research Network (EMBRN) (2019-2024); and Associate Editor of Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology. Her expertise is in the area of immunopharmacology of allergy focusing on mast cells and eosinophils, their activating and inhibitory receptors, their cross-talk for a better prophylaxis/treatment of allergic diseases. Moreover, her lab studies the role of mast cells and eosinophils in hypoxia (allergy, COPD); mastocytosis and its treatment; the crosstalk between atopic dermatitis and asthma with the microbiome. She is also developing novel monoclonal antibodies and bispecific antibodies against activating and inhibiting receptors on mast cells and eosinophils for the treatment of allergy and of selected solid tumors. In response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), she is looking for new therapy targets in COVID-19 patients.