Professor Irit Ben-Aharon is the Director of the Oncology Division at Rambam Health Care Campus, the largest cancer center in northern Israel, located in Haifa, and affiliated to the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology.

Prof. Ben-Aharon’s main research interests are the toxic effects of anti-cancer treatments on fertility and blood vessels. Her current ICRF-funded research focuses on the on the role of vascular toxicity in the setting of chemotherapy during pregnancy and its impact on the placenta and fetus.

Prof. Ben-Aharon completed the MD-PhD joint program of Tel-Aviv University and U.S. National Institute of Health (NIH) and was awarded a PhD in developmental biology. She completed her oncology residency at Rabin Medical Center, followed by a fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, as a Fulbright scholar focused on gastrointestinal malignancies and young-onset cancer. In 2015, she returned to Israel to lead the gastrointestinal oncology at Rabin Medical Center and appointed Director of the Oncology Division in 2018.

Prof. Ben-Aharon is actively involved in international organizations in Europe and USA and serves as the head of young-onset colorectal cancer task force in the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) network. She was appointed a senior member of the Israeli Health Basket Committee for 2020.