Ruth Scherz-Shouval is an Associate Professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science. Prof. Shouval’s laboratory is dedicated to understanding cell-cell interactions in the tumor microenvironment. Her long-term goal is to broaden and deepen our understanding of the evolutionary conflicts between tumorigenesis and tissue homeostasis and to explore new paths of research at the interface of stress responses, cancer, and evolution. Her main interest is fibroblast biology. Fibroblasts produce cytokines, growth factors and extracellular matrix essential for normal biology. In inflammation and cancer, fibroblasts are transcriptionally rewired to secrete and produce factors that promote fibrosis and cancer. Her lab studies these pathways using mouse models of cancer, patient samples and cell co-cultures. Ruth did her BSc in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and her PhD at the Weizmann Institute of Science, in the lab of Prof. Zvulun Elazar. After a short postdoctoral fellowship in the lab of Moshe Oren at WIS Ruth Joined Susan Lindquist ‘s lab at the Whitehead Institute, MIT as an HFSP and Fulbright fellow. Following her postdoc at MIT she joined the Dept. of Biomolecular Sciences at the Weizmann Institute as a senior scientist in 2015 and has promoted to Associate Prof. in 2023. Ruth’s awards and grants include the Cell Stress Society International Young Investigator Award, the Weizmann Scientific Council Award 2022, an ERC (European research council) starting grant and consolidator grant, and ISF (Israeli Science Foundation) research grants. Ruth is an alumnus of the Israel Young Academy, to which she was elected in 2021 as a member, and in 2024 as chair.