Francesca Levi-Schaffer is a Professor at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Institute for Drug Research, School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine. She holds the Isaac and Myrna Kaye Chair in Immunopharmacology. Prof. Levi-Schaffer was born in Italy and completed her PharmD degree at the University of Milano, her PhD degree in Immunology at the Weizmann Institute, Israel, and her post-doctorate at Harvard Medical School.
Prof. Levi-Schaffer has published 186 articles in peer-reviewed journals, 114 reviews and editorials and 27 book chapters. She has three patents and three provisional patents. She is currently President of the International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology (IUPHAR) (2024-2026) 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; Past-President of the European Mast Cell and Basophil Research Network (EMBRN) (2019-2024); Associate Editor of Pharmacological Reviews (2022-2025); Associate Editor of Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology.; and member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (2019-2024).
Francesca Levi-Schaffer’s expertise is in the area of immunopharmacology of allergy focusing on mast cells and eosinophils, their activating and inhibitory receptors, their cross-talk (“The Allergic Effector Unit”) for a better prophylaxis/treatment of allergic diseases. Moreover, her lab studies the role of mast cells and eosinophils in hypoxia (allergy, COPD), in mastocytosis, and in candidiasis; the crosstalk between atopic dermatitis and asthma with the microbiome; and the role of mast cells in psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. Her lab 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 in non-allergic diseases with different pathogenesis.
