Moran Amit

Dr. Amit is dedicated to key areas of cancer research that will develop therapeutic approaches to improve patients’ survival, treatment responses, and quality of life. During his residency training, Dr. Amit became interested in the biology of cancer. After completing his residency, he undertook further training in Head and Neck Surgical Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he completed a clinical fellowship as a head and neck surgical oncologist and a postdoctoral fellowship with a focus on the neurobiology of cancer.

Dr. Amit was recruited to the Department of Head and Neck Surgical Oncology at MD Anderson in April 2019 and has an active research laboratory focusing on cancer-related neurogenesis and axonogenesis and on the role of neuro-immunology in cancer. One exciting finding of Dr. Amit’s lab involved describing a mechanism by which head and neck tumors can reprogram adrenergic signaling in neurons and the effect of targeting the peripheral nervous system on cancer initiation and progression. This will serve as a basis for combining treatments targeting the nervous system with other therapies, such as immunotherapy, in the treatment of head and neck cancers.

Dr. Amit is continuing his work by building a team to study how the neural microenvironment affects responses to chemotherapy and immunotherapy in patients with non-melanoma skin cancer and other cancers, and to develop novel strategies to combat resistance to these therapies.