Irit Ben-Aharon completed MD-PhD joint program of Tel-Aviv University and the NIH and was awarded her PhD in developmental biology. Irit completed Oncology residency at Rabin Medical Center, followed by a fellowship at MSKCC as a Fulbright scholar focused on GI cancer. In 2018, she became the director of the Fishman Oncology Center at Rambam Health Care Center, and is a Full Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Haifa, Israel. Her main research themes involve toxicity mechanism of anti-cancer treatments on fertility and blood vessels and the pathogenesis of early-onset GI cancers. She leads the young-onset cancer task force in the European EORTC Organization is Editor-in-Chief of ESMO Gastrointestinal Oncology journal. She leads the national physician-scientist program “MAVRI” for residents within the Israeli scientific council and is actively involved in national initiatives to promote and formalize career paths of physician-scientists.