Laboratory of Molecular Hepatology Research

Head of Laboratory: Ran Tur-Kaspa M.D.

Head of Research Group: Romy Zemel Ph.D.

	Tel:	972-3-9376628/9
	Fax:	972-3-9220671
	E-mail:	rturkaspa@clalit.org.il zemel@post.tau.ac.il

Research Topics

1. Molecular virology of Hepatitis viruses

2. Molecular studies on the anti HCV effect of Vitamin D

3. Inhibition of hepatitis C NS3 serine protease

4. Toxins that are activated by HCV NS3 serine protease for eradication of HCV infected cells.

Selected Publications

1. Gal-Tanamy M, Bachmetov L, Ravid A, Koren R, Erman A, Tur-Kaspa R, Zemel R. Vitamin D: an innate antiviral agent suppressing hepatitis C virus in human hepatocytes. Hepatology 54(5):1570-1579, 2011. MEDLINE

2. Zemel R, Issachar A, Tur-Kaspa R. The role of oncogenic viruses in the pathogene of hepatocellular carcinoma. Clin Liver Dis. 15(2):261-279, 2011. MEDLINE

3. Bachmetov L, Gal-Tanamy M, Shapira A, Vorobeychik M, Giterman-Galam T, Sathiyamoorthy P, Golan-Goldhirsh A, Benhar I, Tur-Kaspa R, Zemel R. Suppression of hepatitis C virus by the flavonoid quercetin is mediated by inhibition of NS3 protease activity. J Viral Hepat. 19(2):e81-8, 2012. MEDLINE

4. Shapira A, Shapira S, Gal-Tanamy M, Zemel R, Tur-Kaspa R, Benhar I. Removal of hepatitis C virus-infected cells by a zymogenized bacterial toxin. PLoS One. 7(2):e32320, 2012. MEDLINE

5. Siman-Tov DD, Zemel R, Tur-Kaspa R, Gershoni JM. The use of epitope arrays in immuno-diagnosis of infectious disease: HCV a case study. Anal Biochem. 432(2):63-70; 2013. MEDLINE