Isaac P. Witz

Isaac P. Witz was born in 1934 in Vienna

Witz was born in Vienna on November 7, 1934, the only son of Frieda and Hermann-Zvi Witz. In September 1939 he moved with his family to Mandatory Palestine, and they settled in Jerusalem. He attended the Tachkemoni school and the Beit HaKerem high school.

He joined the IDF in 1952 and served as an officer in the armored forces. He completed a master's degree in microbiology, biochemistry and parasitology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1959. He then did doctoral work on cancer immunology at its medical school, finishing in 1965.

After postdoctoral training at Roswell Park Memorial Institute in Buffalo, he joined Tel Aviv University in 1968 as a lecturer in immunology. He became a full professor in 1975. He was dean of the Faculty of Life Sciences from 1979 and vice president for research and development from 1984 to 1987.

His research looked at why cancer patients do not reject their tumors and at how the surroundings of cancer cells affect tumor growth. He was founding president of the International Cancer Microenvironment Society and organized 7 international conferences on the subject. He also led the Israeli Society for Cancer Research from 2008 to 2011.

Witz retired in 2003 but continued to head a research group. He died on January 12, 2026.