From Ultra-Orthodox Schooling to Cancer Innovation, a Rare Haredi Physicist

At 29, Shikei Stauber finished first-grade material in a single day. A little more than a decade later, the ultra-Orthodox physicist is helping lead a biotech effort at Jerusalem-based Alpha-TAU that aims to transform cancer treatment with a tiny radioactive capsule that destroys tumors from within.

Stauber says the device, smaller than a millimeter, is meant to replace external radiation with radiation delivered directly inside the tumor. The company is now running clinical trials in several hospitals in Israel and the United States, and he says early results are encouraging. In skin cancer, he says, published studies showed very high response rates, and interim data released this year in pancreatic cancer also looked positive. In a trial in Israel and Canada, 91% of patients responded, meaning their tumors at least stopped growing, and 18% had a significant shrinkage.

He says his main role is in the clinical trials, including treatment planning, onsite supervision at hospitals, radiation safety, and later analysis. Alpha-TAU’s lead product, called DaRT, uses radium-224 and is being developed especially for skin, pancreatic, and liver cancers, which often respond poorly to current radiation methods. Stauber says the appeal is that the technology could treat cancers that have no effective therapy today while causing less collateral damage than standard radiation.

The 39-year-old, who lives in an mixed neighborhood and is the father of three young children, grew up in a very strict haredi environment in Jerusalem’s Bayit Vagan neighborhood. He attended an extremist chיידר run in a Satmar style, then studied in top haredi yeshivot, including Ateret Israel and Mir, before moving to academia after marriage. He says his family was less radical than the school, and recalls a principal who told students before Independence Day to close the blinds so they would not enjoy the fireworks of the Zionists, with belts and sticks used as discipline.

Stauber says he did not experience science as rebellion. His mother took him to the science museum, and a relative introduced him to scientific ideas early on. He was drawn to physics during a preparatory program, partly to prove himself after being told it was the hardest field. He later completed basic schooling at age 29, entered the Hebrew University physics department two years after finishing first grade, and says the gap helped him appreciate the beauty of mathematics and the different way physics thinks compared with Talmud study.