Tissues are complex multicellular units in which different cell types work together to maintain function. In response to insult, wound healing and tissue regeneration mechanisms are activated, requiring delicate coordination between these cell types. Specifically, bidirectional interactions between the nervous and immune systems are emerging as central coordinators of tissue homeostasis and repair.
My interest in immunology and diseases of the central nervous system (CNS) was sparked as an undergraduate student in the Neuroscience program at Tel Aviv University. For my graduate studies, I joined the Weizmann Institute and chose to pursue my interest in neuroimmunology, completing a direct PhD under the mentorship of Prof. Michal Schwartz. This was followed by a short postdoc with Prof. Kobi Abramson, studying mechanisms of immune tolerance. I then moved to Boston with my family and continued my postdoctoral training with Prof. Aviv Regev at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where I harnessed methods in single-cell genomics and developed strategies to analyze multicellular injury responses in the CNS. The approaches and insights from those studies set the basis for the research in my group.
We study the dynamics of tissue injury and repair through a neuroimmune lens. We combine in vivo experimental models with leading-edge analysis approaches, including immunological assays, neuronal modulation, single-cell genomics and imaging techniques to analyze injury responses in the context of the entire tissue ecosystem. We reason that better understanding of the intricate multicellular circuits activated in response to insult can shed light on instances where repair is lacking. We hope to leverage our discoveries to help guide treatment of traumatic injuries and degenerative diseases.
A single-cell atlas of the retina tissue ecosystem following optic nerve crush. Two-dimensional projection of 121,309 single-cell profiles (dots) from mouse retina at baseline and at six time points following optic nerve crush injury, analyzed by scRNA-seq and colored by cell type. From: Benhar et al., Nat Immunol 2023.
Optic nerve crush in the mouse is one of the main models used in our lab to study what happens to neurons, immune cells and other cells in the tissue following injury. Insights on rare cell types and expression states provided by this single-cell atlas inspire some of the research questions we are currently pursuing.
