I am a biologist with multidisciplinary training in biology, biophysics, and synthetic biology. My research interests center on developing novel synthetic biology platforms for biomedical applications and studying clinically relevant biological questions.
>During My Ph.D., we pioneered the very first synthetic gene circuit that actuated Boolean logic to precisely target cancer cells by the integrated activity of multiple tumor-specific promoters, namely Dual-Promoter Integrator (DPI). We later implemented the DPI to demonstrate that tumor heterogeneity mediates inherent sensitivity–specificity tradeoff in cancer targeting by synthetic circuits.
>In my postdoctoral research, my team developed several novel synthetic biology platforms. First, we developed synthetic RNA-based gene circuits for cancer immunotherapy that precisely identify cancer cells and drive the tumor-specific expression of immunostimulatory outputs. This approach could potentially be implemented as a powerful new immunotherapy modality, and to study tumor immunology. In addition, we developed a high-throughput screening approach for identifying Synthetic Promoters with Enhanced Cell-State Specificity (SPECS) that could potentially provide compact synthetic promoters specific to virtually any cell state to which this screen can be implemented, without prior gene regulation or transcriptome data. Finally, we developed an integrated RNA and CRISPR/Cas gene regulation toolkit that enabled easy, customizable, and scalable manipulation of human cells. This approach enabled a shift from the construction of only constitutively active single-layer taCas9-based circuits to the engineering of inducible multi-layer cascades and synchronized networks.
Academic Appointments
2018-Present
Senior Lecturer (Assistant Professor).
The Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada, Hadassah Medical School.
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
2011-2018
Postdoctoral research, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.
The MIT Synthetic Biology Center, Research Laboratory of Electronics
Advisor: Prof. Timothy K. Lu
2009-2011
Postdoctoral research, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
Faculty of Chemistry, Department of Materials and Interfaces.
Advisor: Prof. Roy Bar-Ziv
2004-2009
Ph.D., The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
Faculty of Chemistry, Department of Materials and Interfaces.
Advisor: Prof. Roy Bar-Ziv
2001-2003
M.Sc., The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
Faculty of Biology, Department of Molecular Cell Biology.
Advisor: Prof. Varda Rotter
1998-2001
B.Sc., Biology, Tel Aviv University, Israel.
