Faculty scientists Professors Ido Braslavsky and Oded Shoseyov develop technique to print food according to pre-defined criteria in a process that will serve a variety of special-needs populations.
Journal club article in PNAS about BitterPredict, a machine learning tool that predicts whether a chemical tastes bitter. BitterPredict was developed by members of Prof Masha Niv's lab.
Article in 52 Insights, a web periodical which "publish(es) a simple, concise interview with one unique and engaging individual or collective each week."
Oded Shoseyov has arguably one of the most unique jobs in the world. A nano-biotechnologist, he is tasked with mining nature for its most adaptive and essential qualities, utilising them for human and industrial purposes.
The genome sequence of wild emmer wheat was determined by an international group of scientists headed by Dr Assaf Distelfeld. Wild Emmer wheat is the original form of nearly all the domesticated wheat in the world, including durum (pasta) and bread wheat. Wild emmer is too low-yielding to be of use to farmers today, but it contains many attractive characteristics that are being used by plant breeders to improve wheat.
Dr Zvi Peleg of the Faculty's Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics took part in the research.
Dr Distelfeld and Dr Gil Ronen began their careers with studies at the Faculty.
Our congratulations to all!
A unique antibiotic that can kill bacteria that are resistant to conventional antibacterials without damaging the cells that store them has been developed by scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The pioneering study was carried out by Dr. Zvi Hayouka and colleagues.
Prof. Ron Ofri discovered natural day-blindness in sheep and together with colleagues developed a genetic treatment for a similar type of day-blindness in humans. Prof. Ofri recently received a prize for his research from the Hebrew University. Nature published a "Careers" feature on Prof. Ofri in the May 25th issue.
Dr idan Efroni, of the Robert H. Smith Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics in Agriculture, was chosen as one of forty-one scientists from 16 countries as an International Research Scholar by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, to early-career scientists poised to advance biomedical research across the globe.
Idan Efroni is unraveling the mystery of plants’ impressive regenerative abilities. He uses tomatoes to study adventitious root meristems, which house stem cells that help form roots with stems or leaves. Insight into this process might reveal clues about tissue regeneration in other organisms, and help scientists boost plant production for agriculture.
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) has teamed up with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation to develop scientific talent around the world, and will award a total of nearly $26.7 million to this group of scholars. Each researcher will receive a total of $650,000 over five years. The award is a big boon for scientists early in their careers, and offers the freedom to pursue new research directions and creative projects that could develop into top-notch scientific programs.
“This is an outstanding group of scientists who will push biomedical research forward worldwide, and we are thrilled to support them alongside our philanthropic partners,” said David Clapham, HHMI’s Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer.
The scientists selected as International Research Scholars represent a diverse array of scientific disciplines and geographic locations. Scholars hail from research organizations and institutions from across the world, from Tanzania to Cambodia to Chile to Austria. Their research covers a broad variety of biological and medical research areas too, including neuroscience, genetics, biophysics, computational biology, and parasitology.
