We welcome you to the 25th Human Genome Meeting HGM 2022 to be held in the city of Tel Aviv, Israel

We have an exciting program planned including sessions on:

  • Genome organization & high-order interactions
  • Microbiome and the genome – where is the junction?
  • Biobanks, databases and impact on precision medicine
  • Convergence of genomics and immunology    
  • Ancient human genomes
  • Cancer genomics
  • AI in health and medicine
  • Integrating metabolism and disease
  • Genetics and epigenetics of health and disease
  • Organoids, cell and gene therapy
  • Genomic ethics

We are monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic situation closely, and we will take the relevant situation into account as we move forward. 

Plenary Speakers

  • Ami S. Bhatt

    Stanford School of Medicine, CA, USA

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  • Clodagh O-Shea

    Salk Institute, CA, USA

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  • Michael Snyder

    Stanford School of Medicine, CA, USA

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  • Douglas C. Wallace

    Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, PA, USA

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Ami S. Bhatt

Stanford School of Medicine, CA, USA

Ami S. Bhatt is an Assistant Professor of Medicine & Genetics, divisions of Hematology and BMT at Stanford University. 

She received her MD and Ph.D. (Biochemistry & Molecular Biology) at UCSF, where she received the Fineberg Award for Excellence in Teaching and was inducted into Alpha Omega Alpha. 

She completed residency and chief residency in Internal Medicine at Brigham & Women’s Hospital and was a fellow in Hematology/Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Thereafter, she carried out her post-doctoral studies at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.

Ami’s lab seeks to improve outcomes in patients with hematological malignancies by exhaustively characterizing the dynamics of the microbiome in immunocompromised individuals, and exploring how changes in the microbiome are associated with idiopathic diseases in this population. She loves working with trainees and is excited about the application of new molecular and computational technologies to solve complicated metagenomic puzzles. Learning how to organize piles of shotgun metagenomic sequencing data into orderly lists of genomes and genes of potential clinical/biological importance is her passion. 


In addition to her academic efforts, Ami is committed to improving cancer care, education and research in resource-limited settings. She is the Director of Global Oncology for the Center for Innovation in Global Health at Stanford University and has served as a visiting lecturer at the Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland and the University of Botswana. She, along with Franklin Huang, is a co-founder and co-president of the non-profit organization Global Oncology (www.globaonc.org). 

Clodagh O-Shea

Salk Institute, CA, USA

Michael Snyder

Stanford School of Medicine, CA, USA

Michael Snyder is the Stanford Ascherman Professor and Chair of Genetics and the Director of the Center of Genomics and Personalized Medicine. Dr. Snyder received his Ph.D. training at the California Institute of Technology and carried out postdoctoral training at Stanford University. He is a leader in the field of functional genomics and multiomics, and one of the major participants of the ENCODE project. His laboratory study was the first to perform a large-scale functional genomics project in any organism, and has developed many technologies in genomics and proteomics. These including the development of proteome chips, high resolution tiling arrays for the entire human genome, methods for global mapping of transcription factor (TF) binding sites (ChIP-chip now replaced by ChIP-seq), paired end sequencing for mapping of structural variation in eukaryotes, de novo genome sequencing of genomes using high throughput technologies and RNA-Seq. These technologies have been used for characterizing genomes, proteomes and regulatory networks. Seminal findings from the Snyder laboratory include the discovery that much more of the human genome is transcribed and contains regulatory information than was previously appreciated (e.g. lncRNAs and TF binding sites), and a high diversity of transcription factor binding occurs both between and within species. He launched the field of personalized medicine by combining different state-of–the-art “omics” technologies to perform the first longitudinal detailed integrative personal omics profile (iPOP) of a person, and his laboratory pioneered the use of wearables technologies (smart watches and continuous glucose monitoring) for precision health. He is a cofounder of many biotechnology companies, including Personalis, SensOmics, Qbio, January, Protos, Oralome, Mirvie and Filtricine.

 

 

Douglas C. Wallace

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, PA, USA

Douglas C. Wallace, Ph.D., is Director of the Center for Mitochondrial and Epigenomic Medicine at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. He holds the Michael and Charles Barnett Endowed Chair in Pediatric Mitochondrial Medicine and Metabolic Diseases.
 

More than 35 years ago, Dr. Wallace and his colleagues founded the field of human mitochondrial genetics. The mitochondria are the cellular power plants, organelles that generate most of the cell’s energy. The mitochondria also contain their own DNA, the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which encodes the wiring diagram for the cell’s power plants. Dr. Wallace showed that the mtDNA is inherited exclusively from the mother and that genetic alterations in the mtDNA can result is a wide range of metabolic and degenerative diseases as well as being important in cancer and aging.

One of his seminal contributions has been to use mtDNA variation to reconstruct the origin and ancient migrations of women. These studies revealed that humans arose in Africa approximately 200,000 years ago, that women left Africa about 65,000 years ago to colonize Eurasia, and from Siberia, they crossed the Bering land bridge to populate the Americas. Studies on the paternally-inherited Y chromosome showed that men went along too.

Speakers

  • Ido Amit

    Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel

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  • Rami Aqeilan

    The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

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  • Assaf Bester

    Department of Biology, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa,Israel

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  • Jin Billy Li

    Stanford University, USA

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  • Elhanan Borenstein

    Tel Aviv University, Israel

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  • Liran Carmel

    The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

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  • Ute Deichmann

    Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

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  • Ayelet Erez

    Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel

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  • Eyal Gottlieb

    Technion, Israel

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  • Naomi Habib

    Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

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  • Ofir Hakim

    Bar Ilan University, Israel

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  • Young Seok Ju

    KAIST, South Korea

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  • Revital Kariv

    TASMC & Tel Aviv University, Israel

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  • Batsheva Kerem

    Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

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  • Pui Yan Kwok

    University of California San Francisco, USA

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  • Edison Liu

    Jackson Laboratory, MN, USA

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  • Yaara Oren

    Tel Aviv University, Israel

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  • Dan Peer

    Tel Aviv University, Israel

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  • Ana Pombo

    Max Delbrueck Centre for Molecular Medicine, Berlin, DE

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  • Oded Rechavi

    Tel Aviv University, Israel

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  • Michal Rosen-Zvi

    The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

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  • Varda Shalev

    Alike.Health, Israel

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  • Gil Siegal

    Ono College & Tel Aviv University, Israel

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  • Viviane Slon

    Tel Aviv University, Israel

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  • Noam Stern-Ginossar

    Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel

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  • Patrick Tan

    PRECISE, Singapore

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  • Nicky Tiffin

    University of Cape Town, South Africa

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  • Jean-Philippe Vert

    Mines ParisTech, France

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Ido Amit

Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel

Born on Kibbutz Hatzor,  earned his PhD in biological regulation at the Weizmann Institute of Science in 2007. For four years, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Broad Institute of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, before joining the Weizmann Institute in 2011. 

Ido Amit is a Professor at the Immunology Department at the Weizmann Institute of Science. His lab pioneered single cell genomic technologies and their application to characterize the immune system. Amit’s research answers some of the most fundamental questions in immunology which are being translated into innovate new targets for immunotherapy in autoimmune diseases, neurodegeneration and cancer. Prof. Amit is also known in the science community as a leader in the field of immunogenomics, aimed at detecting and engineering genome sequences that are essential for the function of the immune system in physiology and disease. Among others, Prof, Amit is a recipient of the EMBO Gold Medal award and an HHMI International Research Scholar for his work to reveal the function of the immune system.

 

Rami Aqeilan

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Born in Jerusalem, Dr. Rami Aqeilan is a Full Professor of Immunology and Cancer Research at the Faculty of Medicine of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research aims to decipher roles of gene products of common fragile sites in human diseases. In recent years, Dr. Aqeilan’s group is focusing to study drivers of neurological diseases, including childhood epilepsy and multiple sclerosis. His work aims to establish faithful models [animals and brain organoids], study underlining mechanisms and translate this knowledge into treatment options. He is the Chairman of the Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada (IMRIC) and a member of Israel Young Academy.

Assaf Bester

Department of Biology, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa,Israel

Assaf C. Bester Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

bestera@technion.ac.il

https://besterlab.net.technion.ac.il

Department of Biology, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, 3200003, Israel.

Education/ Resume:

INSTITUTION AND LOCATION

DEGREE
(if applicable)

END DATE
MM/YYYY

FIELD OF STUDY

The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

BS

10/2003

Biology

The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

MS

10/2005

Genetics

The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

PhD

10/2012

Human Genetics

The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

Postdoc

02/2014

Human Genetics

Harvard Medical School, Boston, US

Postdoc

02/2019

Human Genetics

 

Research Summary

The function of 98 percent of the human genome is poorly understood, and it is known as the dark matter of the genome.  The unknown genome limits our ability ‎ to understand, diagnose, and treat complex genetic diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, and ‎Alzheimer's. Studying the dark matter of the genome allows for better precision ‎medicine and therapeutic approaches based on the unique genetics of the patient, resulting in improved and more effective treatments. In our lab, we are developing platforms that enable us to study, in parallel, thousands of ‎genomic elements in micro-experiments via functional screening. Our studies focus on the function of the non-coding genome in blood cancer and cardiovascular ‎diseases. Our recent study identified ‎novel genes located in the dark matter of the genome that play a critical role in cancer. By applying genetic ‎tools such as gene editing (CRISPR) and robotic platforms, we are able to study these new genes with the aim to develop innovative ‎diagnostic and therapeutic tools to treat cancer in a much more effective and specific manner that is currently available.‎

Awards:

2014

EMBO Long-Term Fellowship, EMBO

2013

Fulbright Scholar award, Fulbright award of the United States-Israel Educational Foundation (USIEF).

Recent Publications:

  1. J. Hazan, A. C. Bester, CRISPR-Based Approaches for the High-Throughput Characterization of Long Non-Coding RNAs. Non-coding RNA. 7 (2021).
  2. J. P. Lewandowski, G. Dumbović, A. R. Watson, T. Hwang, E. Jacobs-Palmer, N. Chang, C. Much, K. M. Turner, C. Kirby, N. D. Rubinstein, A. F. Groff, S. C. Liapis, C. Gerhardinger, A. C. Bester, P. P. Pandolfi, J. G. Clohessy, H. E. Hoekstra, M. Sauvageau, J. L. Rinn, The Tug1 lncRNA locus is essential for male fertility. Genome Biol. 21, 237 (2020).
  3. Y.-R. Lee, M. Chen, J. D. Lee, J. Zhang, S.-Y. Lin, T.-M. Fu, H. Chen, T. Ishikawa, S.-Y. Chiang, J. Katon, Y. Zhang, Y. V Shulga, A. C. Bester, J. Fung, E. Monteleone, L. Wan, C. Shen, C.-H. Hsu, A. Papa, J. G. Clohessy, J. Teruya-Feldstein, S. Jain, H. Wu, L. Matesic, R.-H. Chen, W. Wei, P. P. Pandolfi, Reactivation of PTEN tumor suppressor for cancer treatment through inhibition of a MYC-WWP1 inhibitory pathway. Science. 364, eaau0159 (2019).
  4. D. Nachmani, A. H. Bothmer, S. Grisendi, A. Mele, D. Bothmer, J. D. Lee, E. Monteleone, K. Cheng, Y. Zhang, A. C. Bester, A. Guzzetti, C. A. Mitchell, L. M. Mendez, O. Pozdnyakova, P. Sportoletti, M. P. Martelli, T. J. Vulliamy, M. Safra, S. Schwartz, L. Luzzatto, O. Bluteau, J. Soulier, R. B. Darnell, B. Falini, I. Dokal, K. Ito, J. G. Clohessy, P. P. Pandolfi, Germline NPM1 mutations lead to altered rRNA 2′-O-methylation and cause dyskeratosis congenita. Nat. Genet. 51, 1518–1529 (2019). 
  5. A. C. Bester, J. D. Lee, A. Chavez, Y.-R. Lee, D. Nachmani, S. Vora, J. Victor, M. Sauvageau, E. Monteleone, J. L. Rinn, P. Provero, G. M. Church, J. G. Clohessy, P. P. Pandolfi, An Integrated Genome-wide CRISPRa Approach to Functionalize lncRNAs in Drug Resistance. Cell. 173, 649-664.e20 (2018).

 

Jin Billy Li

Stanford University, USA

Jin Billy Li, PhD, is associate professor of genetics at Stanford University. He received his bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua University in Beijing and PhD from Washington University in St. Louis. After postdoctoral training with Professor George Church at Harvard Medical School, he started his laboratory at Stanford in 2010. In his own lab, he has focused on studying RNA editing mediated by ADAR enzymes. His laboratory has made major contributions to identifying and mapping RNA editing systems and studying their regulation and function.

His current work focuses on two aspects of ADAR RNA editing. One is exploring ADAR’s major biological function: evading the detection of double-strand RNA to suppress autoimmunity, which holds great potential for treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases. The other is to harness the endogenous ADAR enzyme for engineering RNAs, which holds great potential for the development of RNA-based therapeutics for both rare and common diseases.

Elhanan Borenstein

Tel Aviv University, Israel

Prof. Elhanan Borenstein is a full professor at the Blavatnik School of Computer Science and at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University. He is also an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute – a think tank for complex systems science, a faculty fellow of TAU’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Bioinformatics, and an affiliate professor of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington. 
Prof. Borenstein received his BSc in physics and computer science and his PhD in computer science from Tel-Aviv University, and held a joint postdoctoral position at the Department of Biology in Stanford University and at the Santa Fe Institute. In 2010, he joined the faculty of the Department of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington, and in 2018, moved to Tel Aviv University with a joint appointment in the Faculty of Medicine and the School of Computer Science. He is an associate editor of PLOS Computational Biology, an editorial board member of Microbiome, a steering committee member of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Bioinformatics, and has extensive experience in the hi-tech industry. 
Prof. Borenstein’s work focuses on computational study of the human microbiome, spearheading research in microbiome systems biology, modeling, and design. His group develops computational methods inspired by metabolic modeling, data science, machine learning, and network theory to analyze high-dimensional multi-omic microbiome data. His research ultimately aims to provide a systems-based understanding of the microbiome in health and in disease and to inform microbiome-based therapy.
Prof. Borenstein is the recipient of various prestigious awards including the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship and the NIH New Innovator Award.
For more information, visit his website at: http://elbo.gs.washington.edu/

Liran Carmel

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Liran Carmel is Professor of Computational Biology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and holds the Snyder Granadar Chair in Genetics. Liran completed MSc in physics at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, and PhD in mathematics and computer science at the Weizmann Institute of Science. In 2008 he established a research group at the Hebrew University, studying a host of topics in molecular evolution, human evolution, genetics and ancient DNA. Liran is the 2021 Massry Prize laureate for his contributions to the field of ancient DNA. These contributions include the development of an algorithm to reconstruct premortem DNA methylation maps, the discovery of the genetic determinants of the anatomical shape of the modern human voice box, and the generation of the first anatomical profile of the Denisovan.

Ute Deichmann

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Adjunct Professor for History and Philosophy of Science
Department of Life Sciences, BGU
Director of The Jacques Loeb Centre for History and Philosophy of, and Critical Dialogues in, the Life Sciences​

Ayelet Erez

Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel

Ayelet Erez is an M.D.-Ph.D. physician-scientist who combines clinical and basic research knowledge to improve healthcare for challenging diseases such as cancer. Ayelet studied medicine at the Technion Institute in Haifa. Following her Paediatric Residency at the Sheba Medical Center, she completed a Ph.D. in Cancer Genetics at Tel Aviv University under the mentorship of Prof. Shai Izraeli. Ayelet then went to the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, where she combined training in clinical genetics and a postdoctoral fellowship, focusing on the metabolism of human diseases in Prof. Brendan Lee’s lab. Ayelet returned to Israel in 2012 to the Weizmann Institute of Science, where she is currently an Associate Professor. In parallel, Ayelet helped establish an onco-genetic clinic at Schneider Children’s Medical Center, where she volunteers to see pediatric patients with a suspected genetic predisposition to cancer.  Ayelet’s research focuses on cancer metabolism through the prism of changes in amino acid homeostasis for translational relevance. Her work has been recognized by publications in high-impact journals, invitations to major conferences in the field of cancer metabolism, and multiple prizes and awards.

Eyal Gottlieb

Technion, Israel

Naomi Habib

Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Ofir Hakim

Bar Ilan University, Israel

Principal investigator, The Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences, Bar-Ilan University, Israel.

The lab is focused on understanding how gene expression programs are regulated in specialized cells, rapidly remodeled in response to hormones and go awry during breast carcinogenesis. Combining genomic measurements of regulatory elements activity, binding of sequence-specific transcription factors and the intricate three dimensional (3D) cross-talk between distant enhancers and genes, enabled identifying key transcription factors and understanding how their combinations in 1D and 3D determine the transcriptional output.

Young Seok Ju

KAIST, South Korea

Young Seok Ju, M.D., Ph. D. is Assistant Professor at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, South Korea. He graduated from Seoul National University College of Medicine (Seoul, Korea) and conducted post-doctoral research at Wellcome Sanger Institute (Cambridge, UK).

Revital Kariv

TASMC & Tel Aviv University, Israel

Batsheva Kerem

Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Prof. Batsheva Kerem received her B.S.c in Biology with distinction from the Hebrew University (1979) and her Ph.D. (1986). Her postdoctoral training was undertaken at the

Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada. In 1990, she returned to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as a senior lecturer and as an associate professor (1998). From 2003, she was appointed full professor.

At the Hebrew University, Prof. Kerem established and chaired the National Genomic Knowledge Center at the Institute of Life Sciences (1997-2014), she served as the Head of Department of Genetics (2004-2006) and as the Head of the Authority for research students (from 2007-2011). In the last 7 years, Prof. Kerem is the university’s president advisor for promotion of women in science.

Prof. Kerem received numerous prizes, including the Joels Senior Lectureship for Excellence in Science (1996), The Teva Prize for Excellence in Human Genome (1993), the Julodan Prize for Contribution to Medicine (1993).  Prof. Kerem was granted the Abisch-Frenkel Prize for Excellence in Life Sciences in 2003 and lastly, she was granted the Emet Prize in 2008.

Prof. Kerem is a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). She serves on the editorial board of the European Journal of Human Genetics and EMBO Reports Journal and is a member of the European Research Council (ERC) for advanced scientists.

Prof. Kerem has published over 135 papers.

Pui Yan Kwok

University of California San Francisco, USA

Pui-Yan Kwok is a Henry Bachrach Distinguished Professor at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Kwok’s research focuses on the development of new approaches to whole-genome analysis and their application to gene mapping and haplotyping.Dr. Kwok pioneered the high-throughput discovery of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) across the human genome and was a member of the International HapMap Consortium Steering Committee. The inventor of several fluorescence-based SNP genotyping methods, Dr. Kwok has recently been developing mapping and haplotyping methods based on microscopic analysis of single DNA molecules. Dr. Kwok received PhD and MD degrees from the University of Chicago and was a postdoctoral fellow at Washington University. Dr. Kwok has authored over 110 publications and holds three patents.

Edison Liu

Jackson Laboratory, MN, USA

Jackson Laboratory Professor, President Emeritus, and Honorary Fellow Edison Liu, M.D., focuses on the functional genomics of human cancers, particularly breast cancer, uncovering new oncogenes, and deciphering on a genomic scale the dynamics of gene regulation that modulate cancer biology.

From 2011 to 2021, Dr. Liu was the president and CEO of The Jackson Laboratory, an independent research institute focused on complex genetics and functional genomics. During his tenure, JAX grew significantly in revenue, employee headcount, international presence, research scope, philanthropy and physical footprint. Under Liu’s leadership, JAX established The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine in Farmington, Conn., and added production facilities in Ellsworth, Maine and Japan and established a joint venture in China to the institution’s headquarters campus in Bar Harbor, Maine, and production facility in Sacramento, Calif.

Previously, he was the founding executive director of the Genome Institute of Singapore and the president of the Human Genome Organization (HUGO). He was also the scientific director of the National Cancer Institute's Division of Clinical Sciences in Bethesda, Md., where he was in charge of the intramural clinical translational science programs. In his earlier career, Dr. Liu was a faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was the director of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center's Specialized Program of Research Excellence in Breast Cancer; the director of the Laboratory of Molecular Epidemiology at UNC's School of Public Health; and the Chief of Medical Genetics.

Dr. Liu is an international expert in cancer biology, systems genomics, human genetics, molecular epidemiology and translational medicine. He has authored more than 320 scientific papers and reviews and co-authored two books. He obtained his B.S. in chemistry and psychology, as well as his M.D., at Stanford University. He then received his residency and fellowship training at Washington University, St, Louis, and Stanford, and postdoctoral training in molecular oncology at the University of California at San Francisco.

Throughout his career Dr. Liu has received numerous accolades and awards, including the AACR Rosenthal Award and the Brinker International Award, both for breast cancer research; the Public Service Medal from the President of Singapore for his contributions to resolving the SARS crisis; and the Chen Award for Distinguished Academic Achievement in Human Genetics. He was elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation, as President of the Human Genome Organization (HUGO), as a foreign member of the European Molecular Biology Organization, and as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He holds honorary degrees from Queen’s University (Belfast, Northern Ireland), University of Southern Maine, and Colby College (Waterville, Maine).

Yaara Oren

Tel Aviv University, Israel

Yaara completed her BSc and PhD at Tel Aviv University, where she studied regulatory evolution of bacterial pathogens under the supervision of Prof. Tal Pupko and Prof. Eliora Ron. She then became a postdoctoral fellow at the Broad Institute and Harvard Medical School, where she studied cancer persister cells with Prof. Joan Brugge and Prof. Aviv Regev.  Her research focuses on the identification and characterization of mechanisms of non-genetic drug resistance in cancer and what they can teach about of non-Darwinian evolution.

 

 

Dan Peer

Tel Aviv University, Israel

Dan Peer is a Professor and the Director of the Laboratory of Precision NanoMedicine at Tel Aviv University (TAU). He is also the Vice President for Research and Development at Tel Aviv University. From 2016 - 2020, he was the Chair of Tel Aviv University Cancer Biology Research Center that includes 17 affiliated hospitals and from 2017 - Present, he is the Founding and Managing Director of the SPARK program of Translational Medicine at TAU. Prof. Peer is also the Chairman of Ramot, TAU Tech Transfer Company and Chairman of TAU Ventures, the Venture arm of TAU.

Prof. Peer’s work was among the first to demonstrate systemic delivery of RNA molecules using targeted nanocarriers to the immune system and he pioneered the use of RNA interference (RNAi) in immune cells. In addition, his lab was the first to show systemic, cell specific delivery of modified mRNA to cells to induce therapeutic gene expression of desired proteins within the immune system that has enormous implications in cancer, inflammation and infection diseases (e.g. COVID 19 mRNA vaccines). In addition, his lab was the first to show high efficiency, systemic, cell specific therapeutic genome editing in cancer.

Prof. Peer has more than 130 pending and granted patents. Some of them have been licensed to several pharmaceutical companies and one is currently under registration (as a new biological drug in Inflammatory Bowel Disease). In addition, based on his work, five spin-off companies were generated aiming to bring innovative personalized medicine into clinical practice. 

Prof. Peer received more than 30 awards and honors and he serves on the scientific advisory board of more than 15 companies, and on the editorial board of more than 20 journals. He is also an Associate Editor of the Journal of Controlled Release. Prof. Peer is a past President of the Israeli Chapter of the Controlled Release Society, and a Past Member of the Board of the Israel Young Academy.

Ana Pombo

Max Delbrueck Centre for Molecular Medicine, Berlin, DE

Oded Rechavi

Tel Aviv University, Israel

Oded Rechavi is a Full Professor at the Faculty of Life Sciences at Tel Aviv University. His mission is “to challenge fundamental long-held dogmas”. Using C. elegans nematodes, he provided direct evidence that an acquired trait can be inherited, worked to elucidate the mechanism and rules of small RNA-mediated transgenerational inheritance, discovered that the nematodes’ brains can control the behavior of their progeny, and identified a simple neuronal circuit-level mechanism that explains economic irrationality. Aside from his work on nematodes, Oded utilized genome sequencing of ancient DNA to “piece together” fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls and demonstrated that Toxoplasma parasites can be genetically engineered to deliver drugs to the nervous system. He is an ERC Fellow, and was awarded many prestigious prizes, including the Polymath Prize (Schmidt Futures), the Kadar Award, the Blavatnik Award, the Krill Wolf Award, the Alon Fellowship, and F.I.R.S.T (Bikura) Prize, and the Gross Lipper Fellowship. Prof. Rechavi is a member of the young Israeli Academy of Science and the European Molecular Biology Organization and was selected as one of the “10 Most Creative People in Israel Under 40”, and one of the “40 Most Promising People in Israel Under 40”.

Michal Rosen-Zvi

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Dr. Rosen-Zvi is the Director for Health Informatics at IBM Research and a visiting Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, the Hebrew University. She is also heading the Health Informatics Department at IBM Research, Haifa. Michal holds a PhD in computational physics and completed her postdoctoral studies at UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, and the Hebrew University in the area of Machine Learning. She joined IBM Research in 2005 and has since led various projects in the area of machine learning and healthcare and was recognized for her contribution e.g. to AI technologies in wafer production and contributions to partnerships with pharmaceutical companies such as Guerbet and Teva. Michal has published more than 40 peer-reviewed papers that were cited more than 5000 times according to Google Scholar. She is a member of IBM Industry Academy, a member of the Israeli National Council of Digital Health and Innovation and an elected member of the board of the Israeli Society for HealthTech; More details on Michal can be seen at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michal_Rosen-Zvi

Varda Shalev

Alike.Health, Israel

Prof. Varda Shalev (MD, MPH) has completed her residency in family medicine and earned an MPA in Public Health Administration at Clark University. After a two year fellowship in medical informatics at the Johns Hopkins University Hospital, Prof. Shalev established the Department of Medical Informatics at Maccabi and was responsible for planning and developing its computerized medical systems. She has pioneered the development of multiple disease registries to support chronic disease management.

Prof. Shalev has also served as the director of primary care division in Maccabi. Altogether, she has authored or coauthored over 031 publications in peer-reviewed journals.

Gil Siegal

Ono College & Tel Aviv University, Israel

Dr. Gil Siegal’s scholarly interests cover the expanding spectrum of modern health law and bioethics including medical malpractice, genetics and biotechnology, public health law, organ transplantation and telemedicine.

Siegal is director of the Center for Health Law and Bioethics at Kiryat Ono College in Israel and a senior researcher at the Gertner Institute for Health Policy. He is chief editor of The Journal of Health Law & Bioethics [Heb].

Siegal serves on several national committees in Israel, including the Israeli National Committee for Medical Research, the Israeli National Committee on Human Genetic Research and the Israeli National Committee on Non-Medical Sex Selection. He is chairperson of the Israeli National Forum for Legal and Ethical Aspect of Genetics.

During 2003-04, Siegal was a fellow in health policy and ethics at UVA School of Law, where he also taught Comparative Health Law. During 2004-05, he served as a fellow in medical ethics at Harvard University Medical School, and a research fellow and consultant at Harvard School of Public Health, working on demonstration projects of administrative compensation for medical injuries (with Michelle Mello and David Studdert). He also previously served as a professor at UVA Law.

He has taught at the following law and medical schools: Haifa University, Manchester University, Tel Aviv University, Bar Ilan University and Hebrew University.

 

Viviane Slon

Tel Aviv University, Israel

Dr. Viviane Slon is a senior lecturer in the Departments of Anatomy and Anthropology and Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University (Israel), and is affiliated with the Dan David Center for Human Evolution and Biohistory Research, where she is the head of the ancient DNA laboratory. Her PhD and post-doctoral research were conducted in the Department of Evolutionary Genetics of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig, Germany). She has an MSc in Medical Sciences and a BSc in Medical and Life Sciences, both from Tel Aviv University. For her work on ancient DNA, Dr. Slon has been awarded the Dan David Prize Scholarship for Young Researchers (2017), the Otto Hahn Medal (2018), the Alon Fellowship (2020), and the Rosalind Franklin Young Investigator Award (2022).

Noam Stern-Ginossar

Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel

Patrick Tan

PRECISE, Singapore

Prof. Patrick Tan is the Executive Director (ED) of PRECISE and will oversee the implementation of Phase II of Singapore’s National Precision Medicine Strategy, which aims to transform healthcare in Singapore, and improve patient outcomes through new insights into the Asian genome and data-driven healthcare solutions. 
During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, Prof Tan was Programme Director of Operation Stronghold, establishing one of Singapore’s largest COVID-19 testing facilities through a joint effort involving A*STAR (Agency for Science, Technology and Research), National University Health System, and Temasek Holdings. 
Prof Tan is also Executive Director of the Genome Institute of Singapore and Professor at the Duke-NUS Medical School. He received his B.A. (summa cum laude) from Harvard University and MD PhD degree from Stanford University, where he received the Charles Yanofsky prize for Most Outstanding Graduate Thesis in Physics, Biology or Chemistry. 
Other awards include the President’s Scholarship, Loke Cheng Kim Scholarship, Young Scientist Award (A*STAR), Singapore Youth Award, Chen New Investigator Award (Human Genome Organisation), President’s Science Award, and the Japanese Cancer Association International Award. In 2018, he received the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Team Science Award as Team Leader, representing the first time a team from Asia has received the award. He is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI), the Bioethics Advisory Committee (BAC), a Board Member of the International Gastric Cancer Association, and on the Board of Reviewing Editors for Science

 

Nicky Tiffin

University of Cape Town, South Africa

Nicki started her research career in molecular genetics the University of Cape Town, followed by a Ph D in Molecular Oncology at the University of London and a postdoctoral fellowship in molecular endocrinology research at UCSF. She conducted laboratory-based research into molecular genetics underpinning paediatric cancers of muscle (Rhabdomyosarcoma) and kidney (Wilm’s Tumour).  She then transitioned into the field of medical genomics and bioinformatics, and until 2015 ran a research group at the South African National Bioinformatics Institute at the University of the Western Cape, which focused on computational approaches to disease gene identification, and the genetic basis of disease in African populations. During this time her research group developed computational approaches to prioritising good candidate aetiological genes from the output of genome-wide analyses; as well as undertaking exome sequencing projects to identify rare aetiological variants in families with inherited diseases. During this time Nicki also addressed ethical issues relating to genome studies undertaken in African populations. She has completed a Masters in Public Health, specialising in epidemiology, and joined CIDER at the School of Public Health and Family Medicine working on secondment to the Western Cape Government Health Department with Andrew Boulle’s group to assist with developing the Provincial Health Data Centre. This has involved developing infrastructure, processes and governance structures for integrating clinical informatics and medical records into a health information exchange. In 2018, Nicki returned to full-time research on the Data Integration Platform of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Africa (CIDRI-Africa) and build a new research group within the Department of Integrative Biomedical Sciences at the University of Cape Town, focusing on the development of a cohort of African participants with genomic data linked to electronic health data, to address the aetiology of diseases in African populations.

Jean-Philippe Vert

Mines ParisTech, France

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