Meet the Editorial Board Current Alzheimer Research, 2015, Vol
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Meet the Editorial Board Current Alzheimer Research, 2015, Vol. 12, No. 3 199 Meet the Editorial Board Hermona Soreq was trained at The Weizmann Institute of Science and the Rockeffeler University. In 1986, she joined the faculty of The Hebrew University where she holds a University Slesinger Chair and is also a found- ing member of the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Science. Soreq’s research is centered on acetylcholine functioning; she pioneered the application of molecular biology and genomics to the study of cholinergic signal- ing, with a recent focus on its microRNA regulation. Soreq consistently collaborates with basic and clinician ex- perts on cholinergic signaling in health and disease, was recently elected to head the International Organization of Cholinergic Mechanisms, and has one DNA-based drug in phase II clinical trials in a Jerusalem start-up. She served as the elected Dean of the Faculty of Science from 2005-2008, authored hundreds of publications, includ- ing 55 published in Science, Nature, PNAS and other high-impact journals and has been the recipient of co- Hermona Soreq recipient of significant funding from US, European and Israeli National and private foundations including an Ad- vanced ERC Award and an Israeli I-Core Center of Excellence on mass trauma. A member of The Hebrew University’s Executive Commit- tee, Soreq has past and current appointments on scientific advisory boards for national and international bodies with significant interests in life sciences. Her honors include Honorary PhDs from the Universities of Stockholm (1996), Ben-Gurion University (BGU, 2007), and Er- langen (2008), Teva Founders’ Award (2006), The Lise Meitner Alexander von Humboldt Award, Germany (2009), a Miller Fellowship at US UC Berkeley (2009), a Berlin NeuroCure visiting fellowship (2015) and a Rappaport prize for bio-medical research (2015). She also con- tributes to the Center of Non-neuronal Cholinergic Mechanisms, Giessen, the Immunosensation Center of Excellence, Bonn and the Interna- tional Advisory Boards of the UK-Israel Council and BGU’s Center of Biotechnology. Notably, 25 of her trainees are faculty members in Israel (In Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, the Galilee and Beer Sheva) and overseas (UC Berkeley, Maryland, Ann Arbor, Paris, Tours, Gottingen, London). Others contribute to government and private biotechnology organizations and companies involved in Life Sciences. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) rapidly emerge as global regulators of gene expression, yet the full scope of their roles in brain functioning is largely unknown. Soreq combines advanced sequencing technologies with computational neuroscience and transgenic engineering tools to investigate miRNA functions in the healthy and diseased brain, with a focus on acetylcholine signaling. Her studies discovered cholinergic brain-to-body regulation of anxiety and inflammation, and found "CholinomiR" miRNA silencers of multiple genes that compete with each other on suppressing their targets. Studying CholinomiR interactions with a focus on anxiety and neurodegeneration, she also tests Choli- nomiR-based intervention with diseases involving impaired ACh signaling. In human volunteers, she finds cholinergic-associated pulse in- creases under fear of terror (Shenhar-Tsarfaty et al., PNAS 2014); and elevated trait anxiety, blood pressure and inflammation under inherited interference with acetylcholinesterase (AChE)-targeting CholinomiR. In engineered mice, she studies CholinomiR increases under stress, inflammation and ischemic stroke, contrasting human Alzheimer’s brains where she sees massive CholinomiRs decline and accompanying modifications in alternative splicing and transcript termination that differ from those of Parkinson’s disease. The major recent landmarks of the Soreq group in the cholinergic field involve: 1. Discovery of microRNA regulation of cholinergic signaling: In 2009, miR-132 was found ot suppress AChE levels and activities, controlling neuro-immune signaling from brain to body (Shaked et al., Immunity 2009; Soreq and Wolf, Trends Mol Med 2011), with overlaps of other miRNAs (Nadorp and Soreq, Front Mol Neurosci 2014). 2. Demonstrating CholinomiRs-mediated AChE suppression of stress-inducible cognitive decline: In engineered mice with intra- hippocampal lentiviral injection, the Soreq group proved post-stress increases of miR-132 that caused cognitive impairments through AChE suppression (Shaltiel et al., Brain Struct Funct 2013; Barbash et al., Mol Biol Evol 2014). Also, human carriers of a modified miR-608-binding site showed elevated brain AChE, blood pressure and inflammation (Hanin et al., Hum Mol Gen 2014). 3. Identifying CholinomiRs-associated changes in stroke, cardiac and inflammatory bowel disease: Together with clinician collabora- tors, Soreq observed serum AChE changes that predict recovery and survival from ischemic stroke (BenAssayag et al., Mol Med 2010; Shenhar-Tsarfaty et al., Science eLetter 2012); drastic miR-132 increases in inflamed, but not non-inflamed intestingal biopsies (Ma- harshak et al., Inflam Bowel Dis 2013), and risk of non-survival in cardiac patients with low AChE levels (Arbel et al., Mol Med 2014). 4. Finding cholinergic-mediated RNA metabolism impairments in the Alzheimer’s brain: Soreq found the decline in Alzheimer’s cholinergic neurons to be accompanied by RNA metabolism-related brain damages in human donors (Barbash and Soreq, CAR 2012; Alkalay et al., CAR 2013; Berson et al., EMBO Mol Med 2012) and cholinergic-deprived mice (Kolysnik et al., J Neurosci 2013). 5. Developing Quantum Dot labeling tools for recombinant human cholinesterases: Nanoscience-based approach enabled linking re- combinant human AChE and BChE to quantum dots for following cholinesterases and detecting their properties in live cell milieu (Waiskopf et al., ACS Chem Neurosci 2012, Waiskopf et al., J Bionanosci, 2013). Taken together, these studies brought the cholinergic system, with the miRNA focus back to scientific discussion at both the basic research and the translational biomedicine aspects, with a particular emphasis on Alzheimer’s disease research. Hermona Soreq Editorial Board Member Current Alzheimer’s Research The Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Science Faculty Jerusalem Israel .