WEIZMANN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE WEIZMANN INSTITUTE Introducing New Scientists 2016-2017 Introducing New Scientists 2016-2017 5 INTRODUCTION Dynamic and Diverse 6 DEPARTMENT OF BIOMOLECULAR SCIENCES Dr. Ori Avinoam The architecture of cell membranes 8 DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGICAL REGULATION Dr. Roi Avraham The battlefield tactics of bacteria 10 DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS Dr. Gal Binyamini Transcending numbers 12 DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS Prof. Bo’az Klartag The curse of dimensionality? 14 DEPARTMENT OF PLANT AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES Dr. Tamir Klein The secret life of trees 16 DEPARTMENT OF PARTICLE PHYSICS AND ASTROPHYSICS Dr. Doron Kushnir Why do stars explode? 18 DEPARTMENT OF PARTICLE PHYSICS AND ASTROPHYSICS Dr. David Mross An electron’s exotic existence 20 DEPARTMENT OF MATERIALS AND INTERFACES Dr. Ulyana Shimanovich Using nature to heal nature 22 DEPARTMENT OF MATERIALS AND INTERFACES Dr. Omer Yaffe Exploring new materials 24 DEPARTMENT OF CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS Dr. Binghai Yan Physics on the edge 27 New scientist funds and gifts INTRODUCTION Dynamic and Diverse Dear Friends, Each year, the Weizmann Institute of Science casts a fine net to capture the best and brightest scientists and recruit them to join the Institute’s ranks of stellar faculty. We are often delighted to recruit Israeli postdoctoral fellows of great promise who return to their native soil having been enriched by their international experiences. This year, we are pleased to not only have recruited promising returning Israeli scientists, but also a fantastic set of foreign-born scientists, including Dr. David Mross, originally from Germany, and Dr. Binghai laboratory. The costs average $1 to $2 Yan, originally from China. Dr. Ulyana million, depending on the scientific field, Shimanovich, though she completed ranging from new super computers to her undergraduate studies in Israel, had support for graduate students and expert immigrated to the country as a young staff scientists. Private, philanthropic adult, from Uzbekistan. gifts are vital to helping the Institute Together with our other newest meet this tremendous annual funding recruits, rising stars all in their challenge. respective fields, these new scientists We are grateful for the generosity bring the Weizmann Institute a bold of our community of supporters the and diverse perspective on all areas of world over, who make it possible for science. Read through their profiles, the Institute to recruit and retain such and I can guarantee that you will be as a dynamic group of new scientists each impressed as I am by the extraordinary year. In so doing, our friends provide group of talented minds. our new scientists with everything they The Weizmann Institute offers each need to hit the ground running in their new scientist a commitment of three research when they arrive. As always, or more years of research funding and I’m excited to watch their progress in the new equipment to establish his or her coming years. Sincerely, Prof. Daniel Zajfman President, Weizmann Institute of Science 5 DR. ORI AVINOAM DEPARTMENT OF BIOMOLECULAR SCIENCES through fusion of macrophages. However, these processes are not well understood at the molecular level. The architecture Throughout his graduate and postdoctoral research, Dr. Avinoam has aimed to identify and characterize of cell membranes molecular mechanisms that manipulate membrane shape in the worm C. elegans, in cultured cells, and in viruses, using Membrane remodeling is and innovating a variety of microscopy techniques, such as precise correlated a universal process that light and electron microscopy (CLEM), is essential for a range total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy (TIR-FM), confocal microscopy of biological processes, and fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP). The combination from protein trafficking to of these different imaging techniques cell migration. Correlated across scales has led to important insights into the process by which cells fuse light and electron and membrane regions are remodeled microscopy offers a unique into transport carriers that internalize nutrients, proteins, lipids, pathogens, and visualization approach for other large cargo. Such internalization is pinpointing rare, transient, crucial for a range of cellular processes, such as intercellular communication, and as-yet-unknown neurotransmission, immune function, and drug delivery. vicissitudes of life within At the Weizmann Institute of Science, a cell, including changes Dr. Avinoam aims to cultivate a thorough in membrane shape and understanding of membrane fusion and internalization processes, focusing on Dr. composition over time. their contribution to the structure and function of muscles. Dr. Avinoam will Ori While studying membrane fusion in combine live-cell imaging with gene the course of his graduate studies, editing, screening techniques and electron Dr. Ori Avinoam became fascinated microscopy in order to understand how by the exquisite architecture of cell the unique membrane architecture of Dr. Ori AvinoamAvinoam was born in Haifa, Israel. In 2006, he earned a BSc in membranes and by the significance of muscles is established and maintained, molecular biochemistry cum laude from the Technion — Israel Institute membrane sculpting to the function of and how its perturbation leads to muscle of Technology, and earned his PhD in Biology there in 2012, studying cells and subcellular structures. Our lives diseases. Undoubtedly, his research will begin with cell fusion and membrane improve our understanding of many the mechanism by which membrane proteins enable cell-to-cell fusion. remodeling: from the fusion of an fundamental cellular and developmental A postdoctoral fellowship followed at the European Molecular Biology egg with a sperm cell, to the fusion of processes that involve changes in Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany. At EMBL, he worked to develop placental cells, to the fusion of individual membrane shape and composition. the means to visualize dynamic changes in membrane architecture, so as cells into muscle fibers during embryonic to enhance his understanding of how proteins remodel the membrane. development. As adults, our bones are Having received fellowships for academic excellence in 2008, 2009, maintained by osteoclasts (multinucleated and 2011, Dr. Avinoam received an EIPOD Interdisciplinary postdoctoral cells), and foreign objects (e.g., viruses) fellowship in 2012. He has considerable teaching experience, including an are encapsulated by giant cells that form EMBL advanced course in High-Accuracy Correlated Light and Electron Microscopy: Applications at Room Temperature and in Cryo. Dr. Avinoam is a co-inventor on a pending patent related to cell-cell fusion proteins. 6 7 DR. ROI AVRAHAM DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGICAL REGULATION and in vivo experiments—puts all that earlier training to work.” Dr. Avraham’s research focuses on The battlefield a novel anti-infection strategy. Rather than seeking to kill bacteria, he targets the host-pathogen interactions that tactics of bacteria contribute to bacterial success. “I’m looking at intra-cellular bacteria that are engulfed by large cells of the immune system called macrophages,” In the process of he explains. “Not only do these macrophages fail to destroy pathogenic infection, bacteria use bacteria; they actually provide a safe haven in which the bacteria replicate a ‘divide and conquer’ before going on to infect other cells. In my postdoc, we discovered that in the tactic involving one earliest stage of infection, bacteria use a ‘divide-and-conquer’ strategy: they group that sacrifices split into two sub-populations, one of which is recognized and inhibited by itself, weakening the macrophages, while the other is not. This host cell population, ‘diversionary tactic’ promotes infection progress; one sub-population sacrifices so that the other itself, weakening the host cell population, so that the other can survive.” can survive. This new understanding was made possible by a “twist” on single-cell RNA analysis—a technology that mines A hundred years after the discovery of genome-wide mRNA expression data Dr. penicillin—the wonder drug that saved from a heterogeneous population of cells. countless lives from WWII until today—we Dr. Avraham’s lab is the first to apply this Roi are losing the bacterial infection battle. technique to infectious disease. Resistance is skyrocketing, and even “We’ve found that, in different vaccines are failing to prevent previously bacterial sub-populations, the cycle of controllable conditions. Dr. Roi Avraham infection does not progress in a linear AvrahamDr. Roi Avraham received his BSc in computer science in 2001 is examining host-pathogen interactions, way, but instead is arrested at different using a novel approach that draws on phases,” he says. “This has clinical and his masters in neuro-immunology in 2006, both from Tel skills picked up during an unusually wide- implications because it means that drugs Aviv University. In 2011, he completed his doctoral training at ranging academic career. designed to stop the infection process the Weizmann Institute, where he worked in the Department He earned his PhD at the Weizmann may not always work. We are looking at of Biological Regulation under the supervision of Prof. Yosef Institute and recently returned to campus this phenomenon in culture, as well as in Yarden. Dr. Avraham’s postdoctoral research, which focused on after completing a postdoctoral fellowship animal models.” host-pathogen interactions,