“It is in the Negev that Jewish scientific talent
and research ability shall be tested.”

Prof. Hermona Soreq

Chairperson

Professor of molecular neuroscience at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and recipient of the Israeli Ministry of Health’s prize, Prof. Soreq is best known for her work on the signaling of acetylcholine and its relevance in stress responses and Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. She became an Associate Professor of molecular biology in the Department of Biological Chemistry at the Hebrew University from 1986 and served as the Head of the university’s Silberman Institute of Life Sciences (1995-2000) and Dean of its Faculty of Science (2005-2008). Her research focuses on the mechanisms underlying malfunctioning of communication by the neurotransmitter acetylcholine in muscle, nerves, and blood cells.

Prof. Roger D. Kornberg

Recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Prof. Roger D. Kornberg earned his bachelor's degree in chemistry from Harvard University in 1967 and his Ph.D. in chemical physics from Stanford University in 1972. Prof. Kornberg became a postdoctoral research fellow at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge and then an Assistant Professor of Biological Chemistry at Harvard Medical School in 1976, before moving to his position as Professor of Structural Biology at the Stanford School of Medicine in 1978. Prof. Kornberg’s prize-winning research centered on the process by which DNA is converted into RNA. Prof. Kornberg has served on the Scientific Advisory Boards of the following companies: Cocrystal Discovery, Inc. (Chairman), ChromaDex Corporation (Chairman), StemRad Ltd., and Pacific Biosciences. He has also been a Director for the following companies: OphthaliX Inc., Protalix BioTherapeutics, Can-Fite BioPharma Ltd., and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.

Prof. Aaron Ciechanover, MD

Recipient of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the 2003 Israel prize. Distinguished Research Professor in the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. He received his M.Sc. (1971) and M.D. (1973) from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and his PhD in biochemistry (1981) from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. He conducted postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Harvey Lodish at the Whitehead Institute at MIT from 1981-1984. His research focuses on the involvement of the UPS in the pathogenesis of malignant transformation. Within this enormously complex process, his laboratory is studying two different pathways: (i) activation of NF-κB, and (ii) evasion of apoptosis. Among many academies, Ciechanover is member of the Israeli National Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Foreign Fellow), the American Philosophical Society, the National Academy of Sciences of the USA and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of the USA (Foreign Associate).

Dr. David Sidransky, MD

Dr. Sidransky is a leading expert and pioneer in the molecular genetic detection of cancer. He is the Director of Head and Neck Cancer Research in the Department of Otolaryngology- Head and Neck Surgery at Johns Hopkins University and a member of the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center. Dr. Sidransky received his medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine in 1984, where he also completed a residency in internal medicine. He came to Johns Hopkins in 1988, where he completed a clinical and research fellowship in oncology. Dr. Sidransky joined the Hopkins faculty in 1992. He conducts research on biomarkers for early detection and therapy. His research concentrates on lung cancer, head and neck cancer and bladder cancer and more specifically on identifying new genetic and epigenetic changes on smoking-associated tumors. He has been the recipient of many awards and honors, including the 1997 Sarstedt International prize from the German Society of Clinical Chemistry, the 1998 Alton Ochsner Award Relating Smoking and Health of the American College of Chest Physicians and the Richard, and the 2017 Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award of the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) for his work.

Prof. Gideon Rechavi, MD

Prof. Rechavi is the Head of the Sheba Cancer Research Center which he established in 2003, and Prof. of Hematology in the School of Medicine at Tel-Aviv University. His main research interests are RNA epigenetics, transposable genetic elements and cancer genomics with special emphasis on pediatric cancer. In 1992, he was appointed head of the Pediatric Hematology- Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplantation Department at the Sheba Medical Center. Between 1991-1996, he served as head of the Division of Hematology, Sackler School of Medicine. During 2001-2007, he served as head of the Tel Aviv University Cancer Biology Research Center. He has been awarded numerous prizes including the Kennedy award, the Stein award, the Seroussi Memorial Cancer Research award, the Prize for Vision in Medicine, the Elkales Prize for Distinctive Scientist in Medicine and the EMET prize for Genetics. Rechavi has published more than 465 articles in prestigious journals including Nature, Science, Nature Genetics, Nature Medicine, Nature Cell Biology, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, Cell Stem Cell, Molecular Cell, New England Journal of Medicine and the Lancet.

Prof. Yoram Reiter

Prof. Reiter is a Professor of Immunology and heads the Laboratory of Molecular Immunology at the Faculty of Biology, Technion. He has >20 years of experience in molecular immunology in the fields of cancer immunotherapy, antibody engineering, T cell biology, autoimmunity. He did his master’s and PhD degrees at the Weizmann Institute. He was a post doctoral fellow at the NCI Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the NIH. From 1997-8 he was a senior scientist at Peptor Ltd. In 1998, he was recruited to the Technion department of Biology as a Faculty member where he develops new approaches for cancer immunotherapy and his lab is considered as the leading laboratory in the world working on recombinant antibodies mimicking the specificity of immune killer cells. Reiter was the Dean of the Faculty of Biology at the Technion (2006-2008), and as of January 2019 he was re-elected to serve as the Dean. He was also the Director of the Lorry Lokey Interdisciplinary center for Life Sciences and Engineering (2013-2016). Reiter published >100 research papers and reviews. Reiter’s work yielded >30 patents and his lab raised >$10million in research grants from government (Israeli and USA), private funds, as well as industry. Reiter is founder of Applied Immune Technologies (AIT) Ltd, which was aquired and merged by Adicet Bio Inc. in 2015. Prof. Reiter is a member of various scientific committees in Israel and abroad.

Dr. Ronit Bendori

Dr. Ronit Bendori is a General Partner at Evergreen Venture Partners since year 2000. She focuses on Evergreen's investments in the Healthcare sector. Ronit initiated and was responsible for Evergreen's investment in Colbar, which was sold to Johnson & Johnson for $160M. Prior to joining Evergreen, Ronit was the Vice President of Pharmos Ltd. (NASDAQ: PARS). Ronit also held senior positions as an expert in technology transfer at InterPharm Ltd. (Israel) and Ares-Serono (Switzerland). Ronit was an adviser to former Chief Scientists at the Israeli Ministry of Industry and Trade on biotechnology issues, and headed the Monitor Survey of the Israeli Biotechnology. She is a member of the advisory board of the Israeli Scientific American and on the advisory board of the Center for Women's Health at Hadassah Hospital, Jerusalem. Ronit has taught Industrial Aspects of Biotechnology in various institutions, including the Weizmann Institute of Science. She has a Ph.D in molecular and cellular biology from the Weizmann Institute of Science.