Asher, Gad
Dr. Gad Asher began his academic career by studying mathematics at Tel Aviv
University as part of its prestigious program to promote excellence, but soon switched
to medicine, completing an MD degree with distinction at the University’s Sackler
School of Medicine (1998). After three years as a resident internist at the Tel
Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, he began PhD studies in the Weizmann Institute's
Department of Molecular Genetics, earning his degree in 2006. He completed a
postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Molecular Biology at the University of
Geneva, Switzerland, in 2011 and joined the Department of Biological Chemistry at
the Weizmann Institute in Spring 2011.
Dr. Asher’s research focuses on the body’s internal clocks. There are millions of
molecular-level clocks at work in the body, in the brain and other major organs and in
nearly every single cell; his studies seek to identify what happens on the molecular
and cellular level as the body’s 24-hour circadian clocks regulate organs, metabolism,
and behavior. The journal Cell Press called one of his recent discoveries the “missing
link” between the body’s circadian clock and metabolism.
Gad received the Alon Fellowship; a leading Israeli fellowship for returning scientists,
granted by the Israel Council for Higher Education. In addition, he received fellowships
from the Human Frontier Science Program and the European Molecular Biology
Organization. In 2006, Gad received the Teva Prize for a distinguished PhD student
from the Israel Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the John F. Kennedy
Prize from the Feinberg Graduate School of the Weizmann Institute, and four Dean’s
Awards at the Sackler School of Medicine.
Dr. Asher is living in Rehovot and in his spare time he enjoys cycling, mountain
climbing and swimming.
Fleishman, Sarel-Jacob
Dr. Sarel Fleishman started his academic career in the Adi Lautman Interdisciplinary
Program for Outstanding Students in Tel Aviv University where he studied molecular
biology, chemistry, physics, history, and philosophy. He conducted his Ph.D. research
as a Clore Doctoral Fellow with Prof. Nir Ben-Tal in Tel-Aviv University where he
developed novel tools for predicting structure and dynamics in membrane proteins.
Several of his predictions on membrane transporters, channels, and receptors, were
subsequently proved experimentally, and Sarel earned the prestigious Science
Magazine and GE Healthcare Award for Young Life Scientists for these studies.
Following completion of his Ph.D., Sarel conducted his postdoctoral training as
a Human Frontier Fellow with Prof. David Baker at the University of Washington
(Seattle), where he developed the first general methodology for de novo design of
protein interactions. He applied this approach to generate novel protein inhibitors of
influenza hemagglutinin, which neutralize pathogenic influenza strains. Such methods
could unlock the vast potential of controlling molecular interaction networks, producing
novel diagnostics and therapeutics. Sarel joined the Weizmann Institute's Department
of Biological Chemistry in the summer of 2011.
Dr. Fleishman lives in Rehovot with his wife Dana, their three children, Ariel,
Aviv, and Myron, and their dog Tuka. In his spare time he enjoys jogging, hiking,
reading, classical music, and the never-changing blue sky of Israel.