Prof. Eran Hornstein

Department of Molecular Genetics Weizmann Institute of Science

Born in Jerusalem, Prof. Eran Hornstein received a BSc degree in 1997, and in 2003, a PhD and an MD degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and its teaching hospital, Hadassah Medical School. He then spent three years conducting postdoctoral research in the Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School before joining the Weizmann Institute of Science in 2006. He is the head of the Dr. Sydney Brenner laboratory, a choice made by Nobel Laureate Prof. Brenner himself. Prof. Hornstein is also the head of the Nella and Leon Benoziyo Center for Neurological Diseases at Weizmann Institute of Science.

Prof. Hornstein’s research focuses on microRNA molecules, genetic material that represents one of the most exciting new fields of study in biology. Discovered as recently as the 1990s and endowed with the ability to switch off numerous genes, microRNAs can provide scientists with entirely new tools for regulating gene activity, both in research and in the treatment of several diseases. Prof. Hornstein studies the role of microRNAs in human disease, with his primary focus on the role of microRNAs in neurodegeneration, including such diseases as ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), and in diabetes.

In 2014, Prof. Hornstein received the Hans Lindner Award of the Israel Endocrinology Society and was recipient of a consolidator grant program from the European Research Council (ERC). He was awarded the Teva Young Investigator Award (2012) and a European Foundation for the Study of Diabetes (EFSD), D-Cure young investigator award (2010). In 2009 he was elected a board member of the Genetics Society of Israel and served on the board for three years. He also received the Sir Charles Clore Prize for Outstanding Appointment as a Senior Scientist and the Senta Foulkes Award, both in 2006, the Dorot and Bikura post-doctoral fellowships (2003-2005), and an award from the Hebrew University for an outstanding MD thesis (2000). He also received awards from both the Zuker and Wolf Foundations that year.