Group Members

Prof. Asaph Aharoni

The Peter J. Cohn Professorial Chair

Principal Investigator

asaph.aharoni@weizmann.ac.il

Office:

+972-8-934-3643

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Room:

526

Dr. Ilana Rogachev

Associate Staff Scientist

ilana.rogachev@weizmann.ac.il

Office:

+972-8-934-2879

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Room:

520

Dr. Sagit Meir

Lab Manager

sagit.meir@weizmann.ac.il

Office:

+972-8-934-2161 +972-8-934-2275

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Room:

518

Dr. Nir Shachaf

Consultant

nir.shachaf@weizmann.ac.il

Office:

+972-8-934-4295

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Room:

527

Dr. Shirley (Paula) Berman

Postdoctoral fellow

scholar

bermansh@weizmann.ac.il

Office:

+972-8-934-2275

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Room:

518

Dr. Jianghua Cai

Postdoctoral fellow

jianghua.cai@weizmann.ac.il

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Room:

518

Dr. Luis Alejandro De Haro

Postdoctoral fellow

luis.deharo@weizmann.ac.il

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Room:

518

Dr. Sachin Ashruba Gharat

Postdoctoral fellow

sachin.gharat@weizmann.ac.il

Office:

+972-8-934-2275

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Room:

518

Dr. Dongqi Li

Postdoctoral fellow

dongqi.li@weizmann.ac.il

Office:

+972-8-934-2275

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Room:

518

Dr. Sayantan Panda

Visiting Scientist

sayantan.panda@weizmann.ac.il

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Room:

518

Dr. Mark Polikovsky

Postdoctoral fellow

mark.polikovsky@weizmann.ac.il

Office:

+972-8-934-2275

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Room:

518

Dr. Andrii Vainer

Visiting Scientist

andrii.vainer@weizmann.ac.il

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Room:

518

Dr. Ran Yehuda

Postdoctoral fellow

ran.yehuda@weizmann.ac.il

Office:

+972-8-934-2733

Arnold R. Meyer Building

Room:

114

Elinor Aviv

PhD student

scholar

elinor.aviv@weizmann.ac.il

Office:

+972-8-934-2275

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Room:

518

Yosef Guy Keren

PhD student

guy.keren@weizmann.ac.il

Office:

+972-8-934-2275

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Room:

518

Dvir Meiri

PhD student

dvir.meiri@weizmann.ac.il

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Zoe Pinkas

PhD student

zoe.pinkas@weizmann.ac.il

Office:

+972-8-934-2275

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Room:

518

Hadas Price

PhD student

hadas.price@weizmann.ac.il

Office:

+972-8-934-2275

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Room:

518

Yuval Fayes

Msc student

yuval.fayes@weizmann.ac.il

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Janka Isabella Hoefer

Msc student

janka-isabella.hoefer@weizmann.ac.il

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Neta Massad

Msc student

neta.massad@weizmann.ac.il

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Herschel Mehlman

Msc student

herschel.mehlman@weizmann.ac.il

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Efrat Almekias Siegl

Lab Technician

efrat.weithorn@weizmann.ac.il

Office:

+972-8-934-2275

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Room:

527

Orin Noori Malka

Lab Technician

orin.noori@weizmann.ac.il

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Guy Wizler

Lab Technician

sfguy@weizmann.ac.il

Office:

+972-8-934-2275

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Room:

518

Dr. Jelena Cveticanin

Visiting Scientist

jelena.cveticanin@weizmann.ac.il

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Room:

518

Peter Belenkii

Lab Technician

peter.belenkii@weizmann.ac.il

Shoval Ben Gal

Lab Technician

shoval.ben-gal@weizmann.ac.il

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Room:

518

Rony Peled

Lab Technician

rony.peled@weizmann.ac.il

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Ester Varnavsky

Lab Technician

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Daniel Ziv

Lab Technician

daniel.ziv@weizmann.ac.il

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Nadav Weisberg

Lab Technician

nadav.weisberg@weizmann.ac.il

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Dr. Bekele Tuffa

Consultant

bekele.tuffa@weizmann.ac.il

Office:

+972-8-934-2275

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Room:

518

Dr. Feiguelman Gil

gil.feiguelman@weizmann.ac.il

Office:

+972-8-934-2993

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Room:

652

Dr. Ron Vunsh

Consultant

ron.vunsh@weizmann.ac.il

Office:

+972-8-934-2637

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Room:

508

Julia Eva Fortmueller

PhD student

julia-eva.titz@weizmann.ac.il

Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences

Room:

555 B

M.Sc. students:

Tali Mendel, 2006 - 2008: Characterization of the y colorless peel tomato mutant.
Oshry Markovich, 2008 - 2009: Regulation of the glucosinolate metabolism and insect behavior.
Dario Breitel, 2006 - 2007: Regulation of fruit development and ripening by micro-RNAs (former MSc student in the lab).
Louise Maor, 2008 - 2010 (supervised together with Yuval Eshed): Phase change in the Solanaceae species.
Dorit Levy, 2008 – 2010: The cuticle barrier of glandular trichomes.
Gilad Rubinsky, 2008 – 2012 (supervised together with Saul Burdman): Discovery of factors for bacterial resistance in the epidermis layer.
Yinon Izkovitz, 2008 - 2011: Activation tagging in tomato.
Guy Polturak, 2010 - 2011: Gene discovery in the Betalain pathway.
Hilary Wyner, 2011 - 2013: Hormone analysis in developing fruit.
Maor Battat, 2011 - 2013: The primary-secondary metabolism interface.
Hadar Kedem, 2013 - 2014: Metabolite subcellular location.
Aviv Sharon, 2013 – 2014: The Rhizosphere.
Rachel Brockhage, 2013 – 2014: Meristem metabolism.
Adi Stern, 2014 - 2017: Suberin in fruit and seed.
Noam Grossman, 2015 – 2017: Betalain pathway.
Hagai Davidovitch, 2016 – 2017: Ecdysteroids.
Zoe Pinkas, 2018 - 2020 Cannabinoids.
Carmel Gilda, 2018 – 2020: Organelle metabolism
Dan Eliyahu, 2017 – 2020: Root exudation.

Ph.D. students:

Max Itkin, 2005 - 2010: Regulation of fruit ripening.
Samuel Bocobza, 2006 - 2011: Riboswitch mediated regulation of metabolic pathways in Plants.
Dario Breitel, 2007 - 2012: micro-RNAs in fruit ripening.
Sergey Malitsky, 2007 -2011: The plant primary and secondary metabolism interface.
Shira Mintz, 2007 - 2011 (with Tomer Shlomi): Mathematical model for plant metabolism.
Roy Borochov, 2007 – 2012 (supervised together with David Weiss): HSFs in ripening.
Ilya Venger, 2006 - 2009 (supervised together with Tzachi Pilpel): Metabolomics in yeast.
Louise Maor, 2010 - 2016: Phase change and fleshy fruit development.
Justin Lashbrooke, 2010 -2015. Fleshy fruit surface (with F. Costa, IASMA, Italy).
Nir Shachaf, 2010 - 2016: Metabolomics data analysis (with F. Mattivi, IASMA, Italy).
Shelly Hen Avivi, 2012 - 2017: Plant surface formation.
Guy Polturak, 2011 - 2016: Gene discovery in the Betalain pathway.
Pablo Cardenas, 2012 - 2017: Glycoalkaloids biosynthesis and regulation.
Hassan Massalha, 2012 - 2017: Interactions in the Rhizosphere.
Maor Battat, 2013 - 2018: Primary-secondary metabolism interface.
Dan Even, 2018 – 2019: Engineering soybean for cow milk components.

Postdoc fellows:

Yariv Brotman, 2005: The primary-secondary metabolism interface (group head in Ben-Gurion University).
David Panikashvili, 2006 - 2009: Transport and polymerization of cuticular constituents (team leader, Evogene Company).
Asa Eitan, 2006 - 2009: ASAM1 mediates the interface between primary and flavonoid metabolism in the Arabidopsis anther (researcher Fulcrum SP Materials Company).
Rivka Elbaum, 2007 - 2008: Silica in plants (group head, Hebrew University of Jerusalem).
Jianxin Shi, 2007 - 2012: Transcriptional regulation of cuticle related metabolic pathways (group head, Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China).
Arieh Moussieff, 2008 - 2010: Cell layer specific metabolic profiling (group head, Hebrew University of Jerusalem).
Max Itkin, 2010 - 2012: Deciphering the steroidal alkaloid pathway.
Samuel Bocobza, 2011 - 2015: Riboswitch mediated regulation of metabolic pathways in Plants.
Sergey Malitsky, 2011 - 2016: Plant and algea Lipidomics.
Uwe Heinig, 2012 - 2016: Mass spectrometry based metabolomics in plants.
Irina Panizel, 2013 - 2018: Hormone mapping in plants.
Jedrzej Szymanski, 2013 – 2018: Systems biology.
Nadine Topfer, 2013 – 2018: Metabolic modeling.
Guy Polturak, 2016 - 2017: Gene discovery in the Betalain pathway.
Hagai Cohen, 2016 - 2020: Suberin in plant development.
Aviel Even, 2018 – 2019: Root exudation mechanisms.
Ibrahim Abu-Riyadh, 2020 : Active compounds discovery.
Dr. Yonghui Dong, 2015 - 2020 : Spatial metabolite mapping amd MALDI imaging mass spectrometry
Dr. Elisa Korenblum
Dr. Himabindu Vasuki Kilambi

Associate researchers:

Avital Adato, 2007 - 2011: Surface biology in reproductive organs (molecular biology).
Uwe Heinig, 2017 - 2020: Mass spectrometry based metabolomics in plants.

Technicians:

Ofra Lotan, 2006: Fruit surface biology.
Merav Yativ,2006-2007: Development of metabolomics technologies (analytical chemistry).
Sergey Gerzon, 2006-2009: Metabolomics data analyses (computer science).
Muriel Shemla, 2008 - 2010: Plant transformation (tissue culture).
Tali Tsimbalist, 2012 - 2013: Analytical chemistry.

Professional advisors:

Leonid Brodsky, 2008 - 2011: Metabolomics data analysis using mathematical and statistical tools.
Samuel Bocobza, 2015 - 2017: Glycoalkaloids.

Sabbatical fellows:

Liron Feldberg (IIBR, Israel), 2007 -2008: Developing metabolomics technologies.
Ashok P. Giri (NCL, Puna, India), March-October, 2011. Glycoalkaloid gene discovery.
Salvador Herrero (University of Valencia, Spain).
Natasha Reikhel (UCR, USA).
Robert Last (MSU, USA).
Yair Shachar-Hill (MSU, USA).
Avinash Kambel (Pune University, India).
Liron Feldberg (IIBR, Israel), 2015 -2016: Developing metabolomics technologies.
Dani Gamrasni (MIGAL, Israel), 2016- 2017: Fruit ripening.
Georg Jander (BTI; Cornell), 2019: Secondary metabolism.
Avinash Kambel (Pune University, India).