Group Members

Prof. Asaph Aharoni

Prof. Asaph Aharoni

The Peter J. Cohn Professorial Chair
Principal Investigator
Office: 
+972-8-934-3643
Nella and Leon Benoziyo Building for Biological Sciences
Room: 
526

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).