Asaf Gat was previously a PhD student studying neurobiology under the supervision of Dr. Meital Oren-Suissa in the Department of Brain Sciences at the Weizmann Institute. He has a BSc in Biology and Psychology from Ben Gurion University of the Negev and MSc in Life Sciences from the Weizmann Institute of Science.

In his PhD work, Asaf used C. elegans nematodes to investigate neural circuits and molecular mechanisms that underpin multiple types of behaviors, such as responses to pain, drugs, and environmental stress. He developed a novel experimental setup that will enable high throughput screening for behavioral responses to many environmental stressors in isogenic populations, using cutting-edge recording and tracking technologies. In parallel, he worked on merging this behavioral-oriented analysis with transcriptome and proteome methodologies.