Meet
our Researchers
Dr. Kobi Gal
When Dr. Ya'akov (Kobi) Gal first began his undergraduate studies, he had a hard time making up his mind about what to study. On the one hand, he was keenly interested in technology and computer science; “My Dad worked for IBM Israel and I thought that was cool; I wanted to follow in his footsteps."
On the other hand, he was fascinated by human behaviour and psychology. “I always wanted to know, what makes people tick? What drives decision making, how do human beings think and act differently—and how much of this behaviour can be attributed to cultural and societal effects?"
Dr. Stav Rosenzweig
“Take the microwave oven. It started as radar technology in WWII. There was little need for it after the war, but inventors found that it could cook food.”
Mad Men’s advertising whiz, Don Draper, could learn a thing or two from Dr. Stav Rosenzweig from the Department of Management at the Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management. Rosenzweig, whose research focuses on marketing, innovation and product development, has made some telling – and unexpected – findings.
Dr. Niv Papo
Dr. Niv Papo is developing new proteins that promise to aid in both the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
A molecular biologist doing protein engineering and cancer imaging, Papo is working to develop new molecules that can recognise cells as being cancerous. This specificity – the ability to differentiate between cancerous and normal cells – stands in sharp contrast to existing cancer therapies, like chemotherapy. Targeting both healthy and malignant cells, chemotherapy often causes hair loss, nausea and weakness, among other side effects.
Dr. Lone Avnon
“For many years a diagnosis of lung cancer was a death sentence, but now with new biological treatments, there is so much optimism for these patients."
One would be hard-pressed to find more distant places – in geography, culture and demographics – than Copenhagen and Beer-Sheva. Dr. Lone Avnon, a Danish born-and-raised pulmonologist at the Faculty of Health Sciences and Soroka University Medical Centre, made this journey 30 years ago and has been a satisfied physician, mother and desert-dweller ever since.
Dr. Ilan Dinstein
"We want to transform the definition of autism
from one that is behavioural to one that is biological”
Currently, one in every 100 children in the US is diagnosed with autism, with similar numbers in Israel. These figures have skyrocketed since the 1980s, when only one in five thousand received this diagnosis. Autism is hence rapidly becoming the most prevalent developmental disorder in children worldwide.
