August 2016
Personal
Born: Chicago, Illinois, September 1, 1937
Married: 1959
Three children, ten grandchildren
Education and Training
Northwestern University College of Liberal Arts, Evanston IL, - Philosophy: B.A. - June,1959
Northwestern University Medical School: M.D. with highest distinction, Chicago IL, USA - June,1963
Internship: Hadassah University Hospital, Jerusalem, Israel, 1963-64
Residency in Pediatrics: The John Hopkins Hospital, Harriet Lane Service, Baltimore MD, USA, 1966-68
Diplomate of the American Board of Pediatrics, January, 1969
Fellowships
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Medical Students Research Fellowship, 1962-63
Fellow in Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University, 1966-68
Postdoctoral Fellow of the Arthritis Foundation, New York, at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel, 1968-71
Positions
| Year | Position |
|---|---|
| 1964 - 1966 | Commissioned Officer (Lt.Commander), US Public Health Service, National Communicable Disease Center, Atlanta, Georgia |
| 1966 - 1968 | Fellow in Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland |
| 1968 - 1971 | Postdoctoral Fellow of the Arthritis Foundation, New York, at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel |
| 1970 - 1974 | Senior Scientist, Department of Cell Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science |
| 1973 - 1974 | Associate Dean, Medical School, Ben-Gurion University |
| 1975 - 1976 | Sabbatical Leave in the laboratory of Dr. Robert S. Schwartz, Hematology Service, New England Medical Center Hospital, Boston, Ma. USA |
| 1974 - 1987 | Associate Professor, Department of Cell Biology, Weizmann Institute of Science |
| 1986 - 1987 | Senior Postdoctoral Fellowship of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society with Dr. Howard L. Weiner, Center for Neurological Diseases, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston |
| 1987 - 2007 | Mauerberger Professor of Immunology, Weizmann Institute of Science |
| 1992 - 1995 | Director, European Collaboration on T Cell Vaccination, sponsored by the European Medical Research Councils of the European Science Foundation |
| 1993 - 2001 | Director, Robert Koch-Minerva Center for Research in Autoimmune Diseases, Weizmann Institute of Science |
| 1997 - 2001 | Director, Center for the Study of Emerging Diseases, Jerusalem |
| 1999 - | Chairman, Committee for the Re-accreditation of Israeli Medical Schools, The Council for Higher Education, Israel |
| 2000 - | Executive Director, The National Center for T-cell Vaccination |
| 2001 - 2003 | Committee for Planning Future Needs for Medical Graduates, The Council for Higher Education, Israel |
| 2002 - | Executive Committee, The National Center for Complexity Science |
| 2004 - 2006 | Director, National Center for Biotechnology in the Negev, at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev |
| 2007 - | Professor of Immunology, Emeritus Department of Immunology, The Weizmann Institute of Science |
Service Positions
National and International Foundations
| Year | Position |
|---|---|
| 1992 - 1995 | Director, European Collaboration on T-Cell Vaccination, sponsored by the European Medical Research Councils of the European Science Foundation. Coordinated research and clinical trials in T-cell vaccination in Europe. |
| 1993 - 2003 | Director, Robert Koch-Minerva Center for Research in Autoimmune Diseases, at the Weizmann Institute; established by the Minerva Foundation of Germany. |
| 1996 - 2012 | Member of the Board, The Yeshaya Horowitz Association. |
| 1997 - 2007 | Director, Center for the Study of Emerging Diseases (CSED), Jerusalem. |
| 2008 - 2010 | Board member and co-initiator IVRI – Israel Vaccine Research Initiative |
| 2000 - 2009 | Initiator and Director, The National Center for T-cell Vaccination. |
| 2002 - 2010 | Initiator and board member, The National Center for Complexity Science. |
Medical Education
| Year | Position |
|---|---|
| 1971 - 1974 | Associate Dean and member of the central planning committee for establishing a new Medical School at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. |
| 1999 - 2005 | Chairman, The Committee for the Re-accreditation of Medical Schools, established by The Council for Higher Education (CHE), Israel. |
| 2007 - 2008 | Chairman, the National Committee for Evaluation of Medical Education, CHE. |
| 2001 - 2005 | Member, CHE (Pazi) Committee for Planning Future Needs for Medical Graduates, The CHE, Israel. |
| 2007 - 2009 | Member, CHE Committee to Formulate the Tender for a New Medical School in the Galilee. Chairman of the CHE follow-up committee, until 2016. |
| 2008 - 2009 | Chairman, CHE Committee for Evaluating the Academic Status of Complementary Medicine in Israel. |
| 2008 - 2009 | Member, Ministry of Health Committee to evaluate the role of stress in the development of type 1 diabetes mellitus. |
| 2004 - 2010 | Member, National Bioethics Forum, established by the Government of Israel to provide evaluation and advice regarding issues of importance to medical ethics. |
| 2010 | Member, CHE Committee for Evaluating the Dental School, Tel Aviv University. |
Biotechnology
| Year | Position |
|---|---|
| 2004 - 2006 | Director, National Center for Biotechnology in the Negev, at Ben-Gurion University, Beer Sheva, Israel. |
| Consultant: | Consultant over the years to numerous Israeli biotechnology initiatives. |
| Patents: | Over 60 patent families related to my research projects have been promoted by Yeda Research and Development Company, Ltd, of the Weizmann Institute. |
| Companies: | Companies that are currently engaged in developing therapies based on my research include ImmunArray ltd, Israel and USA; Mapi Pharma, Ltd, Israel; Immune Pharma, Israel; and Alma Bio Technology, France. |
Selected Honors and Awards
Invited Symposium Speaker at The International Congresses of Immunology:
| Year | Num. | Country |
|---|---|---|
| 1974 | II | U.K. |
| 1983 | V | Japan |
| 1986 | VI | Canada |
| 1989 | VII | Germany |
| 1992 | VIII | Hungary |
| 1998 | X | India |
| Year | Honor | |
|---|---|---|
| 1987 | Irvington House Fellow, Einstein, N.Y. | |
| 1988 | Distinguished Immunologist, UCLA | |
| 1988 | Nobel Honorary Lecturer, Sweden | |
| 1989 | Robert Koch Prize, Federal Republic of Germany | |
| 1990 | Boerhaave Professorship, Leiden, Holland | |
| 1991 | Ludwig Elkeless Prize for Distinguished Medical Research | |
| 1991 | Mifal Hapais Prize for Distinction in Research | |
| 1993 | Nobel Symposium Lecturer, Sweden | |
| 1994 | Nobel - Karolinska Lecturer, Sweden | |
| 2002 | ISI Highly Cited Researcher | |
| 2004 | Invited Lecturer at 60th Birthday Celebration for Prof. Hartmut Wekerle, Max Planck Society, Munich | |
| 2004 | Invited Lecturer at 60th Birthday Celebration for Prof. Howard Weiner, Harvard University, Boston | |
| 2005 | Winner of the RAD BioMed Competition for Outstanding Biotechnology Project: the Antigen Chip | |
| 2005 | Invited Lecturer at the 60th Birthday Celebration for Prof Jean-François Bach, CNRS, Paris | |
| 2006 | AESKU Prize for Life Contribution to Autoimmunity Research | |
| 2006 | Keynote Speaker, MoDELS, UML 2006. ACM/IEEE Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems | |
| 2007 | Poll Visiting Scholar at the University of Washington Diabetes Endocrinology Research Center | |
| 2008 | Teva Founders’ Prize for research in autoimmunity | |
| 2009 | Keynote Speaker, CoSMoS 2009. Complex Systems Modelling and Simulation Conference | |
| 2009 | EFIS-IL Lecture Award. Keynote Lecture of the Irish Society of Immunology | |
| 2015 | Doktors der Medizin, honoris causa by the University of Hamburg, De |
Seminal Scientific Contributions
| Year | Contribution |
|---|---|
| 1971 - 1974 | Autosensitization in vitro; natural T cell autoimmunity; regulation of autoimmunity. |
| 1981 | Development of cloned T cells as functional probes for the analysis of autoimmune diseases; the establishment of the standard approach for T-cell analysis. |
| 1981 | Discovery of immune regulation by T cell vaccination; the foundation of cell-therapy for down-regulation of autoimmune diseases. T cell vaccination is presently in entering phase 2 clinical trials in the USA. |
| 1988 | Identification of Mycobacterial heat shock protein (hsp60) as a T cell antigen in autoimmune arthritis. |
| 1989 | Development of the concept of the immunological homunculus in the regulation of autoimmunity, natural and pathogenic. |
| 1991 | Discovery of the human heat shock protein 60 (hsp60) as a target antigen in autoimmune diabetes; T cell vaccination and peptide vaccination therapy (peptide p277) of spontaneous autoimmune diabetes. |
| 1998 | Development of subunit vaccines with self-hsp60 carrier peptides. |
| 1999 | Discovery of body maintenance by autoimmune T cells. |
| 2002 | Development of antigen microarray chip for bioinformatic analysis of immune system profiles. Translated into clinical use by ImmunArrat Ltd – first microarray iChip to rule-our lupus released in 2016. |
| 2003 | Development (with Prof. David Harel) of Reactive Animation – a computer-assisted, precise visual language for interactive and dynamic simulation of complex systems. |
| 2004 | Discovery of inhibition of autoimmune diseases by treatment with HSP DNA. In advanced pre-clinical development for treatment of inflammatory bowel disease by Alma Bio Therapeutics, Lyon, Fr. |
| 2011 | Discovery of cytokines and stress proteins as urine biomarkers of bladder cancer and prostate cancer. |