Center for Food Security & Nutrition

Prof. Avraham Levy earned his BSc and MSc in field crops and plant breeding at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1987, he received a PhD in plant genetics from the Weizmann Institute. He conducted postdoctoral research at Stanford University and INRA Versailles, after which he joined the Weizmann Institute. He is a member of the Plant and Environmental Sciences department and served as the Dean of the faculty of Biochemistry until 2022.

Dr. Levy’s research probes the structure and evolution of the plant genome, in particular the genetic mechanisms responsible for biodiversity in the plant kingdom, including DNA repair and recombination, hybridization, and polyploidy. He develops advanced genetic manipulation techniques to engineer plants in a precise manner towards food security and sustainability. He serves on the scientific board of agro-biotech companies, on the editorial board for Plant Cell, and is an associate member of the French Academy of Agriculture. Dr. Levy leads the Green Campus Initiative at the Weizmann Institute. 

Prof. Milo and his group bring the tools of systems biology to bear on the challenges of sustainability, with a focus on understanding energy and carbon transformations in quantitative terms. They work to understand fundamental design principles of carbon fixation and photosynthesis, with the goal of improving the efficiency of food and fuel production. Prof. Milo applies Big Data analysis tools to clarify our understanding of the biosphere and human impact on the living world, including the ecological costs of food production. The Milo lab has studied the environmental footprint of various food systems, and is developing the theoretical and experimental basis for engineering bacteria that can fix CO2 and transform it into food or feed.

Plant Metabolome in Action
The Aharoni lab conducts research on uncovering the molecular pathways that produce plant secondary metabolites—chemicals produced by plant species that help them cope with changes and stress in their environment. These metabolites hold the secrets to many biological processes that are beneficial to humans and plants alike, and have practical applications for fighting world hunger and malnutrition, investigating the use of cannabis and other psychoactives for biomedicine, and developing sustainable energy sources. His lab’s cutting edge high-resolution mass spectrometry techniques has been used, among other things, to understand the correlation between genes, metabolism and other traits, and is helping scientists and breeders produce improved tomato varieties.
 

Systematic Discovery of Protein Function

During the last decades, biology has gone through a technology-driven revolution with the emergence of high-throughput methods. Yeast has been an excellent model organism for these efforts, allowing the collection of large amounts of systematic data. However, there remains a huge gap between the amount of data generated and its ability to put forward high quality predictions that can be followed up to obtain true mechanistic understanding of cellular functions. The Schuldiner lab aims to bridge the gap by using high throughput methods in combination with detailed follow up to provide mechanistic understanding of fundamental unresolved questions in cell biology.

Plant Developmental Genetics
Prof. Eshed and his lab study plant architecture, which is critical for optimal use of light energy, for balance between reproductive and vegetative growth, and ultimately, productivity. Understanding these principles may offer agriculture new means by which to optimize plant growth and increase drought and pest resistance.

Photosynthesis & Plant Engineering and Individuality
Prof. Reich’s group studies plants’ remarkable ability to efficiently utilize a capricious energy source such as ambient light under ever-changing environmental conditions. Insights gained from their investigations into resurrection plants, a special class that can withstand an almost complete loss (~95%) of water, could help scientists engineer drought-resistant crops. They are also using CRISPR/Cas9 technology to remove toxins from nutritious drought-tolerant plants, with the hope of providing safe food to drought ridden regions in Africa and Southern Asia.
 

Weizmann Tree Lab
Studying trees and forests with a wealth of measurements and details, Dr. Klein and his group are able to capture the whole picture of how trees process water, air, and carbon, and gain more understanding about how trees and ecosystems adapt to the stress of drought. His discoveries have shed new light on how trees cycle water and nutrients between leaves, stems, and roots— and have even shown evidence for a certain amount of ‘carbon trade’ between the roots of trees located nearby each other.
 

Stress and Innate Immune Responses in Plants
Prof. Fluhr studies how plants and their fruit survive in a hostile world full of fungal pathogens. One of his lab’s projects involves studying the battle that occurs when a pathogen attacks a tomato fruit. Uncovering the fungal genes that are necessary for their survival has led to novel ways to control fungal growth by suppression of their expression. His investigations also led to the discovery of a molecule produced by plants in certain stress pathways that led to cell death. They found that controlling the molecule’s expression helped improve plant survivability.
 

Plant Biodesign Lab
The Natalio lab combines plant biochemistry and synthetic chemistry to create hybrid systems that integrate desirable properties in plants. For example, using metabolomics tools and tracer molecules, his group was able to pinpoint the sugar-transport molecules in plants that carry the substrates from the roots to the leaves in plants such as mustard and tomatoes. They are using this information to introduce substrates that result in specific properties or nutrient profiles in the plants, with the goal of creating smart, sustainable farming. Their work is contributing to the science supporting the development of nutritionally improved crops that can be used to support plant-based diets and transition away from meat-based products.
 

Microbial Systems Biology
Dr. Dar studies the heterogeneous bacterial communities that grow on plants, and which play an important, yet little-studied role in agriculture. Par-seqFISH (parallel sequential fluorescence in situ hybridization), a tool he developed with together with his postdoctoral advisors at Caltech, measures bacterial activities using gene expression, making it possible to track what is happening within bacterial communities in space and time, directly, in their native contexts and at a micrometer resolution. The knowledge gained from such an up-close and personal view of bacterial organization and activities presents a vast resource for sustainable technologies in a rapidly changing world. 
 

Laboratory for Protein Design
The group’s research combines computational methods development, including atomistic modeling and AI, and structural and biochemical wet-lab work. It probes our understanding of protein design principles by designing new proteins and testing their activities in the lab. The group is committed to making methods accessible to all scientists, and its algorithms have enabled the group and researchers from around the world to design antibodies, vaccines, therapeutic enzymes, and enzymes for green chemistry. The group is excited to see protein design enabling the next wave of discovery in basic and applied biomolecular research.
 

From Regenerative Medicine to Cultured Meat
Prof. Tzahor studies novel mechanisms for cardiac regeneration following injury in mammals. While experimenting with muscle stem cells, scientists in the lab discovered a fusing process that led to the creation of large muscle fibers resembling those in whole-cut meat. This revelation led to further collaborative investigations into the fiber production process with the intent of developing animal protein alternatives. A start-up tech company was established to develop the technology for applications in the food tech industry.

Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecosystems
Dr. Zeevi combines his research with microbes and AI to see if these tiny creatures can increase crop yields and their resistance to droughts and rising temperatures. By sampling many unique wheat-growing plots and sequencing the DNA of all microbes (bacteria, fungi and viruses) in these plots, Dr. Zeevi and his team are using machine learning to pinpoint the ones that have a positive effect on the crop.

The group also studies how microbial ecosystems are affected by human-made artifacts, and it applies the insights learned from these microbes to devise new ways to protect the environment.