May 2025: The 19th Annual Retreat of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Bioinformatics

The 19th annual retreat of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Bioinformatics took place on May 26-27, 2025, in Ye'arim, Ma'ale Ha'Chamisha.

The bioinformatics community at TAU got together for two days of scientific and social activities. The program included short scientific talks, poster highlights flash talks, two poster sessions, a small group mixer, a musical-dance performance and workshop, games, and poster prizes. Mr. Ariel Greenberg, Edmond J. Safra Philanthropic Foundation representative in Israel, was the guest of honor and greeted the participants.

The 170 participants included faculty members, graduate students, and second- and third-year undergraduate students of the bioinformatics program. The scientific program of the retreat included two keynote talks. One by Prof. Nir Yosef, from the Department of Systems Immunology in  Weizmann Institute of Science, who gave an exciting talk titled "Single cell phylogenetics: Toward spatiotemporal analysis of tumor evolution". The second keynote speaker was Prof. Liran Carmel, from the Department of Computational Biology in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who gave a fascinating talk titled “What makes us human? Studying human history and evolution using ancient DNA".

Three talks were given by faculty members. Edmond J. Safra affiliate, Prof. Carmit Levy, from the Faculty of Medical & Health Sciences, talked about "Reprogramming the brain to fight metastases”. Edmond J. Safra member, Prof. Uri Ben-David, from the Faculty of Medical & Health Sciences, talked about "Genomic approaches to studying chromosomal catastrophes in human cancer". Finally, Prof. Ron Shamir, Edmond J. Safra member, from the School of Computer Science & AI, talked about "Computational vignettes in genomics and medicine".

In addition, four bioinformatics graduate students gave inspiring short talks about their research. Keren Mor-Waknin (Shkolnisky lab, Mathematics) gave a talk titled "Object detection under the linear subspace model with application to Cryo-EM images". Avi Baraz (Obolski lab, Medical & Health Sciences, and Nevo lab, Statistics and Operations Research) talked about "Estimating the effect of antibiotic use among hospitalized patients from different populations". Arielle Kahn (Stern lab, Life Sciences) talked about “Navigating a fine balance: Point-mutant cheater viruses disrupt the viral replication cycle”. Finally, Shai Cohen (Tuller lab, Engineering) talked about “Novel generic computational approaches for gRNAs design based on gene expression modeling, biochemistry, competition, and metagenomics”.

This year, for the second time, undergraduate students were also invited to give flash talks, featuring research projects conducted as part of their bioinformatics study program. Three undergraduate bioinformatics students presented their research: Neri Golan (Shomron lab, Medical & Health Sciences) gave a talk titled "From sequence to surgery: Real-time neural networks for brain tumor classification". Lihi Hacham (Borenstein lab, Computer Science & AI) gave a talk titled "Leveraging NLP embedding techniques to explore metagenomic data”. Altar Horowitz (Ben-David lab, Medical & Health Sciences) gave  a talk titled “The effect of chromosomal gains on gene expression and biological pathways in different types of cancer".  

The program also included two lively poster sessions presenting a record number of 68 posters. Each session was preceded by a highlight session, where each poster presenter had one minute and one slide to introduce it and invite the audience to their poster. These presentations were all truly creative and original. For the full poster list click here. The retreat's participants, PIs and students, were invited to vote for the best posters. For the poster prizes' awardees click here.

As in past retreats, the program also included a mixer session, where PIs and students were randomly assigned into small groups, gathered on the lawn, and engaged in discussions about a range of meta-scientific topics. This session offered students from all degrees an opportunity to connect with each other and with the PIs in an informal setting and to discuss subjects of shared interest.

One of the retreat’s standout extracurricular activities was a vibrant music and dance performance and workshop by “Mayumana”. Known for their unique artistic language, Mayumana blends rhythm, movement, theater, and humor into an unforgettable experience. Their workshop, rooted in rhythm and coordination, encouraged participants to unleash their creativity through a mix of percussion, music, dance, and playful interaction. The session was led by five dynamic and engaging artists, who captivated the audience with their energy and artistry. The combination of performance and participation made this event both entertaining and inspiring. This was a true celebration of creativity and connection that marked the 20^th Anniversary of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Bioinformatics.

Following the performance, participants gathered on the lawn for a collection of social games organized by the retreat committee members. These activities brought everyone together, creating a joyful and inclusive atmosphere that encouraged interactions and connections.  

The organizing committee included Dr. Merav Cohen (Chair), Prof. Avigdor Eldar, Prof. Uri Obolski, Avi Baraz, Shiri Ellenbogen, Sigal Fleishman, Altar Horowitz, Bar Jacobi, Guy Lurie, Omri Peleg, Amit Shalvi-Kali, Chen Sharon-Yagol, Tammy Wertheimer, and Gilit Zohar-Oren.

We got enthusiastic feedback from the participants, and are very proud of our vibrant community and outstanding students!

For pictures click here.