May 2026: The 20th Annual Retreat of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Bioinformatics

The 20th annual retreat of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Bioinformatics took place on May 6-7, 2026, 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, small groups mixers, a musical performance, 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 140 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. Zohar Yakhini from the School of Computer Science, Head of Machine Learning and Data Science Program, Reichman University, who gave an exciting talk titled "A journey through synthesis and computational biology". The second keynote speaker was Prof. Moran Yassour, from the Faculty of Medicine and School of Computer Science, Head of Computer Science and Computational Biology program, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who gave a fascinating talk titled “The infant gut microbiome - From computational tools to the bench and back".

Three engaging talks were given by faculty members from the Edmond J. Safra Center. Edmond J. Safra member, Dr. David Amar, from the Faculty of Medical & Health Sciences, the School of Computer Science & AI, and Sylvan Adams Sports Institute, talked about "Computational challenges in the research of the molecular biology of exercise”. Edmond J. Safra member, Dr. Regev Schweiger, from the Faculty of Medical & Health Sciences, and a secondary affiliation in the School of Computer Science & AI, talked about "Decoding genetic variation: From mechanisms to evolution". Finally, Dr. Miri Danan-Gotthold, Edmond J. Safra affiliate, from the Faculty of Medical & Health Sciences, talked about "Early neurodevelopment at the single cell resolution".

In addition, four bioinformatics graduate students gave inspiring short talks about their research. Ella Baumer (Pupko lab, Life Sciences) gave a talk titled "Adaptive deep reinforcement learning for phylogenetic tree reconstruction". Nadav Ben Nun (Ram lab, Life Sciences) talked about "Inferring a collective posterior distribution from highly variable experimental replicates". Rachel Brandes-Leibovitz (Gat-Viks lab, Life Sciences) talked about “Clinically guided autoencoder for identifying multi-disease patterns”. Finally, Irena Girshovitz (Gilad-Bachrach lab, Engineering) talked about “Context-aware unit tests for EHR datasets: Because even your data needs debugging".

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 and gave impressive talks: Shira Einy (Shamir & Sharan labs, Computer Science & AI) gave a talk titled "Network propagation-based patient-specific prioritization of cancer driver genes". Altar Horowitz and Ella Kaplan-Grisaro (Tamir lab, Engineering) gave a talk titled “CERNAL: Compiler-like engine for RNA logic". 

The program also included two lively poster sessions presenting 55 high-quality posters. Each session was preceded by a highlight session, where each poster presenter had one minute and one slide to introduce their poster and invite the audience to view it. 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.

The social program featured a lively music performance by "Ha’taklitim band", who performed Israeli rock classics, mainly from the 1980s and 1990s. The energy of the band spread to the crowd, with participants singing along and dancing together. Following the performance, attendees gathered in small groups to take part in social games organized by the retreat committee. These activities brought everyone together in a joyful and inclusive atmosphere, encouraging interaction, connection, and a strong sense of community.

The organizing committee included Dr. Yoav Ram (Chair), Dr. Miri Danan-Gotthold, Prof. Tamir Tuller, Shir Adler, Nadav Ben Nun, Shai Cohen, Aviv Hendler, Altar Horowitz, Yael Kaplinsky, Itamar Menuhin-Gruman, Ari Stolba, Ophir Swartzbard, Shiri Ellenbogen, 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.