The Koret-UC Berkeley-Tel Aviv University Initiative in Computational Biology - Collaborative grants

updated: 28.06.2023

The Koret-Berkeley-TAU (KBT) Initiative in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics  is a  collaborative program between the Center for Computational Biology at UC Berkeley (CCB) and the Edmond J. Safra Center for Bioinformatics at Tel Aviv University . The initiative is supported by a generous donation from the Koret Foundation. As part of the KBT Initiative, joint research grants in computational biology and bioinformatics are funded. The emphasis will be on high quality, groundbreaking research that has a strong innovative computational biology research component. Projects must involve strong collaborations between researchers at UCB and TAU.   

 
As of Spring 2023, a total of  23 grants were funded for a total budget of more than $M3. Below are the grants and grantees awarded to date.
 
 

May 2023: Grants awarded to joint projects of UCB and TAU Researchers

 

Full grants (5/2023-1/2025)

 

Ashley Wolf (Public Health Division of Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology, UCB) and Elhanan Borenstein (Faculty of Medicine & School of Computer Science, TAU).
Research title: "Mapping and bridging the human-mouse gap in microbiome research"

 

Denis Titov (Department of Molecular & Cell Biology, and Department of Nutritional Sciences & Toxicology, UCB) and Saharon Rosset (Department of Statistics and Operations Research, TAU).
Research title: "Statistical learning for the next generation of mechanistic models of metabolism".

 

Jennifer Doudna (Department of Molecular & Cell Biology and Chemistry, UCB) and Gil Ast (Faculty of Medicine, TAU). 
Research title: "Uncovering the mechanism of exon and intron definition using machine learning and novel CRISPR technology".



 

 

March 2022: Grants awarded to joint projects of UCB and TAU Researchers

 

Full grants (4/2022-3/2024)

 

Priya Moorjani (Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, UCB) and Viviane Slon (Faculty of Medicine, TAU).

Research title: "Reconstructing our evolutionary past using sediment DNA: Best practices and Applications".

 

Yun Song (Departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, UCB) and Tamir Tuller (Faculty of Engineering, TAU).

Research title: "Improving prediction of missense and silent variant effect by leveraging protein language models and biophysical modeling".

 

Wayne Getz (Department Environmental Science Policy & Management, UCB), Orr Spiegel (School of Zoology, TAU) and Sivan Toledo (School of Computer Science, TAU)

Research title:  "Computational tools for processing, analyzing and modeling high-resolution animal movement data".

 

Seed grant (4/2022-3/2023)

 

Nilah Ioannidis (Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, UCB) and Noam Shomron (Faculty of Medicine, TAU).

Research title:   "Deep learning methods for clinical variant interpretation".

 
 
 
 

May 2021:  Grants awarded to joint projects of UC Berkeley and Tel Aviv University Researchers

 

 

 

Full grants (5/2021-4/2023)

 
 
 
Hernan Garcia, Departments of Molecular & Cell Biology and of Physics, UCB, and David Sprinzak, School of Neurobiology, Biochemistry and Biophysics, TAU.
Project title: "Computational Approaches to Uncover Molecular Mechanisms of Bursting-Mediated Transcriptional Control in the Notch pathway"
 
 
 
Jennifer Listgarten, Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, UCB, and Yuval Ebenstein, School of Chemistry, TAU.
Project title: "Accurate epigenetic basecalling for nanopore-sequencing"
 
 
 
 
Seed grant (5/2021-4/2022)
 
 
Peter Sudmant, Department of Integrative Biology, UCB, and Tzachi Hagai, School of Biomedicine and Cancer Research, Faculty of Life Sciences, TAU.
Project title: "A quantitative framework for characterizing the evolution of placental–decidual architecture"
 

 

February 2020: Grants awarded to joint projects of UC Berkeley and Tel Aviv University Researchers

 

Full grants (3/2020-2/2022)

 

John Huelsenbeck, Department of Integrative Biology, UCB, Tal Pupko, School of Molecular Cell Biology & Biotechnology, Faculty of Life Sciences, TAU  and Itay Mayrose, School of Plant Sciences and Food Security, Faculty of Life Sciences, TAU.

Project title:  "The next generation of phylogeny analyses: integrating models of trait evolution and indel dynamics".

 

Nir Yosef, Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, UCB and Irit Gat-Viks, School of Molecular Cell Biology and Biotechnology, Faculty of Life Sciences, TAU.

Project title:  "Computational approaches to studying patterns of temporal dynamics in molecular relations".

 

Priya Moorjani, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, UCB and Roded Sharan, School of Computer Science, TAU.

Project title: "A comparative analysis of mutational processes in germline and soma".

 

 

Seed grants (3/2020-2/2021)

 

Andres Cardenas, Graduate Program in Computational Biology, School of Public Health, UCB and Martin Kupiec, School of Molecular Cell Biology & Biotechnology, Faculty of Life Sciences, TAU.

Project title: "Fetal epigenetic programming by maternal and newborn leukocyte telomere length".

 

Haiyan Huang, Department of Statistics, UCB and Noam Shomron, Department of Cell & Developmental Biology, Faculty of Medicine, TAU.

Project title:  "Context-dependent differences in gene networks during breast cancer metastasis".​

 

Joseph Lewnard, Division of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, UCB and Amit Huppert, School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, TAU.

Project title: "Computational methods for integrating sequence and epidemiological data to model transmission of infectious diseases".

 

 

February 2019: Grants awarded to joint projects of UC Berkeley and Tel Aviv University Researchers

 

Full grants (3/2019-2/2021)

 

Xavier Darzacq, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, UCB and Ran Elkon, Department of Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry, School of Medicine, TAU.

Project title: "Multi-layer analysis of the dynamic interplay between 3D genome organization and gene regulation during early stem cell differentiation".

 

Rasmus Nielsen, Department of Integrative Biology, Department of Statistics, UCB and Adi Stern, School of Molecular Cell Biology and Biotechnology, Faculty of Life Sciences, TAU.

Project title: "From viruses to cancer: context dependent mutations that drive disease".

 

 

Seed grants (3/2019-2/2020)

 

Haiyan Huang, Department of Statistics, UCB and Noam Shomron, Department of Cell & Developmental Biology, Faculty of Medicine, TAU.

Project title: "Context-dependent differences in gene networks during breast cancer metastasis".

 

Priya Moorjani, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, UCB and Roded Sharan, School of Computer Science, TAU.

Project title: "A comparative analysis of mutational processes in germline and soma".

 

John Huelsenbeck, Department of Integrative Biology, UCB, Tal Pupko, School of Molecular Cell Biology & Biotechnology, Faculty of Life Sciences, TAU and Itay Mayrose, School of Plant Sciences and Food Security, Faculty of Life Sciences, TAU.

Project title: "Towards a unified framework of trait and sequence evolution".

 

Jennifer Listgarten, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, UCB and Yuval Ebenstein, School of Chemistry,  TAU.

Project title: "Accurate and fast machine-learning based genetic/epigenetic base calling for high-throughput nanopore-sequencing".

 

Yun Song, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, UCB and Tamir Tuller, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, TAU.

Project title: "Mathematical models and computational methods for understanding mRNA Translation".

 

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