October 2019: New Edmond J. Safra Affiliate: Dr. Tzachi Hagai

Dr. Tzachi Hagai is a new faculty member at the School of Molecular Cell Biology & Biotechnology, George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, and is joining the Edmond J. Safra Center as an Affiliate.

Dr.  Hagai completed his PhD studies at the Weizmann Institute, studying the evolution and biophysics of protein ubiquitination under the supervision of Dr. Koby Levy. During his postdoc, he studied the interactions and co-evolution of pathogens and their host immune system. He first studied how viruses evolved to mimic their host proteins in the lab of Prof. Raul Andino in UCSF. Later, he focused on the host side, by studying the evolution of the mammalian immune system in the lab of Dr. Sarah Teichmann at the Sanger Institute.

Dr. Hagai's research at TAU will seek to understand how the evolutionary arms race between pathogens and their hosts has shaped the immune system and influenced human susceptibility to infectious diseases. By combining experimental and computational approaches, including comparative genomics and transcriptomics analyses along with immune stimulations and virus infection assays in vitro, we will functionally dissect how differences between species affect their resistance to viruses. By comparing the immune response across human individuals, he plans to characterize how genetic differences between humans influence their ability to fight various pathogens as well as the likelihood of these individuals to develop autoimmune diseases.