1.12.2013

Volume 1, Issue 1

Editor

Nir Osherov

nosherov@post.tau.ac.il

A foreword from the department head

Dear All,

It gives me great pleasure to start off our new bi-annual departmental newsletter.

As you will see below the format is divided into three sections-

Personal Announcements-new team members, happy events etc

Technical announcements -new equipment, changes etc.

Academic announcements- new publications, grants etc.

I would also like to briefly state my goals for the next 2 years during which I will be department

head-

1. To encourage scientific achievement and excellence in our dept and foster an atmos-

phere of team spirit and collaboration between our research groups. For example

through our Dept Retreat, the reinstatement of Thursday happy hour, this newsletter,

student awards etc.

2. To improve the variety and quality of the courses we teach. For example- to open new

courses in the midrasha, giving our students more variety in the courses they can

choose, to improve the medical school courses by better integration between lecturers,

decreasing the number of lecturers per course and the gradual incorporation of case-

based learning.

3. To strengthen the department by recruiting excellent new principle investigators.

4. To make the department a nicer, easier work environment, for example by the recent

renovation we are undergoing in floor 8, the purchase of new scientific equipment, the

smooth and efficient running of the dept at the bureaucratic level etc.

Of course this is a team effort that will only succeed if each one of us lends a hand. I encourage all

of you to participate in achieving these goals.

Please send me by email any comments, suggestions and ideas for things that you want to initiate

and I will help.

Yours,

Nir

Inside this issue:

Promotions and Post-

ings of PIs

2

New team Members,

Prizes, Conferences

attended

2

Academic announce-

ments-new grants

and publications

3

Headers from some

of our recent publi-

cations

4

Joke of the month

Interesting links

5

Department of Clinical

Microbiology and Immunology

Newsletter

Spread of three-colored

herpes viruses

in cell culture-by Oren Kobiler

Hepatitis C protein- effect on

ER-by Ella Sklan

Principle Investigators-Promotions and Postings

New team members, prizes, conferences attended

Nurit Hollander has received the Best Teacher award for teaching the course

of Clinical Immunology (students of Medicine and the "Meshulevet" program).

Fuad Iraqi was elected as the Chairman of Board of Trustees of MATIMOP,

the R&D arm of the Israeli Ministry of Economy.

Yona Keisari was elected as the President of the Israeli Society for Cancer

Research.

Ariel Munitz was nominated for the International advisory board member for

the pan European COST network entitled: “Developmental origins of chronic

lung disease” (4 year nomination).

Nir Osherov has received the academic posting of department head and head

of Midrasha Teaching Committee.

Iraqi Lab

Mrs. Hanifa Jalal Abu-Toamih (PhD student, hanifajalal@hotmail.com ) won the prestige PhD fel-

lowship by the Israeli Counsel for Higher Education (Malag) for years 2013-2015.

Mrs Roa’a hamed Sheikh Yosef has joined our lab for her MSc. Thesis (r_h_mn86@hotmail.com )

Ms. Alexandra Dorman (MSc. student: alexandra.dorm@gmail.com ) won the Israel Scholarship

Program of North Rhine-Westphalia. Stayed in Bonn University, Germany for 2 months and prac-

ticed research in lab of Prof. Golubnitschaja. Alexandra also attended the European Association

for Predictive, Preventive and Personalised Medicine (EPMA) Summit and World Congress, which

took place in Brussels, Belgium (20-21 September, 2013).

Mr. Yasser Salymah finished his MSc. Thesis cum laude

Page 2 Department of Clinical Microbiology and Immunology Newsletter

Outgoing Dept Head Ilan

Tsarfaty at last years

retreat.

Nir Osherov– new

dept Head

Keisari Lab

Yasmin Kayal has joined our lab for her MSc. Thesis (yasmina.kayal@gmail.com)

Hila Confino attended the Progress in Vaccination Against Cancer (PIVAC) Conference in Amster-

dam, Holland and presented a poster.

Gal Mor Lab

Alina Goren has joined our lab for her MSc. Thesis (alina@goren4u.com)

Dana Elhadad attended the Israel Society for Microbiology Fall Workshop Gardenia Hotel, Naz-

areth, November 21-23, 2013 and presented a short talk entitled "The human-adapted Salmonella

enterica serovar Paratyphi A thermoregulates its motility and requires the flagella for host cells

entry"

Gili Aviv attended the Microbial Ecology "Sandwich club" meeting at the Agricultural Research

Organization Volcani Center, December 5, 2013 and presented a short talk entitled " Horizontal

Acquisition of a Unique Megaplasmid facilitated the Emergence of Ubiquitous Salmonella enterica

Serovar Infantis".

Katya Tsyba and Alex Marzel have left our lab and are about to submit their M.Sc. thesis.

Osherov Lab

Ms Einav Shemesh has joined our lab for her MSc. Thesis (einavs4@gmail.com)

Yakir Vaknin was awarded the Alan N. Cohen annual prize in Pulmonary Science

Gavriel Mircus and Anna Rivkin have left our lab and are writing up their PhD. And MSc theses respectively

Munitz Lab

Netali Morgenstern-Ben Baruch was awarded the Constantiner Travel Award and the Eosinophil Society Travel Award

Itay Moshkovits was awarded the Constantiner Travel Award, Eosinophil Society Travel Award and the Aufzien Fund Scholarship

Award

Danielle Atar was awarded the Katzir Travel Grant

Qimron Lab

Moran Goren was awarded the Constantiner, the Biochemical Society and the Katzir Travel Awards

Ruthie Kiro was awarded the Constantiner Travel Award and the Biochemical Society Travel Award

Academic announcements- new publications, grants (last 6 months)

Hollander Lab-Publication. Molecular Immunology the paper titled: "Distinct processing of the pre-B

cell receptor and the B cell receptor". Mol. Immunol. 2013. 54:115-121.

Page 3

Some figures from

our most recent

publications:

Volume 1, Issue 1

Osherov Lab was awarded the Israel-Italy Cooperation grant (HYPOINFECT) for 2 years to study

the role of hypoxia in A. fumigatus lung infection together with Prof. Luigina Romani.

The Lab of Nir Osherov was awarded the European ERA-NET Infect-ERA grant for 3 years to-

gether with partners from Germany and Austria.

Osherov Lab-Publication

Yakir Vaknin, Yana Shadkchan, Emma Levdansky, Michael Morozov, Jacob Romano and Nir Osherov.

The three Aspergillus fumigatus CFEM-domain GPI-anchored proteins (CfmA-C) affect cell-wall

stability but do not play a role in fungal virulence. Fungal Genetics and Biology in press.

Iraqi Lab-The Lab of Fuad Iraqi was awarded the CBRC grant for one year

Iraqi Lab- Publications

Shusterman A, Salaymeh Y, Nashef A, Soller M, Wilensky A, Mott R, Weiss EI, Houri-Haddad Y

and. Iraqi FA (2013) Genotype is an important determinant factor of host susceptibility to

periodontitis in the Collaborative Cross and inbred mouse populations. BMC Genetics 14: 68

-79.

Fuad A. Iraqi, Hanifa Athamni, Alexandra Dorman, Yasser Salymah, Hani Sandovski, Ian

Tomlinson, Aysar Nashif, Ariel Shusterman, Ervin Weiss, Yael Houri-Haddad, Noga Kron-

feld-Schor, Richard Mott and Morris Soller (2013) The Collaborative Cross mouse refer-

ence population is fulfilling its promise as a source of wide genetic variation and high reso-

lution QTL mapping. Mammalian Genome Journal (in press).

Schughart K, Libert C; SYSGENET consortium, Kas MJ. (2013) Controlling complexity: the

clinical relevance of mouse complex genetics. Eur J Hum Genet. Nov; 21(11):1191-6. doi:

10.1038/ejhg.2013.79.

Maria Hernandez-Valladares, Pascal Rihet and Fuad A. Iraqi (2013) Genetic Resistance to Ma-

laria: Two Compatible Approaches in Humans and Mice to Identify Potential Resistant

Genes. Physiological Genomics (In press)

Munitz lab-publications

Ben Baruch-Morgenstern N, Shik D, Moshkovits I, Itan M, Karo-Atar D, Bouffi C, Fulkerson PC,

Rashkovan D, Jung S, Rothenberg M, Munitz A. Paired immunoglobulin-like receptor A is an intrinsic,

self-limiting pathway suppressing IL-5-induced eosinophil development. Nature Immunol; 2013: In Press. DOI, 10.1038/ni.2757

Moshkovits I, Shik D, Itan M, Karo-Atar D, Bernshtein B, Hershko AY, van Lookeren Campagne

M, Munitz A. CMRF35-like molecule 1 (CLM-1) regulates eosinophil homeostasis by suppressing cellu-

lar chemotaxis. Mucosal Immunology; 2013. DOI, 10.1038/mi.2013.47.

Qimron Lab was awarded the StG-ERC grant, 1,499,000 Euro, to Udi Qimron. Identifying novel

roles, mechanisms, and application in the Escherichia coli CRISPR/Cas system

Qimron lab-Publications

Yosef I, Shitrit D, Goren MG, Burstein D, Pupko T, and Qimron U.DNA motifs determining the eff-

ciency of adaptation into the Escherichia coli CRISPR array. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 110

(35):14396-401, 2013.

Kiro R, Goren MG, Yosef I, and Qimron U. CRISPR adaptation in Escherichia coli type I-E system.

Biochemical Society Transactions, in press, 2013.

Kiro R, Molshanski-Mor S, Yosef I, Milam SL, Erickson HP, and Qimron U . Gene product 0.4 in-

creases bacteriophage T7 competitiveness by inhibiting host cell division Proc Natl Acad Sci

USA, in press, 2013.

Gal-Mor Lab– Publication. Gili Aviv, Katherine Tsyba, Natalie Steck, Mali Salmon-Divon, Antje Corne-

lius, Galia Rahav, Guntram A, Grassl and Ohad Gal-Mor. (2013). A Unique Megaplasmid Contributes to

Stress Tolerance and Pathogenicity of an Emergent Salmonella enterica Serovar Infantis Strain. Envi-ronmental Microbiology. In press.

Some of our recent

publications...

Page 5

Joke of the month– this joke is on me...

Some Interesting Links...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wzBPSbTGYM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31m01Tz8MTg

Beautiful molds growing and producing

How fungi can save the world

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuKjBIBBAL8

Cordyceps– the killer fungus...

Dear All!!

Please send me jokes and

links connected to Science,

life in the lab, research etc,

and I will put them into the

next Newsletter together

with your name and lab-name!

Page 6