The Broad-ISF Partnership History

The Broad Institute-Israel Science Foundation (ISF) Partnership for Cell Circuit Research was established in 2012 to bring together Broad and Israeli scientists to tackle major challenges in the study of cell circuitry and to complement KCO efforts. This program harnessed the expertise of Israeli scientists in computational and systems biology research to enhance and complement the KCO effort.

The original program consisted of three components:

Collaborative projects

The program provided direct funding for one-year, pilot-level collaborative projects involving Israeli and Broad scientists. Collaborative projects leveraged experimental and/or computational expertise in circuitry research, empowering researchers to pursue joint projects in mammalian cells. Information regarding projects that will be supported during phase two of the partnership is available here.

Awardees, 2012 - 2017

2017

Schraga Schwartz (Weizmann Institute of Science) and Eric Lander (Broad Institute): "Systematic dissection of snoRNA-mediated mechanisms of oncogenesis"
Dinorah Friedmann-Morvinski (Tel Aviv University) and Mario Suva (Broad Institute): "Unveiling the genomic and epigenomic landscape of adult and pediatric brain tumor microenvironment"
Uri Alon (Weizmann Institute of Science) and Ruslan Medzhitov (Broad Institute): "Cell circuits for tissue homeostasis"
Ayal Ben-Zvi (Hebrew University) and John Doench (Broad Institute): "Establishing a novel in vivogenome editing screening tool to decipher the cellular circuitry of transcytosis inhibition at the blood–brain barrier"

2016

Gil Ast (Tel Aviv University) and Alexander Meissner (Harvard Medical School and Broad Institute): "The role of DNA methylation in alternative splicing regulation"
Esti Yeger-Lotem (Ben Gurion University) and Jacob Jaffe (Broad Institute): "The ‘interactomics’ of inherited monogenic diseases in relevant contexts"
Yael Mandel-Gutfreund (Technion) and Martha Bulyk (Harvard Medical School and Broad Institute): "Exploring the binding landscape of multifunctional proteins that bind DNA and RNA in human pluripotent cells"
Adi Stern (Tel Aviv University) and Paul Blainey (MIT and Broad Institute): "Single-cell sequencing of an RNA virus infection"

2015

Eran Meshorer (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Bradley Bernstein (Massachusetts General Hospital and Broad Institute): "Defining a glioblastoma stem cell: from chromatin dynamics to cell conversion"
Ehud Shapiro (Weizmann Institute of Science) and Catherine Wu (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Broad Institute): "Discovering the cellular dynamics of founding malignant clones of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) via single-cell genomics"
Tal Shay (Ben-Gurion Unversity of the Negev) and Christophe Benoist (Harvard Medical School and Broad Institute): "Comparing the transcriptome of immune cells between males and females"
Itamar Simon (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Alon Goren (Broad Technology Labs): "Study of epigenomic maintenance during the cell cycle using high temporal resolution ChIP-seq"

2014

Irit Gat-Viks (Tel-Aviv University) and Nir Hacohen (Broad Institute): "A genetic, regulatory and cellular view of the immune response"
Ehud Shapiro (Weizmann Institute) and Robert Nicol (Broad Technology Labs): "SC(DNA+RNA)Seq: Integrating single-cell genomics and transcriptomics and its application to cancer"
Itai Yanai (Technion) and Deborah Hung (Broad Institute): "Understanding host and pathogen responses during intracellular infection"

2013

Nir Friedman (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Rahul Satija (Broad Institute), and Alex Shalek (Harvard University): "Single-cell genomics: exploiting cell-to-cell heterogeneity to reconstruct regulatory circuits"
Jacob (Yaqub) Hanna (Weizmann Institute of Science) and Alexander Meissner (Broad Institute): "Erasure and maintenance of DNA methylation in development"

Annual cell circuits symposium

The First Annual Symposium was held in Jerusalem, Israel, from June 10-12, 2013. Photos from the symposium can be viewed here.

The Second Annual Symposium was held at the Broad Institute, in Cambridge, MA, from June 25-27, 2014. Photos from the symposium can be viewed here.

The Third Annual Symposium returned to Jerusalem in 2015, from June 8-10. Photos from the symposium can be viewed here.

The Fourth Annual Symposium was held at the Broad Institute from June 27-29, 2016. Photos from the symposium can be viewed here.

The Fifth Annual Symposium was held in Jerusalem from July 17-19, 2017. Photos from the symposium can be viewed here.

The Sixth Annual Symposium was held at the Broad Institute from July 16-18, 2018. Photos from the symposium can be viewed here.

The Seventh Annual Symposium was held in Jerusalem from July 22-24, 2019.

The Eighth Annual Symposium was held virtually between May 5 and June 23, 2020.

Postdoctoral training program

This program, established as part of the first phase of the Broad-ISF partnership, supported outstanding Ph.D. students from Israeli academic institutions to pursue their postdoctoral training at the Broad Institute, with financial incentives from the ISF to return to Israel as principal investigators. Each fellowship lasted for a period of three years.

Previous awardees include:

Ophir Shalem (Zhang lab), now an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Ophir holds a B.Sc. in computer science and computational biology from Beer Sheva University and a M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute of Science. His research at the Broad pioneered the use of CRISPR-Cas9 pooled genome-wide libraries for knockout screening in human cells, and combined continuous development of Cas9-based pooled perturbation screens with applications for mapping proteostasis networks. He then applied these tools to understand these networks’ malfunction in neurodegenerative diseases and aging.
Moran Yassour (Xavier and Lander labs), now a senior lecturer at the Hebrew University. Moran received her B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. in computer science and computational biology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research at the Broad was focused on the development of the human microbiome in health and disease, developing new single-cell sequencing methods to investigate the infant gut microbiome.
Yehuda Brody (Blainey lab). Yehuda earned a B.S. in computational biology and a Ph.D. in biotechnology from Bar-Ilan University. His research at the Broad investigates mutagenesis in human cells to find methods to quantify the effects of environment, genetic background and lifestyle on cell mutation rate.
Eitan Hoch (Lander lab). Eitan earned his B.Sc. and M.Med.Sc in life sciences and his Ph.D. in physiology and cell biology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. His research at the Broad is focused on the role of orphan transporter SLC16A11in lipid metabolism and its link to type 2 diabetes.
Moran Dvela-Levitt (Greka lab). Moran received her B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research investigates the mechanism of action of the mutated mucin 1 gene, the genetic cause of MUC1kidney disease (MKD), formerly known as medullary cystic kidney disease type 1.
Keren Yizak (Getz lab). Keren earned her B.Sc. in computer science and computational biology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and her master’s degree in bioinformatics and Ph.D. in computer science at Tel Aviv University. Her current work investigates tumor heterogeneity and drug resistance in cancer, in particular the dynamics of cancer cells under the selective pressure of cancer therapeutics.