Aviv Regev joins Broad Institute core faculty

Aviv Regev
Aviv RegevPhoto by Maria Nemchuk

Appointed as a Broad Institute core faculty member in January 2006, Aviv Regev is a computational biologist currently at the Bauer Center of Genomics Research at Harvard University. Aviv also holds the position of assistant professor of biology at MIT. She plans to take up her duties full time at Broad and MIT later this year.

Using genomic data, high-throughput technologies and computational acumen, Aviv and her colleagues study how complex cellular molecular networks function and evolve in the face of genetic and environmental changes. Because cellular innovation is essential for cell survival, a better understanding of these mechanisms should offer at least a glimpse at a wide-range of genomic events, such as those that drive normal and diseased cell development, and those that trigger speciation. Probing these molecular networks may also prove useful as biomarkers for early diagnosis and improved therapeutics of complex diseases. Regev and her colleagues demonstrated this potential in recent work published in the journal Nature Genetics.

Aviv describes her past few years at the Bauer Center as a transforming research experience and eagerly anticipates making Broad and MIT her new home. "There have been so many developments in biology that many of the fundamental questions can only be answered in an environment that has expertise, technology, and terrific science. This is what the Broad and MIT offer. I'll be working with the best," said Aviv.

Joining Aviv at the Broad will be several scientists from her existing lab, including Iftach Nachman, Elizabeth Thomas, and Ilan Wapinski, all three with significant expertise in answering biological questions using computational methods.

Aviv received her M.Sc. at Tel Aviv University, where she focused mostly on biology, computer science and mathematics. She also did research in theoretical biology on the evolution of development, and experimental biology on genomic instability. In her Ph.D. research with Eva Jablonka at Tel Aviv University and Ehud Shapiro at the Weizmann Institute, Aviv developed a novel representation language for biomolecular processes based on a computer process algebra.

A distinguished leader in her field, Aviv is the recent recipient of a 2006 Burroughs-Wellcome Fund award, and is one of ten young scientists who will receive support from the private foundation for pioneering work in physical and computational biology.

Paper(s) cited

Segal E, Friedman N, Kamiinski N, Regev A, Koller D. Review. From signatures to models: understanding cancer using microarrays. Nat Genet. 2005 Jun;37 Suppl:S38-45. Review. DOi:10.1038/ng1561

Tanay A, Regev A, Shamir R. Conservation and evolvability in regulatory networks: the evolution of ribosomal regulation in yeast. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2005 May 17;102(20):7203-8. DOI:10.1073/pnas.0502521102

Segal E, Friedman N, Koller D, Regev A. A module map showing conditional activity of expression modules in cancer. Nat Genet. 2004 Oct;36(10):1090-8. DOI:10.1038/ng1434

Segal E, Shapira M, Regev A, Pe'er D, Botstein D, Koller D, Friedman N. Module networks: identifying regulatory modules and their condition-specific regulators from gene expression data. Nat Genet. 2003 Jun;34(2):166-76. DOI:10.1038/ng1165

Regev A, Shapiro E. Cells as computation. Nature. 2002 Sep 26;419(6905):343. DOI:10.1038/419343a