Speaker

Prof. Karen Avraham is the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University, encompassing the Schools of Medicine, Dental Medicine, Health Professions and Public Health. She earned her PhD from the Weizmann Institute of Science. She conducted post-doctoral training at the National Cancer Institute in Maryland before taking the position at Tel Aviv University, where she is a member of the Department of Human Molecular Genetics & Biochemistry at the Faculty of Medicine and the Sagol School of Neuroscience. Prof. Avraham’s research that centers on disease genomics with an emphasis on hearing disorders. To this effect, her team explores the genes responsible for hereditary hearing loss and implements new gene therapies to reverse deafness. For her scientific achievements, she has won numerous awards, including the Sir Bernard Katz Prize from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany, the Michael Bruno Memorial Prize from the Rothschild Foundation, the TEVA Prize for Groundbreaking Research in the Field of Rare Diseases, and the Teva Founders Prize on Breakthroughs. Prof. Avraham’s work was also featured among the top pioneering Israeli discoveries and developments that affected the world, at a 2016 exhibit at Israel’s Ben-Gurion Airport. Prof. Avraham has advised 135 graduate, MD-PhD students and post-docs in her lab and recruited 65 junior faculty to the Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University. She serves as director of the Healthy Longevity Research Center and is co-director of the Aufzien Family Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Parkinson’s Disease and of the Taube-Koret Global Collaboration in Neurodegenerative Diseases. She founded and directs the Biomed@TAU Research Hubs, whose mission is to bring together scientists and foster collaboration from across Tel Aviv University and affiliated hospitals who share overlapping research interests, as well as the Master’s degree program in Genetic Counseling.

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