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Lab head
Professor Marcelle Machluf, Ph.D
Prof. Marcelle Machluf received her Ph.D. in Biotechnology Engineering from the Ben-Gurion University (Israel). Marcelle went on to complete a 5-year post-doctoral fellowship at the Harvard Medical School under the supervision of Prof. Anthony Atalla. Marcelle joined the Technion in 2001, and received tenure in 2007; in 2014, she was promoted to full professor. Prof. Machluf has authored 40 peer-reviewed journal papers, co-authored 15 papers, and published over 100 conference papers. Her papers have appeared in leading generalized and specialized journals including Nature Biotechnology, Nano Letters, and Blood, and have been cited over 2,500 times, awarding her an h-index of 26 (Google Scholar). Prof. Machluf has supervised more than 40 graduate and post-doctoral students, from around the world, and is teaching four undergraduate and graduate courses in nano-encapsulation, tissue engineering, mammalian cell technologies, and bioprocessing. Prof. Machluf is a member of the TargetCaRe consortium, under Horizon 2020 Training Networks (H2020-MSCA-ITN-2014). Prof. Machluf is the head of a six-year collaboration between six groups from the Technion and two of Singapore’s leading universities (NTU and NUS) funded by the National Research Foundation of Singapore. Prof. Machluf is a member of the Minerva Programme Committee, under the Max-Planck Institute (Germany) and a member of the Tissue Engineering Journal editorial board. Prof. Machluf is the Head of the Technion’s Graduate Interdisciplinary Program in Biotechnology and was recently appointed as the Deputy Executive Vice President for Research For the Pre-clinical Research Authority of the Technion.
E-mail: machlufm@tx.technion.ac.il
Management
Dr. Limor Baruch, Ph.D
Lab manager and senior research fellow, Tissue Engineering, cultured meat, and cell-based therapy group leader. Limor received her Ph.D. in Biotechnology Engineering from the Technion, under the supervision of Prof. Machluf. Limor’s dissertation presented the development of two cell- microencapsulation platforms and their application for cancer treatment. In 2008, Dr. Baruch established the laboratory for crop quality at Kaiima Bio-Agritech Ltd. and managed it for six years. Dr. Baruch’s expertise includes the setup of laboratories and research fields, diverse analytical methodologies and scientific consultancy in addition to cell-based therapy, drug delivery systems and regenerative medicine. Limor received the Herschel Rich innovation award in 2022.
E-mail: baruchl@bfe.technion.ac.il
Ms. Inna Kovrigina, M.Sc.
Lab technician. Inna received her M.Sc. in Biology and Chemistry from Tver State University, Russia. In 2000, Inna worked as a researcher and lab technician in the Medicine Faculty at the Hebrew university. Inna worked as a lab technician in Pharmaseed ltd from 2003 to 2013, a position in which she was responsible for formulation unit in the GLP lab.
E-mail: inna.ko777@gmail.com
Post & Graduate Students
Dr. Anton Zernov, Ph.D., postdoc
Anton completed his M.Sc and Ph.D. in bioengineering and biotechnology in the Faculty of Biology, M.V.Lomonosov Moscow State University, and Federal Research Centre “Fundamentals of Biotechnology”, Russian Academy of Science. Now he is currently a postdoc. His research focuses on the development and investigation of mesenchymal stem cells membrane-derived nanoghosts with encapsulated gold nanoparticles for diagnostics and photodynamic therapy of cancer. Also, his interests include the development and investigation of clean meat. Anton received the Herschel Rich innovation award in 2022.
E-mail: zernovanton89@gmail.com
Shani Hamias, M.Sc, Ph.D. student
Shani completed her B.Sc in the Faculty of Chemistry Engineering at the Technion and is currently a Ph.D. student. Her research focuses on a novel drug delivery system aimed to selectively target brain cancer across the Blood-Brain Barrier (BBB) using MSCs derived vesicles (nano-ghosts).
E-mail: shanihm17@gmail.com
Rotem Hayam, M.Sc, Ph.D. student
Rotem completed her B.Sc in the Faculty of Chemistry Engineering at the Technion and is currently a Ph.D. student. Her research focuses on the development of advanced Extracellular Matrix processing technologies for Tissue Engineering.
E-mail: rotemh27@gmail.com
Michal Skitel-Moshe, M.Sc, Ph.D. student
Michal completed her B.Sc in Biotechnology at the Hadassah Academic College and is currently a Ph.D. Student. Her research focuses on Extracellular Matrix (ECM) based therapy for diabetes. In this research, the ECM is engineered as microcapsules to support islets viability. Michal has received the Ariane de Rothschild scholarship, given to female Ph.D. students for academic excellence.
E-mail: michalsk@campus.technion.ac.il
Shira Galperin-Levi, M.Sc, Ph.D. student
Shira completed her B.Sc in the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering at the Technion and is currently a Ph.D. student. Her research focuses on the development of scaffolds for cultured meat. Shira received the Herschel Rich innovation award in 2020 as well as the Rotary Excellence Award for academic excellence in 2021.
E-mail: shiralevi147@gmail.com
Anastasia Brandis, M.Sc, Ph.D. student
Anastasia completed her B.Sc. in the Faculty of Biology at the Herzen University, completed her M.Sc. in biotechnology at the ITMO University in Saint-Petersburg and is currently a Ph.D. student. Her research is focused on an inflamed cardiac tissue treatment using MSCs derived vesicles (Nano-ghost) as a drug delivery system.
E-mail: Brandis@campus.technion.ac.il
Frank (Feng-Chun) Yen, M.Sc, Ph.D. student
Frank (Feng-Chun) Yen completed his B.Sc in the Department of Biological Science and Technology at National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan and is currently a Ph.D. student. His research focuses on developing cultured meat platforms based on scalable cellular building blocks. Frank is also establishing efficient and scalable culturing methodologies using bioreactor. Frank was granted a fellowship from the Ministry of Foreign affairs.
E-mail: frankyyen86@gmail.com
Shlomi Edri, Ph.D. student
Shlomi received his B.Med.Lab.Sc. from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel and his M.Sc. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His Ph.D. research focuses on using Nanoghost as a platform for a targeted CRISPRi/a-based cancer immunotherapy.
Shira Heller, M.Sc. student
Shira completed her B.Sc in biology and psychology at Bar-Ilan University and is currently an M.Sc student. Her research focuses on multiple sclerosis treatment using MSCs derived vesicles (Nano-ghost).
E-mail: Shira.levy@campus.technion.ac.il
Iser Snoyman, M.Sc student
Iser completed his B.Sc in the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering at the Technion and is currently a M.Sc. student. His research focuses on the development of a therapy for treating myocardial infarction utilizing tissue engineering. Iser received the Leonard and Diane Sherman Interdisciplinary Fellowship in 2023.
E-mail: isersnoyman@gmail.com
Jennifer Jehan, Ph.D student
Jennifer completed her B.Sc. in the Faculty of Biological Sciences at The University of Leeds and her M.Sc. in Biotechnology at The University of Edinburgh and is currently a Ph.D. student. Her research is focused on a nano-vesicular (Nano-Ghost) treatment for myocardial infarction.
E-mail: jenniferj@campus.technion.ac.il
Dorit Hirschberg, Ph.D student
Dorit completed her B.A at the Faculty of Biology at the Technion and her M.S.c at Neve-Yaar research center. During her M.Sc she researched genetic mapping of color traits and the discovery of flavonoid pigments in melons. Dorit also worked as a laboratory technician at Technion youth center. Her Ph.D. research subject is brain cancer immunotherapy using using MSCs derived vesicles (Nano-ghost).
E-mail: bidorit9@gmail.com
Prof. Marcelle Machluf, Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering. Technion – Israel Institute of Technology