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Our Research Team

Prof. Dror Sharon, PhD

Dror established the lab in 2002 and is the principal investigator. He served as the chairman of ISVER (The Israeli Society of Vision and Eye Research) 2015-2018 and ARVO-internation chapter program 2016-2018. Dror acts as an academic editor in the PLOS one journal and is a member of the ERDC consortium.

Dr. Sandeep Asodu

Sandeep is a postdoctoral fellow studying RNA-based therapeutics of IRDs, as part of our project with the Moderna company

Tamar Haymann

Tamar is a master students studying genetic counselling, NGS data of retinal diseases, and mutations affected the promoter region.

Manar Salameh

Manar is a master students studying animal models of IRDs, including the FAM161A and TRPM1 genes, gene therapy and RNA editing.

Nina Schnaider

Nina is a direct-route PhD student studying novel therapeutic approached for inherited retinal diseases.

Johanna Valensi 

Johanna is a Master student studying novel RNA-based therapeutic approached for inherited retinal diseases.

Previous lab members
Talya Milo

Talya is a Master student studying novel candidate genes for inherited retinal diseases.

Dr. Mor Hanany, PhD

Mor finalized her direct-route PhD thesis studying the genetics of retinal diseases using next generation sequencing approaches, including whole genome sequencing and whole exome sequencing, and performs carrier frequency analysis for retinal mutations.

Dr. Samer Khateb,
MD PhD

Samer is an ophthalmologist and researcher at the Dept. of Ophthalmology. Samer is heavily involved in the study of syndromic inherited retinal diseases, including gene identification and generation of animal models.

Anat Beit-Ya'acov, MSc

Anat performed her Master degree during 2004-2006 studying various genes causing inherited retinal degenerations.

Hanna Bitner, MSc

Haana performed her Master degree during 2008-2010 studying the genetics of Best disease in the Israeli and Danish families. 

Shiraz Harun-Khun, MSc

Sֿhiraz performed her Master degree during 2007-2009 studying gene expression patterns in the pigeon retina.

Dr. Yogapriya Sundaresan, PhD

Priya was a postdoc fellow studying various aspects of genetics and therapies of inherited retinal diseases, including Exonic Splicing Enhancers (ESEs), and the KIZ gene.

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Dr. Prakadeeswari Gopalakrishna, PhD

Prakadeeswari was a postdoctoral fellow studying the expression and therapeutical modalities for RP caused by mutations in FAM161A. 

Dr. Dikla Bandah-Rozenfeld, PhD

Dikla performed her Msc (with distinction) and PhD thesis during 2004-2012. She is a first author on papers describing the Identification of the novel RP genes FAM161A and IMPG2.

Dr. Lina Zelinger, PhD

Lina performed a direct-route PhD thesis (with distinction) during 2005-2013. A first author on the paper describing the Identification of the novel RP gene DHDDS and the involvement of CNGA3 in achromatopsia in the Israeli and Palestinian populations. Lina is currently at postdoctorate fellow at the Swaroop lab in NEI, NIH.

Adva Kimchi, MSc

Adva performed a combined MSc in genetic counseling and research on retinal diseases during 2014-2016. She used whole-exome sequencing to identify novel genes causing inherited retinal degenerations.

Ayat Khalaileh, MSc

Anat performed her Master study on the genetics of Usher syndrome in the Israeli and Palestinian populations.

Yael Kinarty, MSc

Yael performed her Master degree during 2016-2018 studying zebrafish models for retinal degenerations in a collaborative project together with Dr. Adi Inbal at the Faculty of Medicine, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Dr. Prasanthi Namburi, PhD

Prasanthi performed her postdoctoral fellowing during 2015-2018 studying the genetics of inherited retinal diseases. Her most important finding was the identification of CEP78 mutations as the cause of cone-rod degeneration and hearing loss. 

Shoshi Kurtzman, MSc

Shoshi performed her Master degree during 2015-2017 in genetic counseling and studied functional aspects of DHDDS in retinal degenerations

Ephrat Brill, B.optom

Ephrat was a lab technician (2015-2018) working on various projects including the MIPs mutation detection tool and verification of whole exam data.

Reut Ifrah

Reut is a Master student studying the effect of DHDDS knockdown in drosophilla in a collaborative project together with Prof. Baruch Minke at the Faculty of Medicine, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Alaa Abu-Diab

Alaa is a Master student working on syndromic retinal degenerations, and mainly Usher syndrome. She is using various sequencing techniques aiming to identify disease-causing mutations. She also develops animal models for studying retinal diseases.

Dr. Nadia Kaizerman, MD MSc

Nadia performed her Master degree during 2004-2006 studying the USH2A gene.

Dr. Avigail Beryozkin, PhD

Avigail performed her Master degree during 2010-2012 and her PhD between 2013-2019. she established a knock out mouse

model for FAM161A and is performed gene therapy on this model.

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