June 2013
CV
Name:
Unger Ron
Date of birth: 30th Nov. 1958
The Mina & Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Science,
Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan,52900 Israel
Email: ron@biomodel.os.biu.ac.il
Tel: 972-3-5318124
Fax: 972-3-7384058
Education,
From-To
Institute
Area of Speciality
Degree
1981-1984
The Technion, The Israel Institute of Extended program in Computer
Technology, Haifa
Science
B.Sc., Cum Laude
1984-1986
Faculty of Mathematics and
Computer Science, The Weizmann
Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
Computational Biology
M.Sc.
1986-1990
Faculty of Mathematics and
Computer Science, The Weizmann
Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
Computational Biology
Ph.D.
Doctoral Thesis:
Enriched Analysis of Biological Sequences
Supervisor:
Prof. Joel L. Sussman and Prof. David Harel
Employment
From-To
Institute
Research Area
Title
2005-Present
Faculty of Life Sciences,
Bar-Ilan University, Israel
Computational Biology
Associate Professor
2003-2007
Open University, Israel
Bioinformatics Program
Consultant
1998-Present
Faculty of Life Sciences,
Bar-Ilan University, Israel
Bioinformatics
Undergraduate Program
Head
2001-2002
Center for Advanced Research in
Biotechnology (CARB), University of
Maryland
Nano-Biotechnology
1995-2005
Faculty of Life Sciences,
Bar-Ilan University, Israel
Computational Biology
Senior Lecturer
1990-1994
A joint appointment with the Center
of Advanced Research in
Biotechnology (CARB) - and Institute
for Advanced Computer Studies
(UMIACS)-University of Maryland
Computational Biology
Postdoctoral
Research Scientist
Sabbatical: Visiting
Professor
Public Scientific Activities
From-To
Type of Activity or Appointment
2009
Recipient of the Teva Founders’ Prize
2006-2009
President of the Israeli Society of Bioinformatics and Computational biology (ISBCB)
2006
Organizer and Co-Chairman of the Ninth Israeli Bioinformatics Conference
2006
Member of the organizing committee of ECCB 2006, the sixth European Conference for
Computational Biology
2005
Board member and President Elect of ISBCB (Israel Society of Bioinformatics and
Computational biology)
2003
Member of organizing committee of the 7th Israeli Bioinformatics Conference
1996-2000
Steering Committee: INN 2000 - National Center for Bioinformatics
1999
Organizer and Chairman of the Third Israeli Bioinformatics Conference
Main Research Interests
My research interests are in the field of Computational Biology. Current main research
projects are:
•
Using simple models to understand protein folding
In recent years it became evident that numerous human diseases (e.g. Alzheimer’s,
Parkinson, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease) are due to defects in the folding process of the
implicated proteins. One of the research subjects we study in this context is
understanding, using simple lattice model, the interactions that dominate protein
folding and the interactions found between proteins and the chaperon systems which
are involved in in-vivo folding. Many of these works are done in collaboration with
Prof. Amnon Horovitz from the Weizmann Institute. Additional work in this
direction is revealing a novel mechanism that facilitate folding of multi domain
proteins, demonstrating that there is a fine tuning of the relative folding rates of
different domains.
•
Computational characterization of non-coding RNA molecules and their targets
Trypanosomes are infectious parasites that have heavy burden on human health and
farm animals, especially in developing countries. Trypanosomes have unique RNA
editing and manipulation processes which offer therapeutic targets. Together with the
experimental lab of Prof. Shula Michaeli in BIU we are studying the repertoire of
nom-coding RNA (ncRNA) in these organisms. The bioinformatics of ncRNA
molecules in prokaryotic and simple eukaryotic (like parasites) is different from the
more studied higher eukaryotic organisms. Thus, in the last few years we devoted a
significant effort to develop computational tools suitable to study ncRNA molecules
in these organisms and conducted large scale studies using computational tools to
characterize their ncRNA molecules.
•
Understanding biological robustness using systems biology analysis
Genome wide association studies identified many loci where the presence of
particular personal variation (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism, SNP) is linked to
increased risk for common human diseases like high blood pressure or type2 diabetes.
The key characteristic of complex trait disease - increasing risk of disease with
number of affected loci - implies robustness properties of these networks unlike any
found in designed systems. Our hypothesis is that the organizational principles and
features of human robustness to mutations are a consequence of underlying
evolutionary processes. Thus, the key to successful exploitation of the genomic data
is the application of evolutionary principles to network analysis. Some of this work is
done in collaboration with Prof. John Moult from the University of Maryland.
•
Medical data mining
Novel computational methods of Machine Learning enable the discovery of complex
patterns within very large datasets. Applying these methods to medical data records
will enable the identification of complex risk factors and will lead to better predictive
personalized medicine. Israel has an advanced healthcare system and centralized,
well maintained, medical databases. We have started collaborations with Health
Organizations (Kopot Holim) and hospitals to analyze their data. Current projects
include analysis of cognitive data from computerized tests to aid in early detection of
neurological conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease; analysis of data of patients that
undergo bone marrow transplantation to predict their survival rates and analysis of
medical records to assist primary physicians to identify anomalous patients. Some of
this research is done in collaboration with Dr. Yanay Ofran from BIU.
.