BAR-ILAN INSTITUTE OF NANOTECHNOLOGY & ADVANCED MATERIALS | 2019 ANNUAL REPORT

Dr. Shahar Alon, an expert in nanoscale molecular tissue characterization, joined BINA and The Alexander Kofkin Faculty of Engineering at Bar-Ilan University in 2019. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Sagol School of Neuroscience Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program for Outstanding Students at Tel Aviv University, and then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). There, as a part of the synthetic neurobiology group, he focused on developing technologies to map molecules inside tissue. “At BINA, I will focus on studying brain tissue and tumors. Interaction with BINA faculty and students allows me to improve all aspects of my research, from further advancing the core technology I developed (in the study of nanoscale compositional mapping of molecules in tissues) to applying the technology in the field of nanoscience,” elaborates Dr. Alon, an expert in the newly emerging field of “spatial genomics”, that is, studying cells using comprehensive genetic tools in the 3D space of tissues. “In recent years, there has been considerable interest globally in research and development of technologies to map the heterogeneity of cells in their biological environment, that is, within the tissue. This heterogeneity is at the root of many diseases, including cancer; developing these technologies today will enable tomorrow’s treatments. These technologies are based on in-depth genomic characterization of cells from normal and pathological human tissue, both on the tissue level and on the cellular level, mapping the relative position of molecules with respect to one another. However, spatial localization of molecules (mRNA, proteins, etc.) within cells requires nanoprecision, which is not easily achieved with standard optical methods. Creating these technologies for complex biological systems requires a multidisciplinary approach using tools from engineering, biology, physics, computer science and chemistry. Ultimately, these technologies will produce large-scale datasets that will require new analysis tools from the field of data science.” Dr. Shahar Alon 13