their AIRR-seq. We also developed VDJbase, a public database that includes genotype and haplotype inferences. Using these and other tools, we have so far studied immune responses in multiple sclerosis, celiac, Crohn’s disease, hepatitis C virus, COVID-19 and breast cancer. In healthy individuals (humans and mice), we study vaccine responses and aspects of the basic function of the adaptive immune system, its heredity and development, and its interactions with the microbiome.” BINA’s specialized equipment facilities will support Prof. Yaari to realize his future goals to develop nanotechnologies (e.g., lab on a chip) and design devices to identify immune repertoire patterns for personalized medicine, diagnostics and prognostics of diseases. Prof. Yaari’s research collaborations spread across all continents and include both leading universities and medical institutions in the United States, Canada, Australia, England, Germany, Norway and Israel. He says, “I trust BINA, with its broad and diverse partnerships, will help me continue to build new collaborations while strengthening the existing ones.” Prof. Gur Yaari, an expert in computational systems biology, joined BINA in 2021. He completed his PhD in multidisciplinary physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and traveled to the United States to complete a postdoctoral fellowship at the Yale University School of Medicine. Prof. Yaari returned to Israel and established his laboratory in BIU’s Alexander Kofkin Faculty of Engineering. In 2018–2019, he also served as the scientific manager of the personalized medicine department at Rabin Medical Center. In his data science-driven lab, Prof. Yaari and his group combine experimental and computational expertise to address fundamental questions in biology, with particular emphasis on the adaptive immune system. Unlike innate immunity, adaptive immunity (also known as acquired immunity) develops throughout an organism’s life, in response to the specific pathogens to which it has been exposed. The adaptive immunity receptors—T-cell receptors, B-cell receptors and antibodies—are highly specific; each responds to a different threat. Hence, the adaptive immune response is different from one individual to another. “High-throughput sequencing of adaptive immune receptor repertoires (AIRR-seq) provides unprecedented insights into adaptive immunity. Although promising, the immense diversity of the receptor sequences makes the analysis of repertoire sequencing data distinct and extremely challenging,” says Prof. Yaari. “In my lab, we are continuously developing strategies to infer new receptor alleles, genotypes and haplotypes, methods to estimate affinity-dependent selection and machine-learning applications to classify clinical samples based on BINA’s specialized equipment facilities will support Prof. Yaari to realize his future goals to develop nano-technologies (e.g., lab on a chip) and design devices to identify immune repertoire patterns for personalized medicine, diagnostics and prognostics of diseases Prof. Gur Yaari 20
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