Reichman University disclosed today its plan to inaugurate a research institute focused on evolving groundbreaking technologies within synthetic biology. This endeavor is possible due to a comprehensive grant to enhance inventive scientific exploration in Israel. The forthcoming institute aims to serve as a convergence point for cross-disciplinary research, inviting scientists, engineers, and clinicians from around Israel and beyond to join forces on initiatives targeting significant contemporary societal challenges.

Synthetic biology, a relatively recent scientific discipline, merges molecular biology with sophisticated engineering. This versatile technique leverages living organisms and, via creative engineering, equips them to undertake exact and purpose-specific tasks addressing challenges across various sectors, including medicine, biofuels, textiles, defense technologies, food, and agriculture. The Scojen Institute plans to immerse itself in fundamental and applied research spanning diverse aspects of synthetic biology and correlated fields within state-of-the-art laboratories. This will be facilitated through innovative technologies that fuse and utilize knowledge derived from life sciences, exact sciences, medicine, and engineering.

“The Scojen Institute represents a major step forward for the university and the broader Israeli scientific community,” said Prof. Uriel Reichman, founding president and chairman of the board of Reichman University. “We have brought the power of the interdisciplinary method into the fields of life sciences, medical sciences, and exact sciences. We are confident that the institute will become a world-leading center for synthetic biology research, driving innovation and positive impact through significant scientific breakthroughs.”

Prof. Yossi Shaham is slated to direct the institute. A Technion Faculty of Engineering graduate, a postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley, and a former faculty member at Cornell University, Prof. Shaham also held the Bernard L. Schwartz Chair for Nanoscale Information Technologies at Tel Aviv University. With a history of over 30 years in research and instruction in micro and nano technologies for solid-state devices and large-scale integrated circuits, Prof. Shaham has unique expertise in applying synthetic biology to functional biosensors on biochips.

“We are excited to welcome Prof. Shaham to the Reichman University family, and we look forward to seeing what the future holds for the Scojen Institute and the field of synthetic biology in general,” said Prof. Noam Lemelstrich Latar, head of the Innovation Center at Reichman University. “By bringing together some of the brightest minds in the field, we are confident that we can make significant progress towards solving some of the world's most pressing problems.”