Prof. Hagit Eldar-Finkelman granted the Lady Davis Chair of Biochemistry

Prof. Hagit Eldar-Finkelman obtained her BSc in Chemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and her MSc in Physical Chemistry and PhD in Life Sciences at the Weizmann Institute. Her postdoctoral work was conducted with the Nobel Prize Laureate Edwin G. Krebs at the University of Washington in protein phosphorylation. She then became an Assistant Professor at the Harvard Medical School in the Division of Women’s Health and then joined TAU. She was awarded a distinguished scientist of the Israeli Association of Diabetes and the Hans Linder Prize of the Israeli Endocrinology Society, and currently takes part of the Taube-Koret Global Collaboration in Neurodegenerative Diseases.

The research in Hagit’s laboratory is focused on understanding the signal transduction mechanisms contributing to human diseases, particularly in the context of protein kinases.  Hagit made key contributions in the field of GSK-3 signaling, she characterized its biological functions, and demonstrated its important therapeutic implications in diabetes and neurodegenerative disorders. Hagit pioneered the strategy of development of GSK-3 inhibitors based on substrate binding mode, and initiated drug discovery and design within the theme "from peptides to small molecules". She published over 70 publications and is an inventor of ten patents.

More information at: https://www.heflab.sites.tau.ac.il/