Dr. Avraham Ashkenazi

Dr. Avraham Ashkenazi is a faculty member at the Faculty of Medicine and a member of Sagol School of Neuroscience. He is also the co-director of the BioMed@TAU Research Hub Disorders of the Mind and Brain. Dr. Ashkenazi completed his Ph.D. at the Weizmann Institute. He then moved to the University of Cambridge as a Postdoctoral Fellow investigating autophagy and neurodegeneration. He was awarded the Distinguished Young Investigator Award by the Federation of European Biochemical Societies, and the Azrieli Foundation Faculty Fellowship.

Dr. Ashkenazi’s lab utilizes state-of-the-art technologies to elucidate cellular mechanisms of neurological disorders. Many of these disorders progress late in life, such as Huntington’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. A common characteristic in these disorders is the accumulation of proteins that are not folded properly and can form aggregates in cells. Research in the lab is currently focused on the ubiquitinproteasome and autophagy pathways, the main routes by which aggregate-prone proteins are degraded. Also, these pathways are important for cells to cope with various stress conditions. This research will elucidate novel regulatory pathways of protein homeostasis in cells to better understand the basis of these devastating diseases and to identify future therapeutic targets.