Prof. Karen Avraham

Prof. Avraham is Dean at the Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University and holds the Drs. Sarah and Felix Dumont Chair for Research of Hearing Disorders. She is a member of the Department of Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry, the Sagol School of Neuroscience and the Safra Center for Bioinformatics. Avraham was awarded the Sir Bernard Katz Prize, the Bruno Memorial Prize, the TEVA Prize for Groundbreaking Research in Rare Diseases, and the Teva Founders Prize on Breakthroughs. She is co-director of the Aufzien Family Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Parkinson’s Disease and the Taube-Koret Global Collaboration in Neurodegenerative Diseases. Prof. Avraham founded and co-directs the Biomed@TAU Research Hubs and the MSc program in Medical Sciences with a specialty in Genetic Counseling.

Hearing loss is a leading cause of disability worldwide, with an estimated 466 million people suffering from this debilitating loss. In adults, in particular in the elderly, hearing impairment causes communication difficulties, which, in turn, can lead to social isolation. Disabling hearing loss is highly prevalent in the elderly population, with about 25% between ages 65-74 and 50% of those aged 75 and above. Epidemiological and clinical studies have demonstrated that hearing loss is associated with cognitive decline in older adults. Genetic treatment for hearing loss is crucial, since the benefit from general solutions for deafness, such as hearing aids, if often low. Prof. Avraham’s goal is to determine the genetic basis of hearing loss and use genome editing to create models to study the mechanisms of auditory function. Gene therapy is being conducted on these models for human hearing loss. Regulatory mechanisms are being discovered at the level of noncoding RNA and methylation. The team’s work has demonstrated that genomic sequencing using high-throughput technologies is effective for genetic diagnoses in a diverse population, providing a guideline for precision medicine for hearing loss in Israel.