Dean of Faculty of Medicine awarded ISF Breakthrough Research Grant

Prof. Karen Avraham received one of 11 ISF Breakthrough Grants awarded in Israel, on the topic "Regulatory Elements in Gene Therapy for Deafness”. These are the largest grants provided by the Israel Science Foundation to date, in order to foster ‘high risk - high gain’ research projects. Prof. Avraham and her team plan to establish a genome-wide map that will cover critical developmental time points and cell types of the organ of Corti of the inner ear, and to study the function of these enhancers towards their use in gene therapy for treating hearing loss. Avraham’s pioneering work in the field led to the successful identification and characterization of 30 genes for deafness. Her work led the first study of profiling of microRNAs by high-throughput RNA-seq, the first comprehensive identification of long non-coding RNAs in the inner ear and the first single-nucleotide resolution maps of DNA methylation. Most recently, her team succeeded in rescuing hearing using gene therapy in a model for human deafness.