Uri Alon

Uri Alon
Uri Alon
Born	1969 (age 54–55)[3]
Alma mater	Hebrew University of Jerusalem Weizmann Institute of Science
Known for	Network motifs
Awards	Overton Prize (2004)
Scientific career
Institutions	Weizmann Institute of Science Princeton University
Doctoral advisor	David Mukamel[1]
Other academic advisors	Dov Shvarts Stanislas Leibler[2]
Doctoral students	Ron Milo
Website	www.weizmann.ac.il/mcb/UriAlon

Uri Alon (Hebrew: אורי אלון; born 1969) is a Professor and Systems Biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science.^[4] His highly cited^[5] research investigates gene expression,^[6] network motifs^[7][8] and the design principles of biological networks^[9] in Escherichia coli and other organisms using both computational biology and traditional experimental wet laboratory techniques.^[10]

Education

Alon earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics^[1][11] from the Weizmann Institute of Science.

Career

After having his interest in biology sparked, Alon headed to Princeton University for his postdoctoral work in experimental biology. He returned to the Weizmann Institute as a professor.

Alon features in several popular videos on YouTube such as Sunday at the Lab (with Michael Elowitz)^[12] and How to Give a Good Talk.^[13] As of 2011, he is the author of the most highly bookmarked scientific paper on CiteULike^[14] How To Choose a Good Scientific Problem^[15] and How to Build a Motivated Research Group.^[16]

In 2021 he was appointed visiting professor in the bioengineering department of Stanford University. He is a member of the IBS Biomedical Mathematics Group.^[17]

Research

Uri Alon significantly contributed to our understanding of gene regulatory networks and generalized the term network motif in 2002.^[18][19][20]

Together with his team, he reunited different theories of endocrine feedback loops by introducing the closely related concepts of dynamical compensation and autoimmune surveillance of hypersecreting mutants (ASHM).^[21][22][23] The theories are able to explain a plethora of phenomena ranging from circannual endocrine rhythms^[24] over type 2 diabetes^[25] and other common endocrine disorders^[26] to alcohol addiction^[27] and age-related diseases.^[28]

Awards

In 2004 Alon was awarded the Overton Prize^[2] for "outstanding accomplishment by a scientist in the early to mid stage of his or her career" by the International Society for Computational Biology. Alon has also been awarded:

• Moore Fellowship, California Institute of Technology (2000)
• EMBO Young Investigator Award (2001)
• IBM Faculty Award (2003)
• Minerva Junior Research Group on Biological Computation (2003)
• Morris L. Levinson Award in Biology (2003)
• Teva Founders Prize (2005)
• European Molecular Biology Organization membership (2007)^[29]
• Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study fellow 2009^[30]
• HFSP Nakasone Award (2014)^[31]

References

1. Alon, U.; Evans, M.; Hinrichsen, H.; Mukamel, D. (1996). "Roughening Transition in a One-Dimensional Growth Process". Physical Review Letters. 76 (15): 2746–2749. arXiv:cond-mat/9512069. Bibcode:1996PhRvL..76.2746A. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.76.2746. PMID 10060778. S2CID 26730428.
2. "ISCB Newsletter 7-3". iscb.org.
3. "Wis-Find: Author Search Results". weizmann.ac.il.
4. "Homepage - Uri Alon". weizmann.ac.il.
5. Uri Alon publications indexed by Google Scholar
6. Alon, U.; Barkai, N.; Notterman, D. A.; Gish, K.; Ybarra, S.; Mack, D.; Levine, A. J. (1999). "Broad patterns of gene expression revealed by clustering analysis of tumor and normal colon tissues probed by oligonucleotide arrays". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 96 (12): 6745–6750. Bibcode:1999PNAS...96.6745A. doi:10.1073/pnas.96.12.6745. PMC 21986. PMID 10359783.
7. Milo, R.; Shen-Orr, S.; Itzkovitz, S.; Kashtan, N.; Chklovskii, D.; Alon, U. (2002). "Network Motifs: Simple Building Blocks of Complex Networks". Science. 298 (5594): 824–827. Bibcode:2002Sci...298..824M. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.225.8750. doi:10.1126/science.298.5594.824. PMID 12399590. S2CID 9884096.
8. Shen-Orr, S. S.; Milo, R.; Mangan, S.; Alon, U. (2002). "Network motifs in the transcriptional regulation network of Escherichia coli". Nature Genetics. 31 (1): 64–68. doi:10.1038/ng881. PMID 11967538. S2CID 2180121.
9. Uri Alon (2007). An introduction to systems biology: design principles of biological circuits. Boca Raton: Chapman & Hall/CRC. ISBN 978-1-58488-642-6.
10. Uri Alon publications indexed by Microsoft Academic
11. "arXiv.org Search". arxiv.org.
12. "Uri Alon's Song - Sunday at the Lab co-written with Elowitz" on YouTube
13. "How to Give a Good Talk by Uri Alon" on YouTube
14. "CiteULike CiteGeist: Popular Papers". Retrieved 2011-06-09.
15. Alon, U. (2009). "How to Choose a Good Scientific Problem" (PDF). Molecular Cell. 35 (6): 726–728. doi:10.1016/j.molcel.2009.09.013. PMID 19782018. Retrieved 2020-09-16.
16. Alon, U. (2010). "How to Build a Motivated Research Group" (PDF). Molecular Cell. 37 (2): 151–152. doi:10.1016/j.molcel.2010.01.011. PMID 20122395. Retrieved 2020-09-16.
17. "Uri Alon". Biomedical Mathematics Group. Retrieved 2024-05-26.
18. R. Milo, S. Shen-Orr, S. Itzkovitz, N. Kashtan, D. Chklovskii, U. Alon: Network motifs: simple building blocks of complex networks, Science 298, 2002, S. 824–827
19. S. Shen-Orr, R. Milo, S. Mangan, U. Alon: Network motifs in the transcriptional regulation network of Escherichia coli, Nature Genetics 31, 2002,: 64–68
20. Alon, Uri (June 2007). "Network motifs: theory and experimental approaches". Nature Reviews Genetics. 8 (6): 450–461. doi:10.1038/nrg2102. PMID 17510665. S2CID 7169406.
21. Karin, O; Swisa, A; Glaser, B; Dor, Y; Alon, U (8 November 2016). "Dynamical compensation in physiological circuits". Molecular Systems Biology. 12 (11): 886. doi:10.15252/msb.20167216. PMC 5147051. PMID 27875241.
22. Maimon, L; Milo, T; Moyal, RS; Mayo, A; Danon, T; Bren, A; Alon, U (26 August 2020). "Timescales of Human Hair Cortisol Dynamics". iScience. 23 (9): 101501. Bibcode:2020iSci...23j1501M. doi:10.1016/j.isci.2020.101501. PMC 7490542. PMID 32911331.
23. Korem Kohanim, Y; Tendler, A; Mayo, A; Friedman, N; Alon, U (19 May 2020). "Endocrine Autoimmune Disease as a Fragility of Immune Surveillance against Hypersecreting Mutants". Immunity. 52 (5): 872–884.e5. doi:10.1016/j.immuni.2020.04.022. PMC 7237888. PMID 32433950.
24. Tendler, A; Bar, A; Mendelsohn-Cohen, N; Karin, O; Korem Kohanim, Y; Maimon, L; Milo, T; Raz, M; Mayo, A; Tanay, A; Alon, U (16 February 2021). "Hormone seasonality in medical records suggests circannual endocrine circuits". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 118 (7): e2003926118. Bibcode:2021PNAS..11803926T. doi:10.1073/pnas.2003926118. PMC 7896322. PMID 33531344.
25. Karin, O; Alon, U (26 June 2017). "Biphasic response as a mechanism against mutant takeover in tissue homeostasis circuits". Molecular Systems Biology. 13 (6): 933. doi:10.15252/msb.20177599. PMC 5488663. PMID 28652282.
26. Karin, O; Raz, M; Tendler, A; Bar, A; Korem Kohanim, Y; Milo, T; Alon, U (July 2020). "A new model for the HPA axis explains dysregulation of stress hormones on the timescale of weeks". Molecular Systems Biology. 16 (7): e9510. doi:10.15252/msb.20209510. PMC 7364861. PMID 32672906.
27. Karin, O; Raz, M; Alon, U (19 March 2021). "An opponent process for alcohol addiction based on changes in endocrine gland mass". iScience. 24 (3): 102127. Bibcode:2021iSci...24j2127K. doi:10.1016/j.isci.2021.102127. PMC 7903339. PMID 33665551.
28. Katzir, I; Adler, M; Karin, O; Mendelsohn-Cohen, N; Mayo, A; Alon, U (March 2021). "Senescent cells and the incidence of age-related diseases". Aging Cell. 20 (3): e13314. doi:10.1111/acel.13314. PMC 7963340. PMID 33559235.
29. "Uri Alon". f1000.com.
30. Radcliffe Fellows
31. "2014 HFSP Nakasone Award goes to Uri Alon". hfsp.org.

External links

• Official website
• Uri Alon at TED