Asael Lubotzky grew up in Efrat, studied at the Hesderyeshiva in Ma'ale Adumim, was accepted to Shayetet 13, but chose to enlist in Golani's 51st Battalion. He underwent a training course as a combat soldier and was chosen as the outstanding company cadet. After completing Officer Candidate School Asael served as an officer commanding a platoon of the Golani Brigade. He led his platoon in operations in Gaza and, during the Second Lebanon War, fought in many battles in which many of his comrades were killed and wounded, until his own severe injury in the Battle of Bint Jbeil[1] left him with a disability.[2][3]
Lubotzky conducted research in the lab of professor Haim Cedar and became a PhD student under Professor Yuval Dor and Ruth Shemer at the Hebrew University's Department of Developmental Biology and Cancer Research, who works on methylation patterns of circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA). Lubotzky was recognized for his studies on cfDNA as cancer diagnostic markers, and his research has earned him several honors, including the Israel Cancer Research Fund (ICRF) cancer grant[8][9] and in 2019, he was awarded The James Sivartsen Prize in Cancer Research by The Hebrew University.[10]
In 2021 he received the Joint Award of the National Institute of Psychobiology in Israel (NIPI) and the Israeli Society of Biological Psychiatry.[12]
In 2021 he was awarded a PhD for a thesis entitled: "Liquid Biopsies Reveal Collateral Tissue Damage in Cancer and Brain Damage in Neural Pathologies".[13] His findings demonstrated that metastatic tumors cause collateral tissue damage, releasing cfDNA from affected organs, and that cfDNA methylation patterns can help pinpoint metastases and their tissue origins.[14]
In 2022 he received The Rothschild Fellowship for young scholars of outstanding academic merit.[15]
In the same year, Lubotzky and his colleagues published a study showing that brain cells die during psychotic episodes, with higher levels of brain-derived cfDNA detected in patients experiencing psychotic symptoms, compared to healthy controls.[16] The finding would serve as a proof of concept for brain-derived cell-free DNA as biomarkers of psychosis.[17]
^Lubotzky, Asael et al. "Elevated brain-derived cell-free DNA among patients with first psychotic episode – a proof-of-concept study." Elife. 2022 Jun 14;11:e76391, PMID35699419