Uri Alon (

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

: אורי אלון; born 1969) is a

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

and Systems Biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science. His highly cited research investigates

gene expression Gene expression is the process by which information from a gene is used in the synthesis of a functional gene product that enables it to produce end products, protein or non-coding RNA, and ultimately affect a phenotype, as the final effect. The ...

, network motifs and the design principles of biological networks in ''

Escherichia coli ''Escherichia coli'' (),Wells, J. C. (2000) Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow ngland Pearson Education Ltd. also known as ''E. coli'' (), is a Gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus ''Escher ...

'' and other organisms using both

computational biology Computational biology refers to the use of data analysis, mathematical modeling and computational simulations to understand biological systems and relationships. An intersection of computer science, biology, and big data, the field also has fo ...

and traditional experimental

wet laboratory A wet lab, or experimental lab, is a type of laboratory where it is necessary to handle various types of chemicals and potential "wet" hazards, so the room has to be carefully designed, constructed, and controlled to avoid spillage and contamination ...

techniques.

Education

Alon earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...

and his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

Theoretical Physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...

from the Weizmann Institute of Science.

Career

After having his interest in biology sparked, Alon headed to

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

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 Michael B. Elowitz is a biologist and professor of Biology, Bioengineering, and Applied Physics at the California Institute of Technology, and investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In 2007 he was the recipient of the Genius gran ...

) and ''How to Give a Good Talk''. As of 2011, he is the author of the most highly bookmarked scientific paper on

CiteULike CiteULike was a web service which allowed users to save and share citations to academic papers. Based on the principle of social bookmarking, the site worked to promote and to develop the sharing of scientific references amongst researchers. In ...

''How To Choose a Good Scientific Problem'' and ''How to Build a Motivated Research Group''. In 2021 he was appointed visiting professor in the bioengineering department of

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

Research

Uri Alon significantly contributed to our understanding of

gene regulatory network A gene (or genetic) regulatory network (GRN) is a collection of molecular regulators that interact with each other and with other substances in the cell to govern the gene expression levels of mRNA and proteins which, in turn, determine the fun ...

s and generalized the term network motif in 2002. Together with his team, he reunited different theories of

endocrine The endocrine system is a messenger system comprising feedback loops of the hormones released by internal glands of an organism directly into the circulatory system, regulating distant target organs. In vertebrates, the hypothalamus is the neu ...

feedback loops by introducing the closely related concepts of ''dynamical compensation'' and ''autoimmune surveillance of hypersecreting mutants'' (ASHM). The theories are able to explain a plethora of phenomena ranging from circannual endocrine rhythms over

type 2 diabetes Type 2 diabetes, formerly known as adult-onset diabetes, is a form of diabetes mellitus that is characterized by high blood sugar, insulin resistance, and relative lack of insulin. Common symptoms include increased thirst, frequent urination, ...

and other common endocrine disorders to alcohol addiction and age-related diseases.

Awards

In 2004 Alon was awarded the

Overton Prize The ISCB Overton Prize is a Awards in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, computational biology prize awarded annually for outstanding accomplishment by a scientist in the early to mid stage of his or her career. Laureates have made significan ...

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), *

Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University—also known as the Harvard Radcliffe Institute—is a part of Harvard University that fosters interdisciplinary research across the humanities, sciences, social sciences, arts, a ...

fellow 2009 *

HFSP Nakasone Award } The International Human Frontier Science Program Organization (HFSPO) is a non-profit organization, based in Strasbourg, France, that funds basic research in life sciences. The organization implements the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) an ...

(2014)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Alon, Uri 1969 births Living people Members of the European Molecular Biology Organization Weizmann Institute of Science faculty Overton Prize winners Israeli bioinformaticians Systems biologists Hebrew University of Jerusalem alumni Israeli people of Romanian-Jewish descent Israeli physicists Network scientists