Kalaniyot is an organization that aims to enhance the academic collaboration between Israeli universities and leading universities abroad. This session will introduce Kalaniyot’s activities to Israeli life science researchers and encourage international training and collaborative research, and expansion of skills and professional network. The speakers of the session will introduce the scope and mission of the organization, and will share their personal perspective and some examples of the impact of global research activities. The speakers will also share some of the work conducted in their labs and will be available for questions regarding Kalaniyot and their scientific work.
Session Schedule: Wednesday, 25.02.2026; 18:30-19:45; Big Blue Hall - Dan Hotel
Session Chair: Naama Kanarek, PhD
Session Speakers:
Ernest Fraenkel, PhD
Grover M. Hermann Professor in Health Sciences and Technology
Bio:
Dr. Ernest Fraenkel is the Grover M. Hermann Professor in Health Sciences and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-director of MIT’s graduate program in Computational and Systems Biology. His research integrates experimental and computational approaches to understand complex biological systems, with a focus on cancer and neurological disease. His laboratory develops network-based, machine learning, and AI-driven methods to analyze high-dimensional molecular data, including genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and spatial imaging data, to identify disease-associated pathways and therapeutic opportunities.
Dr. Fraenkel has played a leading scientific role in large collaborative efforts such as Answer ALS, contributing to the integration and analysis of multi-omic and clinical data to better understand disease heterogeneity and progression. His work has advanced understanding of tumor heterogeneity in brain cancers, mechanisms of neurodegeneration, and the application of AI-enabled models to human disease. He serves as faculty lead of the MIT-Northpond Initiative, which brings together academic and industry partners to accelerate translational research.
Following the events of October 7, Dr. Fraenkel helped organize and support the Jewish and Israeli community at MIT. In March 2024, he traveled to Israel with colleagues from MIT to meet with leaders in academia and civil society to better understand how they could provide meaningful support. These experiences helped guide the creation of the Kalaniyot foundation. Dr. Fraenkel is a co-founder of Kalaniyot and co-founder and co-chair of MIT Kalaniyot.
Talk title: Drug Testing Within the Patient: Systems Biology in Vivo
Mark C. Poznansky, M.D., Ph.D., F.R.C.P, F.I.D.S.A.
Director, Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center
Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Steve and Deborah Gorlin MGH Research Scholar
Physician, General and Transplant Infectious Diseases Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital
Mass General Brigham
Bio:
Mark Poznansky, MD, PhD, is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, an attending physician in infectious diseases medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and Founder and Director of the Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center (VIC) at MGH. He holds a doctoral degree from Cambridge University and a medical degree from the University of Edinburgh. His clinical sub specialization includes the treatment of infections in immune-compromised and transplant patients. The four scientific teams at VIC work at the interface between scientific discovery and medical product development, discovering novel immune processes, defining their molecular mechanisms and exploring their relevance to the development of vaccines and immunotherapies for specific forms of cancer, infectious diseases, type I diabetes and neurodegenerative diseases including ALS. VIC’s research and development work has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, Industry, BT1D and other private foundations and philanthropists over the past 17 years. Dr. Poznansky is the scientific founder of 5 biotech companies and brings his passion and wealth of personal experience of medical discovery, translational medicine and the development of novel products for patients to his work. Dr. Poznansky is also committed to supporting the Jewish healthcare community including through his work as co-founder and co-chair of the Jewish Employee Resource Group and MGB (now with over 450 members). In addition, Dr. Poznansky is co-founder and co-chair of the newly formed Harvard Medical School chapter of Kalaniyot which fosters and supports HMS – Israeli academic medical and biomedical research center collaboration through the sponsorship and funding of Israeli postdocs, clinicians and medical students to work and train at HMS labs and affiliated hospitals in Boston.
Talk Title: Accelerating the development of new vaccines and immunotherapies for cancer, infectious and immune mediated diseases
Naama Kanarek, PhD
Assistant Professor, Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School
Bio:
Dr. Naama Kanarek is a cancer metabolism researcher and Assistant Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital. She earned her B.Sc. in Medical Science, M.Sc. and PhD from Hadassah Medical School at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her Ph.D. in Immunology and Cancer Research, focused on cancer signaling, was mentored by Pro. Yinon Ben-Neriah and included an international collaboration for one year at the lab of Pro. Sankar Ghosh at Columbia University. Dr. Kanarek was a postdoctoral fellow at the Whitehead Institute (MIT). Working in David M. Sabatini’s laboratory, she studied the molecular response of leukemia cells to methotrexate, which led her to specialize in folate and one-carbon metabolism.
Currently, the Kanarek lab investigates metabolic adaptations with a focus on one-carbon metabolism. Her work spans basic molecular mechanisms and physiological systems to understand how cancer and immune cells function under nutritional stress. By utilizing metabolite profiling, genetic screens, and disease models, her team aims to advance the understanding of survival and improve health outcomes in cases of disease and malnutrition at both the cellular and whole-body levels.
Dr. Kanarek is well embedded in her community, and is strongly committed to mentorship and education. Dr. Kanarek is active in various community-oriented activities for women leadership in science and Israeli research and collaborations. Among these activities, id Dr. Kanarek’s role as a co-founder and co-chair of the Kalaniyot Harvard Chapter at Harvard Medical School.
Talk Title: Copper depletion boosts pediatric leukemia therapy
Dvir Harris, PhD
Assistant Professor, Schulich Faculty of Chemistry, Technion
Bio:
Dr. Dvir Harris is a photosynthesis researcher and an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry, Technion, Israel. He earned his B.Sc. in Molecular Biochemistry, M.Sc. in Chemistry and PhD in Energy, all from the Technion. His Ph.D. in Energy, focused on understanding and utilizing cyanobacterial photosynthesis, was mentored by Prof. Noam Adir. Dr. Harris was a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Chemistry, MIT. Working in Gabriela Schlau-Cohen’s laboratory, he added a layer of spectroscopic methods of light harvesting complexes to his structural biology background.
The Harris lab was launched a year ago, and is now investigating different aspects of biological light harvesting, focusing on elucidating the designing principles behind solar energy harvesting, and implementing these lessons in bio-hybrid and bio-inspired innovations. Dr. Harris’ extra-curricular activities during his post-doctoral phase ignited a strong drive towards supporting the Israeli and Jewish academic communities. Dr. Harris co-founded the Chemistry thematic group of ScienceAbroad, and molded the Kalaniyot post-doctoral fellow prospect through on-campus engagement during the aftermath of October 7th. Dr. Harris is also an active proponent of next-gen high-school student engagement in chemistry-related fields at higher academia. Additionally, Dr. Harris serves on the advisory board of the Kalaniyot foundation.
Talk Title: Boost and Brake: One Switch That Tunes Photosynthesis