Udi Binshtok obtained his BSc in physics at Tel Aviv University. He joined Prof. David Sprinzak’s lab as an undergraduate, continued there for his MSc in theoretical and mathematical biology and switched to the university’s direct PhD track in the School of Neurobiology, Biochemistry and Biophysics. In his PhD, Udi developed new models of cell-to-cell signaling and tissue patterning during embryonic development and homeostasis in adults, through the highly conserved signaling pathway termed Notch Signaling. His work is accomplished in a framework of international collaborations. In a joint study with Prof. Thomas Klein’s lab at Heinrich Heine University in Dusseldorf, he revealed a novel compensation mechanism between different aspects of the Notch signaling pathway that is essential for normal development of sensory organs in the wing and Notum of the Drosophila genus. In a joint project with the group of Dr. Laure Bally-Cuif at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, he discovered a novel role for Notch signaling in coordinating neural stem cell fate decisions in the adult Zebrafish brain.

 

Udi is a recipient of the French government’s Chateaubriand Training Research Fellowship for Israeli researchers to conduct research in France. With the support of the Emergency Postdoctoral Fellowship offered by The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Udi will expand his collaboration with Dr. Bally-Cuif, both in Israel and in France, as a post-doctoral fellow in Prof. Sprinzak’s lab. The joint project will focus on the interplay between Notch signaling and cell morphology as an underlying mechanism during differentiation and maintenance of the neural stem cell population in the adult vertebrate brain.