Draft:Itamar Harel

Itamar Harel is an Israeli scientist, faculty member in the Department of Genetics at the Alexander Silberman Institute of Life sciences, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. His research focusses on vertebrate aging and age-related diseases.

Research
Harel is a geneticist known for his work on aging and related diseases, as reviewed in. Harel's research focuses on understanding the mechanisms of aging and longevity, with a particular interest in using the emerging African turquoise killifish (Nothobranchius furzeri) model to study these processes. His work aims to uncover the biological pathways that influence aging in order to develop potential interventions to promote healthy aging.

Harel developed a genetic platform in the naturally short-lived turquoise killifish, which lives only twice as long as Drosophila. Using this vertebrate model he explored protein aggregation with age, revealing naturally occurring prion-like behaviors that propose an alternative mechanism for damage propagation during aging.

He then explored how aging is scaled between species, what mediates its sexual dimorphism, and why longevity is proportional to other species-specific traits such as age at maturity. In a series of studies, the Harel lab revealed additional mechanisms that regulate vertebrate longevity. They identified how reproduction might impact vertebrate aging by demonstrating that the germline itself can regulate longevity and stress resistance in a sex-specific manner. Additionally, the Harel lab discovered another vertebrate longevity mechanism linked to energy homeostasis via the AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) pathway.

Research in Harel's laboratory also focuses on developing genetic tools, including lineage tracing, modeling of sporadic age-related cancers, and precise control of pituitary hormones in-vivo.

Awards & Honors

 * 2024 - Krill Prize for Excellence in Scientific Research by the Wolf Foundation.
 * 2024 - Elected member, the Young Academy of Europe (YAE).
 * 2023 - Invited to join the Pamela and Paul Austin Research Centre on Aging.
 * 2018 - Invited to join the Zuckerman STEM leadership program.
 * 2017 - Member of the International Zebrafish Society (2017).

Selected Publications

 * 1) Moses, E. et al. The killifish germline regulates longevity and somatic repair in a sex-specific manner. Nature Aging (2024) DOI: 10.1038/s43587-024-00632-0
 * 2) Harel, I. et al. Identification of protein aggregates in the aging vertebrate brain with prion-like and phase-separation properties. Cell Reports (2024) DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2023.112787
 * 3) Chen, Y. R. et al. Tissue-specific landscape of protein aggregation and quality control in an aging vertebrate. Developmental Cell (2024) DOI:10.1016/j.devcel.2024.04.014.
 * 4) Moses, E., Franek, R. & Harel, I. A scalable and tunable platform for functional interrogation of peptide hormones in fish. Elife (2023) DOI: 10.7554/eLife.85960
 * 5) Astre, G. et al. Genetic perturbation of AMP biosynthesis extends lifespan and restores metabolic health in a naturally short-lived vertebrate. Developmental Cell (2023) DOI: 10.1016/j.devcel.2023.05.015
 * 6) Harel, I. The turquoise killifish. Nature Methods (2022) doi:10.1038/s41592-022-01631-y.
 * 7) Harel, I. et al. A platform for rapid exploration of aging and diseases in a naturally short-lived vertebrate. Cell (2015) DOI:10.1016/j.cell.2015.01.038.