Employment
2007 - present    Senior Lecturer, Tel Aviv University

2006 - 2007         Ph.D. level instructor (Junior lecturer)
2005 - 2006         Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel George S. Wise postdoctoral fellow.
2003 - 2005         Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada. Posdoctoral training at the W. Ford Doolittle lab

Education

1992 - 1996   Technion - Israeli Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel, B.Sc.,

                          Biotechnology and Food Engineering - Magna Cum Laude.
1996 - 1998    Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel, M.Sc., Biotechnology. – Magna Cum Laude.
1998 - 2003    Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel, Ph.D. Microbiology - With Distinction.

Honours and Awards

The Nili Rubinovich-Grossman memorial award (ISM) 2008
The George S. Wise postdoctoral fellowship 2006-2007
The Killam Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2003-2005.
The Joan and Jaim Constantiner Institute for Molecular Genetics Travel Scholarship, 2000, 2002.
The Kaplun Scholarship Award, 2002.
The Wolf Doctoral Fellowship Award, 2001.
The Award for Research and Teaching Excellence in Medicine and Life Sciences, 1998, 2000.

Understanding evolutionary processes behind bacterial adaptation has contributed to both the medical community and to evolutionary theory. Broadly, our research interests revolve around two related topics: 1. The role of lateral gene transfer (LGT) in the evolution of microorganisms and 2. The study of host-microbe interactions, with particular focus on interactions between bacterial pathogens and multi-cellular eukaryotic hosts that result in disease. We are interested in fundamental questions in microbial ecology and evolution: How does host specificity evolve? How did virulence factors originate, and did they descend from proteins that ancestrally mediated interactions with unicellular eukaryotes, or are they instead products of gene recruitment from unrelated bacterial functions? Which forces shape the population structure of microbial communities in the mammalian microbiota?

Microbial ecology in health and disease. The mammalian intestinal microbiota (also known as gut flora) is a complex ecosystem containing hundreds of microbial species, with and bacterial cells in our body vastly outnumber our own cells. The microbiota not only contributes to the nutrition and gut development of the host but is also required for development of a healthy immune response, and is, to some degree, genetically determined. The human microbiota has been attracting tremendous interest and has been mentioned as one of the "Areas to Watch for 2008” in Science's Breakthrough of the Year. Recently, there is increasing evidence supporting the involvement of the gut microbiota in several human diseases such as inflammatory bowel diseases, colorectal cancer and irritable bowel syndrome as well as disease-promoting conditions such as obesity. However, due to its amazing complexity and the limitation of current microbe cultivation techniques, the microbiota remains a poorly understood ecosystem, in need of further research. We study the human microbiota using metagenomic techniques, and analyze samples from both healthy individuals and patients with Crohn's disease, irritable bowel syndrome and colorectal cancer, to try and explore the different roles the microbiota plays in these diseases.

Impact of lateral gene transfer on microbial evolution. LGT plays a crucial role in the evolution of microorganisms, including pathogens, and is a major source of genetic innovation. Many known virulence factors are the product of LGT, probably because the strong selective advantage they confer greatly increases the genes' chances of being fixed in a population. Using a variety of bioinformatic approaches we identify new laterally transferred genes and study their evolution. We also investigate why some gene functions are transferred frequently while others are only rarely horizontally acquired. We are particularly interested in cases where such genes are the driving forces behind bacterial speciation and virulence. We are also interested in inter-species recombination, a process which was believed to be extremely rare but, is now known to exist in several prokaryotic groups. A review of our some of our recent work in this field can bound at ABSTRACT

Refereed Articles

1. Berdichevski Y, Lamed, R., Frenkel, D., Gophna, U., Bayer, E.A., Yaron, S., Shoham, Y. and Benhar I. (1999). Matrix Assisted Refolding of Single-Chain Fv-Cellulose Binding Domain Fusion Proteins. Protein Expression and Purification. Nov;17(2): 249-59.

2. Gophna, U., Oelschlaeger, T.A., Hacker, J. and Ron, E.Z. (2001). Yersinia HPI In Septicemic Escherichia coli Strains Isolated From Diverse Hosts. FEMS Microbiology Letters Mar;196(1): 57-60.

3. Gophna, U. Barlev, M., Seijffers, R., Hacker, J. and Ron, E.Z. (2001). Curli Mediated Internalization of Escherichia coli by Eukaryotic Cells. Infection and Immunity 2001 69(4): 2659-65.

4. Gophna, U., Barlev, M., Hacker, J. and Ron. E.Z. (2001). Internalization of Escherichia coli serotype O78 by Eukaryotic Cells. The Infectious Disease Review. Supplement 3: 37-42.

5. Gophna, U., Oelschlaeger, T.A., Hacker, J. and Ron, E.Z. (2002). Role of Fibronectin in Curli-Mediated Internalization. FEMS Microbiology Letters. Jun;212(1): 55-8.

6. Gophna, U., Parket, A., Hacker, J., and Ron, E.Z. (2003). A Novel ColV Plasmid Encoding Type IV Pili. Microbiology. 149: 177-184.

7. Adiri, R.S., Gophna U., and Ron, E.Z. (2003). Multilocus Sequence Typing (MLST) of Escherichia coli O78 Strains. FEMS Microbiology Letters. May; 222(2): 199-203. (joint first author)

8. Hacham,Y., Gophna U., and Amir R. (2003). In Vivo Analysis of Various Substrates Utilized by Cystathionine {gamma}-Synthase and O-Acetylhomoserine Sulfhydrylase in Methionine Biosynthesis. Mol Biol Evol. 20(9): 1513-1520.

9. Gophna, U, Ron, E.Z., and Graur, D. (2003). Bacterial Type III Secretion Systems are Ancient and Evolved by Multiple Horizontal Transfer Events. Gene. 312: 151-163.

10. Gophna, U., Charlebois, R.L., Doolittle, W.F. (2004) Have archaeal genes contributed to bacterial virulence? Trends in Microbiology. 12(5):213-219.

11. Gophna, U., Ideses, D., Rosen, R., Grundland, A., and Ron, E.Z. (2004) OmpA of Septicemic Escherichia coli O78: Secretion and Convergent Evolution. International Journal of Medical Microbiology. 294(6): 373-381.

12. Gophna, U., Doolittle, W.F., and Charlebois, R.L. (2005) Weighted Genome Trees: Refinements and Applications. Journal of Bacteriology. 187(4):1305-16.

13. Mokady, D., Gophna, U., and Ron, E.Z. (2005) Extensive Gene Diversity in Septicemic Escherichia coli Strains. Journal of Clinical Microbiology. 43(1):66-73.

14. Gophna, U., Bapteste, E., Doolittle W.F., Biran D., and Ron E.Z. Evolutionary Plasticity of Methionine Biosynthesis. Gene. 355:48-57.

15. Ideses, D, Biran, D., Gophna, U., Levy-Nissenbaum, O., and Ron, E.Z. Identification and Characterization of the LPF operon of invasive Escherichia coli. International Journal of Medical Microbiology. 295: 227-236.

16. Cherny, I., Rockah, L., Levy-Nissenbaum, O., Gophna, U., Ron, E.Z., and Gazit, U. (2005) The Formation of Escherichia coli Curli Amyloid Fibrils is Mediated by Prion-Like Peptide Repeats. Journal of Molecular Biology. 352(2):245-52.

17. Ideses, D, Gophna, U., Paitan, Y. Chaudhuri, R.R., Pallen, M.J., and Ron, E.Z. (2005) A Degenerate Type-III Secretion System from Septicemic Escherichia coli Contributes to Pathogenesis. Journal of Bacteriology. 187(23):8164-8171.

18. Gophna, U., Thompson, J.R., Boucher, Y., and Doolittle, W.F. (2006) Complex Histories of Genes Encoding 3-Hydroxy-3-Methylglutaryl-CoenzymeA Reductase. Molecular Biology and Evolution. 23(1):168-178.

19. Gophna, U., Charlebois, R.L., Doolittle, W.F. (2006) Lateral Gene Transfer in Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus. Trends in Microbiology. 14(2): 64-69. Recommended by faculty of 1000.

20. Gophna, U., Sommerfeld, K., Gophna, S., Doolittle., W.F., Veldhuyzen van Zanten., S.J.O. (2006) Differences between Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis patients in tissue-associated intestinal microflora. Journal of Clinical Microbiology. 44: 4136-4141.

21. Wellner, A., Lurie, M., Gophna, U. (2007). Complexity, connectivity, and duplicability as barriers to lateral gene transfer. Genome Biology 8:R156.

22. Kreimer A., Borenstein, E., Gophna, U., and Ruppin., E. (2008) The Evolution of Modularity in Bacterial Metabolic Networks. PNAS. 105(19): 6976-6981.

23. Wellner A., and Gophna U. (2008) Neutrality of foreign subunits in an experimental model of lateral gene transfer. Molecular Biology and Evolution 25(9): 1835-1840.

24. Cohen, O., Stern, A., Rubinstein, N. Gophna, U., and Pupko, T. (2008) A likelihood Framework to Analyze Phyletic Patterns. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B. Biological Sciences 363(1512):3903-11.

25. Albert, E.J., Sommerfeld, K., Gophna, S., Marshall, J.A., and Gophna, U. (2009) The Gut Microbiota of Toll-Like Receptor 2 Mutant Mice Exhibits Lineage Specific Modifications. Environmental Microbiology Reports 1(1):65-70.

26. Freilich, S., Kreimer, A., Borenstein, E.A., Yosef, N., Sharan, R., Gophna, U. and Ruppin, E. (2009) Metabolic-network driven analysis of bacterial ecological strategies. Genome Biology 5;10(6):R61.

27. Tuller, T., Birin, H. Gophna, U., Kupiec, M., and Ruppin, E. (2010) Reconstructing ancestral gene content by co-evolution. Genome Research. 20(1):122-32.

28. Stern, A., Mayrose, I., Shaul, S., Gophna, U., and Pupko, T. The evolution of thymidine synthesis reveals a tale of two enzymes and primordial viruses. Systematic Biology. (accepted).

29. Freilich, S., Kreimer, A., Borenstein, E.A., Gophna, U., Sharan, R., and Ruppin, E. Decoupling environment-dependent and independent genetic robustness across bacterial species. PLOS Computational Biology. (accepted).

30. Kovacs, A., Yacoby, K., and Gophna, U. A systematic assessment of automated ribosomal intergenic spacer analysis (ARISA) as a tool for estimating bacterial richness. Research in Microbiology (accepted).

Reviews
1. Gophna, U. and Ron, E.Z. (2003). Virulence and the Heat Shock Response. International Journal of Medical Microbiology. 7-8: 453-461.

2. Mokady, D., Gophna, U., and Ron, E.Z. (2005) Virulence Factors of Septicemic Escherichia coli Strains. International Journal of Medical Microbiology. 295(6-7):455-62.

3. Gophna, U. (2009) Complexity Apparently Is Not a Barrier to Lateral Gene Transfers. Microbe. 4 (12): 549-53.

Chapters in books
1. Pallen, M.J. and Gophna, U. (2007) Bacterial Flagella and Type III Secretion: Case Studies in the Evolution of Complexity, in Volff J-N (ed): Genome Dynamics, Gene and Protein Evolution. Karger, Basel. vol 3, 30-47.

Patents
1. Barzel, A.,Privman, E., Burstein, D., Gophna, U., Kupiec, M., and Pupko, T. (2009) Method for Searching for Homing Endonucleases, their Genes and their Targets. International patent No. PCT/IL2009/000172.