Our Research

Metagenomics, Machine learning, Molecular microbiology, and Fun!

We aim to better understand key interaction mechanisms within microbial communities and to promote their application in biotechnology and medicine. Specifically, we are interested in discovering novel antibiotic resistance genes, CRISPR-Cas, and bacterial secretion systems.

We study microorganisms in a variety of natural environments, and combine cutting-edge metagenomic techniques with tailored machine-learning and molecular biology methods to predict and experimentally validate the functions of the studied systems.

Next

Publications Highlights

A diverse repertoire of anti-defense systems is encoded in the leading region of plasmids
bioRxiv 2023

Deciphering microbial gene function using natural language processing
Nature Communications 2022

Programmed DNA destruction by miniature CRISPR-Cas14 enzymes
Science 2018

New CRISPR–Cas systems from uncultivated microbes
Nature 2017

Major bacterial lineages are essentially devoid of CRISPR-Cas viral defence systems
Nature Communications 2016

Genomic analysis of 38 Legionella species identifies large and diverse effector repertoires
Nature Genetics 2016

Next

Our Team

David (Dudu) Burstein

Principal Investigator

Karin Mittelman

Research Associate

Bruria Samuel

Ph.D. Student

Danielle Miller

Ph.D. Student
(joint with Prof. Adi Stern)

Adi Yannai

Ph.D. Student

Shirley Croitoru

Ph.D. Student

Guy Shur

Ph.D. Student

Yatir Solan

M.Sc. Student

Ella Rannon

M.Sc. Student

Maya Ben Haim

M.Sc. Student

Edan Gabay

M.Sc. Student

Ofir Arias

Software Specialist

Tomer Parket

Data Analyst

Emilie Mordo

B.Sc. Project Student

Eden Spigelman

B.Sc. Project Student

Next

Stay in Touch


Office: +972-3-640-8715
Lab: +972-3-640-7525
Fax: +972-3-642-2046

davidbur@tauex.tau.ac.il