Mayrose Lab: Home

Welcome to our lab!

Our main research interests are concerned with the broad field of plant evolution and phylogenetics. We use comparative, bioinformatics approaches to gain insights into the fascinating evolutionary dynamics of plant genomes. In this process, we develop novel computational tools, based on machine learning, reinforcement learning, and advanced probabilistic evolutionary models. These allow us to gain novel biological insights from various kinds of data. For more detailed information see the Research page.

Lab News

December 2020
Josef re-joins the lab as our web-master. Keep them running Josef.

November 2020
Fighting COVID. We show that the response time is more important than lockdown strictnesss. Read it here Read it and here

Udi Landau joins the lab as a research associates. Welcome Udi!

October 2020
Adi Sivan joins the lab as a new MSc student. Welcome Adi!

September 2020
Lior recieves a fellowship for outstanding PhD students from Milner Foundation. Congrats Lior!

June 2020
Congratulationsto Anna for recieving the Excellence in research prize from the Faculty of Life Sciences!
Congratulations to Keren and Lior for recieving the Excellence in teaching prize from the Faculty of Life Sciences!

May 2020
We show that the methods that infer speciation and extinction rates could be biased due to asymmetric rates of sequence evolution. Read it all here.


Machine learning can be used to select the most appropriate model for phylogeney reconstruction. Visit the ModelTeller webserver to check it out.

February 2019
Model selection is considered a most basic step for phylogeny reconstruction. Here we show that this time-consuming step may be unneccessary for some phylogenetic applications

January 2019
Our paper presenting the first worldwide distribution of polyploid plants is published in Nature Ecology and Evolution!

December 2018
Shiran is awarded with the Edmond J. Safra Center excellent Research Student Prize

August 2018
Shiran lectures at the Ernst Mayr Award Symposium, Evolution Conference, Montpellier

July 2018 The OneTwoTree server is officially online. Needs to infer a phylogeny?

Itay is out for a sabbatical at China & Taiwan

April 2018
CRISPys is out! Our new method can be used to design a guide RNA to target multiple members of a gene family using the CRISPR-Cas system. Read it all here

January 2018
Lior Glick re-joins the lab. One day he will become a PhD student. Welcome back Lior

November 2017
CRISTA is out! Our new method can better predict the cleavage efficiencies of a genomic target using CRISPR-Cas9.

October 2017
Anat Shafir joins the lab as a new MSc student. Welcome Anat!

April 2017
A new model that enables the detection of trait-dependent evolutionary rate shifts in sequence sites is now published in Systemtic Biology and in Nucleic Acid Research.

March 2017
Keren Halabi joins the lab as an MSc student - welcome Keren!

Dana Azouri officially joins the lab as a PhD student- welcome!

December 2016
Shiran Abadi receive a fellowship for outstanding PhD students from The Ariane de Rothschild Women Doctoral Program.

September 2016
Gal Hyams receive the Shefler Fellowship for outstanding students awarded by Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.

August 2016
We find that polyploidy occurs more often in plants that have been domesticated. Read it all here and in this News&Views

Our study on Sex determination in reptiles reveals the complex patterns by which sex determination affect lineage diversification.

July 2016
Two of our studies appear in a special issue on polyploidy in the American Journal of Botany: We investigated a large number of flowering plant genera and found that polyploidy is broadly associated with sexual system dimorphism (or, dioecy). We found some phylogenetic support for the hypothesis that polyploidy instantly leads to reproductive isolation.

A new version of ConSurf was launched. See the manuscript for all details.

June 2016
In our paper on sex-determining mechanism in reptiles (genetic or temperature-dependent) we suggest no effect of the sexual system on diversification patterns, rather, differences in species richness are mediated by differences in longevity and transition rates.

May 2016
Itay Lecture at the Polyploidy ICPHB Conference at Croatia.
Shiran Lecture at the Genome Engineering Workshop at the Broad Institute.

February 2016
Dioecy does not seems to systematically change diversification rates in flowering plants. Read it all here

November 2015
Does body size infuences diversification rates? Our recent analysis in lizards and snakes found little evidence for this long standing hypothesis.

Eli Levy Karin officially joins the lab as a PhD student under a co-supervision with Prof. Tal Pupko. Welcome Eli!

October 2015
Gal Hyams starts his MSc studies in the bioinformatics track

Our paper on competition and collaboration patterns among scientists is selected for faculty of 1000

September 2015
What are the patterns that govern successful collaboration between researchers? Find it out in our recent paper published in PlosOne.

Mazal Tov to Gal for winning an MSc scholarships from the Manna Program in Food Safety and Security

July 2015
Congratulations to Lior and Shiran for winning a prestigious prize from the Faculty of Life Sciences for their research achievements.

June 2015
Anna, Lior & Itay lecture and participate at the Mechanisms of plant speciation EMBO Workshop at Sweden.

May 2015
Michal Drori joins the lab as the lab programmer.

April 2015
The Chromosome Counts Database (CCDB) is officially online. See the manuscript for all details.

See our reply to Soltis et al. regarding methodological aspects of studying polyploid diversification.

Our new method for the analysis of genetic population structure is published in Molecular Ecology Resources.

November 2014
Menachem Darmoni joins the lab as a lab programmer.

October 2014
Shiran Abadi starts her MSc studies in the bioinformatics track

September 2014
Mazal Tov to Anna and Lior for winning PhD and MSc scholarships from the Manna Program in Food Safety and Security

August 2014
Gal Hyams joins the lab as an undergraduate researcher. Welocme Gal.

July 2014 Sex Determination: Why so many ways of doing it?
Find it out in our recent PLoS Biology paper.

June 2014
Baby boom. Niv has become a father & Ayelet's third child was born.

The treeOfSex is on. A new database describing sexual systems across the tree of life is now published in Nature Scientific Data. Read it all here .

April 2014
Our paper regarding new models for the evolution of chromosome numbers is now published in MBE.

February 2014
It seems that polyploidy affects diversification patterns differently in fish compared to plants. Read it all here .

January 2014
Our paper on patterns of chromosome-number change across the angiosperms suggests that changes by single chromosome number persist longer than whole genome duplication.

November 2013
Niv recieves two (?!) post-doctoral fellwoships - from the Weiss Foundation and from the Safra Center.
Oddly, we didn't see a cake.

October 2013
Change of status. Lior is starting his M.Sc studies.

Niv Sabath joins the lab as a post-doctoral fellow. Welcome to the lab Niv!

August 2013
Our paper on the selective forces acting on silent sites in HIV-1 is published in BMC Evolutionary Biology.

July 2013
Shiran Abadi joins the lab as a lab bioinformatician. Welcome Shiran!

June 2013
Change of Status! Anna is getting married.

Yoni Mayzel joins the lab as a lab programmer.

Our lab is awarded with a two-year research grant from the SAIA Foundation.

April 2013
See our review paper on the ConSurf server for predicting functional regions in proteins is now published in Isr. J. Chem.

March 2013
Noa Kadmon joins the lab as a M.Sc student. She will be co-supervised by Ran Hovav from the Volcani Center.

February 2013
Ayelet Salman joins the lab. Welcome Ayelet!

January 2013
Naama Kopelman joins the lab as a post-doctoral fellow. Welcome Naama!

November 2012
Lior Glick joins the lab. Welcome Lior!

August 2012
Anna Rice joins the lab as an M.Sc. student. Welcome Anna!

July 2012
Our lab is awarded a four-year research grant from the Israeli Science Foundation and an additional grant to purchase high-performance computing cluster

February 2012
Moshe Einhorn joins the lab as an M.Sc. student. Welcome aboard Moshe!

December 2011
Our evolutionary model that accounts for selective pressures on silent sites when inferring positive selection is now published in Molecular Biology and Evolution

Gilad Berman joins the lab as the lab technician. Welcome Gilad!

November 2011
Our Science paper about the lower diversification rates of polyploid plants is selected for Faculty of 1000 biology

Our paper comparing plant growth and defense traits in weedy, domesticated, and wild sunflowers is now published in Molecular Ecology

October 2011
We received our first grant! The Marie Curie Career Integration Grant is awarded for a duration of 4 years by the European Union

Tamar Eilam joins the lab as a lab administrator. Welcome to the lab Tamar!

We are officially open! The lab will be placed in a temporary location until completion of the renovation. On the agenda: grants, grants, and more grants...

September 2011
Our paper about the higher extinction rates of polyploid plants is published today in Science! See the media release , blogs

Contact Details

Office: Britania Building, Room 608
Phone (office): +972-3-640-7212
Phone (Lab): +972-3-640-9850
Fax: +972-3-6409380
Email: itaymay 'at' tauex.tau.ac.il
School of Plant Sciences and Food Security
George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences
The Edmond J. Safra Center for Bioinformatics
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv 69978
Israel