Gal Ofir

All living organisms need to defend themselves against parasites and pathogens. The rapid and ancient arms race between hosts and pathogens leads to amazing innovation of immune systems. My work is aimed to discover new immune mechanisms in plant genomes. To do so, I combine my expertise in the ancient antiviral immune systems of bacteria with the genomic resources of Weigelworld to ask how we can find new immunity in plants. I like to mix stuff and cross fields – prokaryotes and eukaryotes, wet and dry work, evolutionary conservation and evolutionary innovation.

Research lines

  • Plant immunity
  • Comparative immunology
  • Genomics

Short vita

  • 2022 to present

    Postdoctoral Researcher, Max Planck Institute for Biology

  • 2015 to 2021

    PhD, Sorek lab, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel

  • 2010 to 2013

    2010-2013 / B.Sc, Tel Aviv University, Isreal

Selected publications

Ofir G. et al. Antiviral activity of bacterial TIR domains via immune signalling molecules. Nature (2021) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04098-7

Ofir G*. Melamed S*. et al. DISARM is a widespread bacterial defence system with broad anti-phage activities. Nature Microbiology (2018) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-017-0051-0, PMC5739279

Doron S*. Melamed S*. Ofir G. et al. Systematic discovery of antiphage defense systems in the microbial pangenome. Science (2018) https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aar4120, P
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