Professor Dan Tawfik

 Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel

 https://www.weizmann.ac.il/Biomolecular_Sciences/Tawfik/

Dan Tawfik received his BSc in chemistry and biochemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1988), an MSc in biotechnology from the Hebrew University’s Faculty of Medicine (1990), and his PhD from the Weizmann Institute (1995). After two years of postdoctoral research at Cambridge University and the MRC Centre for Protein Engineering (UK), he beacme a senior research fellow at Sidney Sussex College and at the MRC Centre for Protein Engineering. He joined the Weizmann Institute faculty in 2001, and holds the Nella and Leon Benoziyo Professional Chair.

Dan’s research seeks understand how proteins evolve, and enzymes in particular. His experimental work lies at the interface of chemistry and biology. He developed a range of experimental systems that reproduce protein evolution in the laboratory and in real time. His works address protein structure, function and evolution, including how the very first proteins emerged ca. 3.8 billion years ago.