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Lab head
Professor Marcelle Machluf, Ph.D
Prof. Marcelle Machluf received her Ph.D. in Biotechnology Engineering from the Ben-Gurion University (Israel). Marcelle went on to complete a 5-year post-doctoral fellowship at the Harvard Medical School under the supervision of Prof. Anthony Atalla. Marcelle joined the Technion in 2001, and received tenure in 2007; in 2014, she was promoted to full professor. Prof. Machluf has authored 40 peer-reviewed journal papers, co-authored 15 papers, and published over 100 conference papers. Her papers have appeared in leading generalized and specialized journals including Nature Biotechnology, Nano Letters, and Blood, and have been cited over 2,500 times, awarding her an h-index of 26 (Google Scholar). Prof. Machluf has supervised more than 40 graduate and post-doctoral students, from around the world, and is teaching four undergraduate and graduate courses in nano-encapsulation, tissue engineering, mammalian cell technologies, and bioprocessing. Prof. Machluf is a member of the TargetCaRe consortium, under Horizon 2020 Training Networks (H2020-MSCA-ITN-2014). Prof. Machluf is the head of a six-year collaboration between six groups from the Technion and two of Singapore’s leading universities (NTU and NUS) funded by the National Research Foundation of Singapore. Prof. Machluf is a member of the Minerva Programme Committee, under the Max-Planck Institute (Germany) and a member of the Tissue Engineering Journal editorial board. Prof. Machluf is the Head of the Technion’s Graduate Interdisciplinary Program in Biotechnology and was recently appointed as the Deputy Executive Vice President for Research For the Pre-clinical Research Authority of the Technion.
E-mail: machlufm@tx.technion.ac.il
Management
Dr. Limor Baruch, Ph.D
Lab manager and senior research fellow, Tissue Engineering, cultured meat, and cell-based therapy group leader. Limor received her Ph.D. in Biotechnology Engineering from the Technion, under the supervision of Prof. Machluf. Limor’s dissertation presented the development of two cell-microencapsulation platforms and their application for cancer treatment. In 2008, Dr. Baruch established the laboratory for crop quality at Kaiima Bio-Agritech Ltd. and managed it for six years. Dr. Baruch’s expertise includes the setup of laboratories and research fields, diverse analytical methodologies and scientific consultancy in addition to cell-based therapy, drug delivery systems and regenerative medicine. Limor received the Herschel Rich innovation award in 2022.
E-mail: baruchl@bfe.technion.ac.il
Ms. Inna Kovrigina, M.Sc.
Lab technician. Inna received her M.Sc. in Biology and Chemistry from Tver State University, Russia. In 2000, Inna worked as a researcher and lab technician in the Faculty of Medicine at the Hebrew University. Inna worked as a lab technician at Pharmaseed Ltd from 2003 to 2013, a position in which she was responsible for the formulation unit in the GLP lab.
E-mail: inna.ko777@gmail.com
Graduate Students
Anastasia Brandis, M.Sc., Ph.D. student
Anastasia completed her B.Sc. in the Faculty of Biology at the Herzen University, completed her M.Sc. in biotechnology at the ITMO University in Saint-Petersburg, and is currently a Ph.D. student. Her research focuses on treating inflamed cardiac tissue using MSC-derived vesicles (Nano-ghosts) as a drug delivery system.
E-mail: Brandis@campus.technion.ac.il
Frank (Feng-Chun) Yen, M.Sc., Ph.D. student
Frank (Feng-Chun) Yen completed his B.Sc. in the Department of Biological Science and Technology at National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan and is currently a Ph.D. student. His research focuses on developing cultured meat platforms based on scalable cellular building blocks. Frank is also establishing efficient and scalable culturing methodologies using bioreactor. Frank was granted a fellowship from the Ministry of Foreign affairs.
E-mail: frankyyen86@gmail.com
Shlomi Edri, Ph.D. student
Shlomi received his B.Med.Lab.Sc. from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, and his M.Sc. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His Ph.D. research focuses on using Nanoghost as a platform for a targeted CRISPRi/a-based cancer immunotherapy.
Dorit Hirschberg, Ph.D. student
Dorit completed her B.A at the Faculty of Biology at the Technion and her M.Sc. at Neve-Yaar research center. During her M.Sc. she researched genetic mapping of color traits and the discovery of flavonoid pigments in melons. Dorit also worked as a laboratory technician at the Technion Youth Center. Her Ph.D. research subject is brain cancer immunotherapy using MSC-derived vesicles, also known as nano-ghosts.
E-mail: bidorit9@gmail.com
Hadar Lecker-Zivan, Ph.D student
Hadar received her B.Sc. in Biotechnology from Tel-Hai Academic College, Israel, and her M.Sc. in Plant Science from the Robert H Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Hadar worked in the biotech industry at Viaqua Therapeutics LTD. Her Ph.D. research focuses on using Nanoghost for cancer metastasis research.
Qinlin Zeng, M.Sc. student
Qinlin Zeng completed her B.Sc. in the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering at Guangdong Technion in China and is currently an M.Sc. student. Her research is focused on encapsulating cargos into MSC-derived vesicles (Nanoghosts) using Microfluidics.
E-mail: qinlin-zeng@campus.technion.ac.il
Elior Swisa, M.Sc. student
Elior holds a B.Sc. in Biotechnology Engineering from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. He gained industry experience in the biotechnology sector while working at BTG, where he specialized in bioprocess development and operation of bioreactors. His research focuses on developing advanced therapeutic strategies for neurodegenerative diseases, particularly Alzheimer’s disease. His work explores the potential of mesenchymal stem cell-derived vesicles (Nano-Ghost) as an innovative drug delivery system to enhance treatment efficacy and precision.
Prof. Marcelle Machluf, Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering. Technion – Israel Institute of Technology