DR.

YAIR PORAT
48 Kochav Hayam st. Hofit 40295
Home: 074-7026219 Mobile: 0544-989295
Email: yair.porat.1.@gmail.com

Education and professional experience

Current Instructor
School of Marine Sciences, Ruppin Academic Center
Research: BioHydrogen production from Marine Algae and Cyanobacteria

2010 Post Doctoral Fellow

Division of Neurobiology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Under the
supervision of Prof. Christopher Ross.
Research: Huntingtin aggregation intermediates; Biophysical and morphological
characterization in vitro, and neuronal cytotoxicity in live cells.
2005 Ph.D.
Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology,
Tel Aviv University. Under the supervision of Prof. Ehud Gazit.
Research thesis: Aggregation of the Islet Amyloid Polypeptide in Type II Diabetes:
Molecular Recognition Elements and Functional Inhibition.
2000 M.Sc.
Environmental engineering, faculty of Agricultural Engineering,
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. Under the supervision of Prof. Yoram
Avnimelech.
Research Thesis: Pathogens Elimination and Sewage Sludge Stabilization
Using Co-Composting with Municipal Solid Waste.
1997 Process engineer
Zohar Dalia Fermentation facility (Bio Dalia)
Large scale fermentation of biological pesticides, development of bioreactor for
biodegradation of detergents in waste water.
1996 B.Sc.
Biotechnology engineereeing, Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering,
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.
Academic awards:
 Travel award, I2CAM meeting on Protein Aggregation and Amyloid Formation, EPFL
,Lausanne Switzerland, 2005.
 Youth Travel fund, FEBS advanced course, Ofir- Portugal, 2004.
 International travel award, Biophysical Society Annual Meeting, Baltimore Maryland,
2004.
 Excellence in Research, Tel Aviv University, 2002.
 Miriam and Aharon Gutwirth Memorial Fellowship Excellence Award,
Technion- Haifa, 1999.
 Teaching Assistant Award, Technion – Haifa, 1998.

Teaching Experience:

1. Research projects and seminars supervision, School of Marine Sciences, Ruppin

Academic center

2. Agricultural Biotechnology course, ORT Singalovski College (2006)

3. Teaching assistant of advanced molecular biology laboratory, Tel Aviv University

(2000-2003).

4. Teaching assistant of Agrobiology laboratory, Technion (1997-1999).

Publications:
1. Jiang M., Porat Y., Pei Z., Cheng Y., Xiang L., Sommers K., Li Q., Gillardon F.,
Hengerer B., Berlinicke C., Zack DJ., Poirier MA., Ross CA., Duan W. (2010)
"Baicalein reduces E46K alpha-synuclein aggregation in vitro and protects cells
against E46K alpha-synuclein toxicity in cell models of familiar Parkinsonism."
Journal of Neurochemistry 114(2), 419-429.

2. Levy M.§, Porat Y.§, Bacharach E., Shalev DE. and Gazit E. (2008)
“Phenolsulfonphthalein, but not Phenolphthalein, Inhibits Amyloid Fibril Formation:
Implications for the Modulation of Amyloid Self-Assembly” Biochemistry
47(22):5896-904. § These authors equally contributed to this work.
3. Porat Y., Abramowitz A. and Gazit E. (2006) “Inhibition of amyloid fibril formation
by polyphenols: Structural similarity and aromatic interactions as a common
inhibition mechanism” Chemical Biology & drug Design 67 (1), 27-37.

4. Porat, Y., Mazor Y., Efrat S. and Gazit, E. (2004) “Inhibition of Islet Amyloid
Polypeptide Fibril Formation by Hetero-aromatic Interactions” Biochemistry 43
(45): 14454-14462.

5. Porat Y., Kolusheva, S., Jelinek, R. and Gazit, E., (2003) “The Human Amyloid
Polypeptide forms Transient Membrane-Active Prefibrillar Assemblies”
Biochemistry 42, 10971-10977.

6. Porat Y., Stepensky, A., Naider, F. and Gazit, E., (2003) “Completely Different
Amyloidogenic Potential of Nearly Identical Fragments” Biopolymers 69, 161-
164.

7. Zanuy, D., Porat, Y., Gazit, E. and Nussinov, R., (2004) “Peptide sequence and
amyloid formation; molecular simulations and experimental study of a human islet
amyloid polypeptide fragment and its analogs.” Structure, 12, 439-455.

8. Reches, M., Porat, Y. and Gazit, E., (2002) “Amyloid Fibril Formation by
Pentapeptide and Tetrapeptide Fragments of Human Calcitonin”, J. Biol. Chem. 277,
35475-35480.

9. Avnimelech Y., Eilat R., Porat Y., Kottas PA (2004) “ Factors affecting the rate of
windrow composting in field studies” Compost Sci. Util. 12, 114-118.

Approved Patent:

Yair Porat and Ehud Gazit, under Tel Aviv University Future Technology Development
L.P “COMPOSITIONS AND METHODS USING SAME FOR TREATING
AMYLOID-ASSOCIATED DISEASES”, Israel Patent Application National Phase of
PCT/IL2004/000890, filed 23 September 2004

Army Experience

Reserves Company commander 2000-2004

Academic conference presentations:
1. Porat Y., Ross CA. and Poirier M. (2009) “Analysis of Huntingtin Aggregation in
Vitro and in Live Cells Using Tetra Cysteine-Tag System" Plenary lecture at the FASEB
Summer Research Conference on Amyloid Fibril Formation and Protein Misfolding,
Snowmass Village, Colorado.
2. Porat Y., Hou Z., Ratovitski T., Ross CA. and Poirier M. (2007) “Huntingtin foci and
neurotoxicity in Huntington’s disease: live cell imaging of dye-labeled huntingtin”
Slide presentation at the 37th annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, San
Diego CA.
3. Porat, Y., Efrat S., and Gazit, E. (2004) “Aromatic Inhibition of Amyloid formation by
the Human Islet Amyloid Polypeptide” Platform lecture at the Biophysical Society 48th
annual meeting, Baltimore MD.
4. Porat, Y. and Gazit, E., (2003) “ Molecular Recognition Elements in the self Assembly
of Type II Diabetes Islet Amyloid Polypeptide” Abstracts of the Protein Society 5th
European Symposium, May 29, Florence Italy.
5. Porat, Y. and Gazit, E., (2002) “Molecular Recognition Elements in the Assembly of
IAPP ” Abstracts of the Israeli Society for Experimental Biology, Feb 4, Eilat , Israel.
6. Porat, Y. and Avnimelech, Y., (2000) “Stabilization of Sewage Sludge Using Co-
composting with Municipal Solid Waste” Platform lecture at the 30th meeting of the
Israeli Society for Ecology and Environmental Sciences, June 19, Haifa, Israel.
7. Porat, Y. and Avnimelech, Y., (1999) “Co-Composting of Sewage Sludge and
Municipal Solid Waste.” Plenary lecture at the International Conference on Modern
Agriculture and Environmental Quality, April 26, Jerusalem, Israel.

Skills:

 Extensive experience in molecular biology techniques.

 Cell culture and live cell imaging.
 A broad experience in spectroscopy techniques (FTIR, CD, Fluorescence).
 Electron microscopy and light microscopy (TEM, HR-TEM, Fluorescence and
confocal).
 Production of recombinant proteins, protein separation (HPLC, FPLC, column
separation), and blotting techniques
 Amyloid formation and characterization.
 Good command of English and Hebrew.