People
Principle Investigator
Moran Frenkel-Pinter
Dr. Moran Frenkel-Pinter is a new faculty member in the Institute of Chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Moran’s research merges concepts from biotechnology and origins of life chemistry, fields in which she specialized during her PhD and postdoctoral research, respectively. Moran received her BSc and PhD in biotechnology from Tel Aviv University. As a PhD student, under the supervision of Prof. Daniel Segal and Prof. Ehud Gazit, she studied the role of protein glycosylation in the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease, and in collaboration with Prof. Shai Rahimipour from Bar-Ilan University, she synthesized glycopeptides to study the effect of glycans on peptide self-assembly. Moran then became a NASA postdoctoral fellow at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and, subsequently, a research scientist in its School of Chemistry. As a member of the Center for Chemical Evolution and team leader at the NASA Center for Origins of Life, Moran focused on elucidating mechanisms that lead to the formation of proto-peptides that can spontaneously polymerize, fold, and interact with nucleic acids under prebiotic conditions. Moran grew up in a moshav in northern Israel called Aviel. She lives with her spouse, Yuval, and their two daughters, Inbal and Keren, and enjoys an active life and taking trips with family and friends.
