Congratulations, Arielle! 馃帀
July 2026
We are thrilled to share that our lab member, Arielle Mezi, has been awarded the highly prestigious and competitive President's Scholarship (诪诇讙转 讛谞砖讬讗).
This is a huge achievement and we are all incredibly proud of your hard work. Congratulations, Arielle!
Sagi’s paper:聽“Greedy Partition Distance under Stochastic Models – Analytic Results状 . is accepted to聽ISBRA 2019.
ISBRA 2019
“Synteny Footprints Provide Clearer Phylogenetic Signal than Sequence Data for Prokayotic Classification”. Accepted to聽Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.聽
Gur and Sagi’s paper is accepted at聽Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.
Our colleague, partner, and mostly friend,聽Eliezer Eskin聽from UCLA, was elected as聽the 2019聽International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) fellow. This is in large part, thanks to his innovative and pioneering initiative,聽Computational Genomics Summer Institute(CGSI)聽that will be given this summer for the fourth time.
Our grant proposal聽Tracing Prokaryotic Evolution via Ordered Orthology聽was awarded by the Israel Science Foundation. The grant will focus on loss of synteny as an evolutionary signal and will exploit it for several applications such as聽Phylogenetics, horizontal gene transfer detection, and alike.
July 2014
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July
2016Eliran and Sagi participated (and gave聽talks)in the聽2nd Computational Genomics Summer Institute聽that took place at the聽Institute for Pure & Applied Mathematics (IPAM)聽at聽UCLA.
Feb
2017Cryptography and Algorithms in Bioinformatics聽. A Workshop in Honor of聽Prof. Benny Chor’s聽60th Birthday. Organized by Oded Goldreich and Sagi. 
July
2016Sagi will be in the program faculty of the聽Computational Genomics Summer Institute聽that will take place at the聽Institute for Pure & Applied Mathematics (IPAM)聽at聽UCLA. 
May
2016This year, the聽Israeli Bioinformatic Symposium, will be hosted at University of Haifa. Mark the day: May 18th, 2016. This year we open a tradition of having IBS a hub for Bioinfo people from academy and industry. 
January
2016Sagi has won the prestigious grant from the聽Volkswagen Foundation (VolkswagenStiftung)聽that is the largest private research funder and one of the major foundations in Germany. Together with his German partner聽Prof. Burkhard Morgenstern聽they were awarded 246,000 EURO for three years to study聽A Maximum-Likelihood approach to Alignment-free Phylogeny Reconstruction聽. 
August
2015Sagi is going for a sabbatical at聽UCLA聽to mainly聽swim聽but also work (little) with聽Eliezer Eskin. 
May
2015Eliran has won the prestigious IBM research fellowship and will spend the summer at聽Laxmi Parida’s聽computational genomics聽group at聽IBM research center聽in New York. Good luck Eliran!! 聽 July
2014Our grant proposal聽Tracing Prokaryotic Evolution via Ordered Orthology聽was awarded by the Israel Science Foundation. The grant will focus on loss of synteny as an evolutionary signal and will exploit it for several applications such as聽Phylogenetics, horizontal gene transfer detection, and alike. So we again are looking for students… 
March
2014Sagi will be visiting the workshop聽Computational Theories of Evolution聽as part of the聽Evolutionary Biology and the Theory of Computing聽program at the聽the Simons Institute聽for the Theory of Computing at聽Berkeley. 
Oct
2013Our paper聽Phylo SI: A New Genome Wide Approach for Prokaryotic Phylogeny聽(with Anton Shifman, Noga Ninyo, and Uri Gophna ) got into聽Nucleic Acids Research聽. The paper uses loss of synteny among organisms to construct a phylogeny. It provides greater sensitivity over rRNA based trees, while averaging the signal over the whole genome. Application to Alphaproteobacteria species could find relationship in the聽Brucella聽clade that could not be revealed by the 16S tree or the Tree Of Life. 
Sep
2013Another quartet paper (with Noga Alon and Raphy Yuster ) got into聽ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA14). The paper,聽“On the compatibility of quartet trees”, shows, using probabilistic arguments, that there is a (very) inconsistent quartet set (O(n log n)-inconsistent, i.e., no tree rejects less than O(n log n) quartets), but every subset of which of size O(n/log(n)) is consistet. We also provide upper and lower bounds to the classical conjecture of Bandelt and Dress (1986) on minimum quartet incompatibility. 
Dec
2012Our聽Universal PaceMaker paper聽was chosen to the聽highlight聽of聽Nature Reviews Genetics. In brief, we provide a novel evolutionary model that accounts for correlations among gene rates. The rival explanation for gene correlation, the Molecular Clock hypothesis, was found significantly inferior. This finding suggests that all genes at a lineage change their (respective) rate in unison and this ranges to the earliest periods of life on Earth.
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Mar
2012A symposium marking the retirement of Prof. Edward Trifonov聽Bioinformatics: Past, Present, and Future
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Dec
2011Our paper (with S. Roch) on upper and lower bounds on horizontal transfer for phylogenetic reconstructibility accepted to聽RECOMB 2012
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Sep
2011Mathematical and Computational Approaches in High-Throughput Genomics聽workshop at聽IPAM,聽UCLA.
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Jul
2010We got the聽U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF)聽and the聽Israel Science Foundation (ISF)聽grants. The BSF is jointly with聽Eugene Koonin聽from the聽NCBI,聽NIH, titled:聽Analytical framework for a comprehensive analysis of the prokaryotic mobilome.
The ISF title:聽Using computational tools for peacing together the tree of life.
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Sep
2009A new聽M.Sc. Bioinformatics program聽with evolutionary emphasis at the聽Department of Evolutionary and Environmental Biology, at the聽University of Haifa.
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Sep
2009Our quartet approximation paper (with Raphy Yuster) got into聽ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA10)聽,聽ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA10)).
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Jun
2009Celebrating 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his book聽The Origin of Species聽,聽a symposium for the ley audience (in Hebrew). For聽English version.
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Jun
2009the Phylogeny Workshop in Alfr茅d R茅nyi Institute of Mathematics 22nd-25th June 2009.
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Available Positions
We are looking for individuals who are interested in solving very challenging problems concerned with聽evolution聽which will have a large impact in biological sciences. A typical student in the lab should have a strong computational or quantitative background and is interested in biological problems.
Biological background is not mandatory (but of course cannot harm) upon starting, but is expected to be acquired gradually.
New New New New New New New
Due to recent ISF and BSF grant awards with leading labs in the US, excelent students are required. Fellowship includes聽high salary聽and visits at the partner lab.
Graduate Students
Graduate Students are welcome to start a project in the group. In particular, Computer Science or related discipline students with little biological background are very welcome. We will teach you the biology you need to know. Any extended biological knowledge is up to you.
Undergraduates
Undergraduates who are interested in working on a research project are encouraged to take relevant courses and join the lab.
In any case you are聽invited to contact聽either by phone or Email and inquire information. We are offering diversified projects in the broad area mathematical evolutionary biology. See聽projects list聽for details on available projects.