My lab is conducting a highly interdisciplinary research at the interface of biology, chemistry and material sciences with applications for Synthetic Biology, Nanotechnology and Biotechnology.

Cells are the most sophisticated machinery producing selectively and simultaneously hundreds of thousands of complex molecules. Our group is developing and applying new synthetic molecular biology pathways for the bioproduction of “living molecules” in bacteria. These molecules may exhibit intriguing functions with diverse in vivo applications, from medicine to energy or offering a production route of new classes of materials holding interesting physical capabilities (optics, electronics or catalysts).

In this context, my lab is currently focusing on developing synthetic biological tools for the expression of oligonucleotides and their self-assemblies into DNA nanostructures in bacteria. Defined DNA nanostructures inside living cells are investigated to confine and enhance specific chemical reactions for metabolic engineering or to study the effects of spatial localization on multi-component biomolecular pathways.

Dr Johann Elbaz received his PhD from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He then conducted his postdoctoral research in the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT working with Prof. Christopher Voigt. He has pursued research in diverse areas ranging from chemistry to synthetic biology with applications in biosensing, nanotechnology and biotechnology. Recently, he joined the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology at Tel Aviv University as an Assistant Professor. His lab is interested on engineering genetically organisms for the expression of “living artificial materials” for applications in Synthetic Biology and Nanotechnology.