Head of the HTS and Biological Assays Unit

Email: pichinuk@tauex.tau.ac.il

Dr. Edward Pichinuk is a molecular cell biologist and HCS & Drug Discovery Scientist who joined the BLAVATNIK CENTER for Drug Discovery after completion of post-doctoral research at the Cell Screening Facility for Personalized Medicine (CSFPM), The Laboratory for Neurodegenerative Diseases & Personalized Medicine-Tel Aviv University, supervised by Prof. Miguel Weil.

Dr. Pichinuk received his degrees from The George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University. In his Ph.D. under the supervision of Prof. Daniel H. Wreschner, Dr. Pichinuk studied the biological roles of the tumor specific antigen MUC1 in health and disease and developed a panel of highly active chimeric antibodies and immuno-conjugates which were used for targeting of MUC1 expressing cancer cells for potential therapeutic purposes.

In his post-doctoral research Dr. Pichinuk combined his expertise in molecular and cellular biology with novel High throughput screening (HTS) and high content analysis (HCA) methodologies used for cell based assays development of rare diseases. Dr. Pichinuk played an important role in development of a novel approach to identify the disease phenotype in cells from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) patients and from patients with other rare diseases. This approach uses the subcellular information from multiple images taken from thousands of skin fibroblasts cells from patients allowing identification of specific disease signatures or disease phenotypes based on the individual’s cell biology. These disease cellular phenotypes will serve as a platform for drug screening on patient cells to isolate potential drugs for personalized treatment.

Dr. Pichinuk has received Dean Excellency award for outstanding achievements in his research as well as International Union Against Cancer (UICC) ICRETT fellowship (2006), Cancer Biology Research Center (CBRC)  hemato-oncology research award (2010), Prof. Yafa Keydar award for outstanding achievements in cancer research (2012) and most recently he has received The National Network of Excellence in Neuroscience (NNE) research award from Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.