Uri Alon
אורי אלון
Born	1969 (age 56–57)[1]
Education	Hebrew University of Jerusalem Weizmann Institute of Science
Known for	Network motifs
Awards	Overton Prize (2004)
Scientific career
Workplaces	Weizmann Institute of Science Princeton University
Doctoral advisor	David Mukamel[2]
Other academic advisors	Dov Shvarts Stanislas Leibler[3]
Doctoral students	Ron Milo
Website	www.weizmann.ac.il/mcb/UriAlon

Uri Alon (Hebrew: אורי אלון; born 1969) is an Israeli systems biologist and professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science.^[4] His highly cited^[5] research investigates gene expression,^[6] network motifs^[7][8] and the design principles of biological networks^[9] in Escherichia coli and other organisms using both computational biology and traditional experimental wet laboratory techniques.^{[citation needed]}

Education

Alon earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his Ph.D. degree in theoretical physics from the Weizmann Institute of Science.^[2][10]

Career

After having his interest in biology sparked, Alon headed to Princeton University for his postdoctoral work in experimental biology. He returned to the Weizmann Institute as a professor.

Alon features in several popular videos on YouTube such as Sunday at the Lab (with Michael Elowitz)^[11] and How to Give a Good Talk.^[12] As of 2011, he is the author of the most highly bookmarked scientific paper on CiteULike^[13] How To Choose a Good Scientific Problem^[14] and How to Build a Motivated Research Group.^[15]

In 2021 he was appointed visiting professor in the bioengineering department of Stanford University. He is a member of the IBS Biomedical Mathematics Group.^[16]

Research

Alon has contributed to the understanding of gene regulatory networks and generalized the term network motif in 2002.^[17][18][19]

Together with his team, he reunited different theories of endocrine feedback loops by introducing the closely related concepts of "dynamical compensation" and "autoimmune surveillance of hypersecreting mutants".^[20][21][22] The theories are able to explain a plethora of phenomena ranging from circannual endocrine rhythms^[23] over type 2 diabetes^[24] and other common endocrine disorders^[25] to alcohol addiction^[26] and age-related diseases.^[27]

Awards

In 2004 Alon was awarded the Overton Prize^[3] for "outstanding accomplishment by a scientist in the early to mid stage of his or her career" by the International Society for Computational Biology. Alon has also been awarded:

• Moore Fellowship, California Institute of Technology (2000)
• EMBO Young Investigator Award (2001)
• IBM Faculty Award (2003)
• Minerva Junior Research Group on Biological Computation (2003)
• Morris L. Levinson Award in Biology (2003)
• Teva Founders Prize (2005)
• European Molecular Biology Organization membership (2007)^[28]
• Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study fellow 2009^[29]
• HFSP Nakasone Award (2014)^[30]

References

External links

• Official website
• Uri Alon at TED