So how is it like to be a first-year master student and taking baby steps towards becoming a researcher at the Mizrahi lab? From the moment I stepped into the Mizrahi lab, I knew I have joined a special place.  Where you are encouraged to think, learn, be creative, improvise and take your ideas into the next level. First of all, I got to know the different lab facilities and rooms, the anaerobic lab which enables us to grow anaerobic bacteria and perform studies as well as the storage room … [Read more...]

Have you ever wondered how do we know who are the microbes in environmental samples? Understanding microbial life requires us to study their functionality and metabolism which is also only possible in pure culture. Sadly, with the increasing technological advances, isolating new microbes from the environment was pretty much abandoned, as it is not an easy task.  Cultivating pure microorganisms is essential to form databases to which environmental samples will be compared to, however, some … [Read more...]

By Tamar Zehavi Being a part of the field of anaerobic microbiology, it's always better to learn from the best. My story begins with an email invitation by Prof. Paul J. Weimer, who recently retired from the USDA. I was invited to Wisconsin to learn from him about his methods of growing rumen microorganisms and I, of course, happily accepted the offer. After several months of trying to find the 'right time' for all parties included, I started my journey at the Ben Gurion airport, Tel-Aviv. … [Read more...]

  A recent study of ours has been chosen as editors' choice of the Science journal,  Aug 2017 (http://science.sciencemag.org/content/357/6350/468.3). Cattle are able to metabolize otherwise indigestible plant materials with the help of methane-generating bacteria, named methanogens, in their first stomach, the rumen. Methanogens play a key role in sustaining rumen metabolism and function. Our study shows that methane is generated in the rumen of newborn calves just 2 days after … [Read more...]

  Our recently published study examines the connection between specific heritable microbes and the efficiency of ruminants at producing energy from their feed. Ruminants host a unique and obligatory relationship with their microbiome, in which their ability to digest certain feeds relies completely on the presence of specific microbes. This connection has been first established in another study of our group (ISME, May 2016, Sheerli Kruger Ben Shabat et al.). This extraordinary alliance  … [Read more...]

by Sarah Morais WASTE2FUELS aims to develop next generation biofuel technologies capable of converting agrofood waste (AFW) streams into high quality biobutanol. This European Union project is a cooperation between 20 groups (both industries and academic) from 8 countries including two groups Israel (Weizmann and us at BGU). This common effort aims to achieve a huge task: convert food detritus to alcool (butanol) that could be used as a fuel. While other partners are trying to … [Read more...]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_cvXVZ7QeQ&feature=youtu.be … [Read more...]

The Ultimate Project Student   The Mizrahi lab already has three full-functioning (and quite pricey) robots that can do almost anything (they can't make coffee yet, but it's a work in process). In other words, we aren't looking for pipetting robot-students. Project students are, undoubtedly, an inseparable part of our research team and the Mizrahi lab family. As such, we see them as a great asset. As routine is the enemy of creativity, sometimes a fresh and objective perspective can be … [Read more...]

Hey, I'm Tamar. I completed my Master's degree and continued to a Ph.D. while focusing on community assembly. How communities come to be? It is a question asked by researchers across many disciplines. It has been studied throughout history [1] to this day, involving sociology, economy, biology, and statistics and is dated back to ancient Greece, Rome, India, and China with the study of human demography. In ecology it has been studied as well for various reasons such as rehabilitating … [Read more...]

Despite the seemingly limitless knowledge mankind possesses nowadays, it is surprising how relatively little we know about the estimated 100 trillion bacterial cells that reside on and inside us (~10 times as many cells as the human body). Just like fingerprints, the microbial composition of each microbiome is individual to each human being. The love-hate relationship we have with these bugs can either benefit or hinder us (relationship status: 'it's complicated'). Just like every other couple, … [Read more...]