Michal Breker, Ph.D.

Michal Breker is a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Professor Fred Cross at the Rockefeller University. She received her master’s degree in immunology in 2008 and completed her Ph.D. in 2013 at the Department of Molecular Genetics, both at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. Her doctoral work focused on stress responses and proteome dynamics in baker’s yeast. Prior to coming to the Weizmann Institute, Breker received her B.Sc. in neuroscience at Tel Aviv University.

In her postdoctoral studies, Breker is interested in studying the genetic networks that underlie growth and division in plants. She employs the single-celled Chlamydomonas, a microbial representative of the plant superkingdom, to develop novel high-throughput genome-wide approaches, applied for the first time in plants, to better understand a key model organism for biofuel production and food supply.

Breker has earned numerous awards, including the L’Oreal-UNESCO For Women in Science Award for Israel, the Israel National Postdoctoral Award for Advancing Women in Science from the Weizmann Institute, and student grant awards from the Azrieli Institute for Systems Biology and The Khan Family Research Center for Systems Biology program.