Assaf Friedler 5th Modern Solid Phase Peptide Synthesis Symposium 2015

Assaf Friedler

Assaf Friedler is a Professor of Chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI). Assaf received his Ph.D in peptide chemistry and medicinal chemistry from HUJI in 2000. Between 2000-2004 he did his post-doc in Cambridge, UK at the MRC Centre for Protein Engineering. In 2004 he joined the institute of chemistry in HUJI, where he served as the head of the school of chemistry between 2010-2015. Between 2016-2020 Assaf was the Vice-Rector of HUJI. During that time, he was also the chairman of the inter-university forum for student admission policy in Israel. Between 2020-2024 Assaf was the dean of the Faculty of Science in HUJI. Currently he is the director of SHARE, the Singapore – HUJI Alliance of Research and Enterprise. The research in the lab of Prof. Friedler focuses on using peptides to study and modulate protein-protein interactions (PPI), which mediate most of the vital processes in cells and are involved in numerous diseases. It is extremely challenging to make PPI drug targets. This becomes even more difficult when the interactions involve disordered protein domains. Assaf’s lab is using peptides for the quantitative biophysical and structural analysis of PPI in health and disease. Based on this, his group is developing lead peptides that modulate PPI for therapeutic purposes in biological systems that are affected in disease, such as cancer-related pathways and protein aggregation in disease. In addition, PPI are used for biosensing. Assaf is engaged in national and international public scientific activity. Between 2014-2017, he was the secretary of the physical and biophysical chemistry division of IUPAC, between 2012-2018 a member of the council of the European Peptide Society, and between 2015-2018 a member of the executive committee of the Israeli chemical society. Assaf won several prizes and awards, including a grant from the European Research Council and the outstanding young scientist prize by the Israeli Chemical Society, Assaf is also passionate about teaching and was selected as an outstanding teacher at the Hebrew University for 9 consecutive years.