Daniel Chamovitz (דניאל חיימוביץ; born April 18, 1963 ) is an American-born
plant geneticist and the 7th President of
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in
Beer-Sheva,
Israel.[1] Previously he was Dean of the George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences at
Tel Aviv University, Israel, and the director of the multidisciplinary Manna Center Program in Food Safety and Security.[2][3]
Since January 1, 2019, Chamovitz serves as the 7th President of
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in
Beer-Sheva,
Israel, and holds the university's Miles and Lillian Cahn Chair in Food Security and Plant Science.[4]
Scientific career
During his doctoral research, in the lab of Joseph Hirschberg, Daniel Chamovitz
cloned several
genes involved in the
biosynthesis of
beta-carotene.[5][6][7] As a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Xing-Wang Deng at Yale University, he discovered the
COP9 Signalosome (CSN) complex.[8][9] At Tel Aviv University he continued to work on this protein complex to understand its role in regulating plant responses to the environment with both
Arabidopsis and
Drosophila as model systems. Using genetic,
biochemical,
molecular and
computational approaches, he has shown that CSN is essential for development in both plants and animals and is likely also involved in a number of human diseases, including
cancer.[10] His lab has also elucidated the role of the phytochemical
indole-3-carbinol in plant development.[11][12] Chamovitz has published over 70 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals[13][14] with over 6,000 citations listed in Google Scholar.[15] He was also member of the
Faculty of 1000, Biology.[16]
He is known for his popular science book What a Plant Knows,[17][18][19][20][21] which was first published in 2012, with an updated and revised edition appearing in 2017. The book won a silver medal from the Nautilus Book Awards[22] and was listed as one of the Top 10 Science books in Amazon for 2012.[23]What a Plant Knows has been translated and published in 20 countries. The book was also the base for a course[24] with the same name taught on
Coursera by Chamovitz to over 100,000 students,[25][26][27] beginning in 2013.