Debbie Yablonski

Ph.D.: Biochemistry, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1995

M.Sc.: Immunology, Weizmann Institute, 1988

B.Sc.: Biology, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Main Nano Field: Dynamics of Protein-protein interactions and their contribution to signaling networks

Research interests: We are studying how cooperative molecular interactions mediate the formation of multi-molecular signaling complexes (signalosomes), which interpret and transmit extracellular information within immune cells.

Nanoscale conformational changes underlie the cooperative effects that we are observing. Specifically, we studying how cooperative protein-protein binding interactions are formed, and how they can facilitate an analog/digital switch type of signaling, meaning that below a certain threshold, no signal is transmitted, and above that threshold there is a full response. This ability to generate an analog/digital switch from protein-protein interactions is of interest to the field of nanotechnology.