TAU professor receives knighthood from Italian president

Prof. Ehud Gazit of Tel Aviv University's George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences was knighted into the Order of the Star of Italy. The ceremony took place at the house of the Italian ambassador to Israel.

This title is given annualy by the Italian President to outstanding figures from Italy and the world.

The Knighthood in the Order of the Star of Italy was given to Prof. Gazit for his contribution to the advancement of science, his extensive public works in Israel and abroad, as well as his many years of promoting the advancement of joint Israeli-Italian research.

Prof. Ehud Gazit, a former Tel Aviv University Vice President for Research and Development and Chief Scientist of the Israel Ministry of Science and Technology, holds the Chair for Biotechnology of Neurodegenerative Disease at the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology, George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, and the Department of Material Science and Engineering, Iby and Aladar Fleischman Faculty of Engineering. He is also the academic director of the BLAVATNIK CENTER for Drug Discovery and Head of the Laura Schwarz-Kipp Institute for Biotechnology. Since 2014, Gazit has served as a member of Israel's National Council for Research and Development (NCRD). 

Gazit's research focuses on the study of biomolecular self-assembly. He has identified minimal recognition elements that facilitate the assembly of amyloid fibrils, associated with Alzheimer's disease, and novel ways to inhibit this process. His laboratory was the first to identify aromatic dipeptides that form nanotubes and nanospheres of unique mechanical and chemical properties. The applications of these nano-assemblies for ultra-sensitive biosensors, energy-storage devices, and the fabrication of metallic nanowires has been demonstrated. He also holds more than 100 patents including 32 granted US patents. Gazit has received numerous awards and honors, including the Landau Research Award, Hestrin Award and Kadar Family Award for Outstanding Research. He is a Fellow of the UK's Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) and a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO).