Dr. Ohad Gafni
Ohad Gafni, Ph.D. is Cofounder and Chief Scientific Officer of Renewal Bio and a recognized leader in stem cell biology and developmental engineering with over 15 years of experience in pluripotent stem cell research, somatic cell reprogramming, and embryonic development.
As CSO of Renewal Bio since February 2023, he leads the development of synthetic human embryo models and artificial womb technology designed to advance regenerative medicine, organ transplantation, and treatments for genetic diseases. The company, pursuing recent advances in stem-cell technology and artificial wombs pioneered by Jacob Hanna at the Weizmann Institute, aims to grow synthetic human embryos up to 40 days old for tissue and organ harvesting for transplant medicine.
Founded in 2022 by Omri Amirav-Drory, Vladik Krupalnik, and Ohad, Renewal Bio is developing a bio platform that combines biology, hardware, and software to drive advancements in therapies for infertility, genetic diseases, lab-grown organs, and blood system rejuvenation. The startup has already hired some of Hanna’s students and licensed his technology from the Weizmann Institute, focusing on improving incubators, developing sensors to track embryoid development, and extending their survival time in the lab.
Renewal Bio represents one of the first companies attempting to create realistic synthetic embryos grown in jars, positioning itself at the forefront of both scientific advancement and ethical considerations in developmental biology. Read This startup wants to copy you into an embryo for organ harvesting.
Prior to Renewal Bio, Ohad served as the CEO and CSO of Regenevida from January 2022 to February 2023 and as Director of Stem Cells Technologies at Recombinetics from 2018 to 2023. At Recombinetics, a global leader in proprietary gene repair and gene-editing technology using TALEN and CRISPR technologies, he directed stem cell technology programs focused on regenerative medicine and disease research applications in large animal models.
The company, founded in 2008 and headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota, became widely recognized as the leader in livestock gene-editing for biomedical research, though it faced controversy over unintended bacterial DNA insertions in its gene-edited hornless cattle. Read Gene-edited cattle have a major screwup in their DNA.
Between 2016 and 2018, Ohad served as Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota’s Lillehei Heart Institute, where he continued his research on pluripotent stem cells and developmental biology. His University of Minnesota research portfolio included groundbreaking publications on histone mark co-occurrence mapping and the role of UTX in bivalent promoter resolution and activation. During his tenure, he mentored graduate students and postdoctoral researchers while establishing collaborative research programs with institutions including the Mayo Clinic. Read An essential role for UTX in resolution and activation of bivalent promoters.
Ohad’s most significant scientific contributions emerged during his doctoral studies at the Weizmann Institute of Science. In 2013, he was the first author on the landmark Nature paper Derivation of novel human ground state naive pluripotent stem cells, which established culture conditions allowing human embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells to acquire a pluripotent state similar to mouse naive embryonic stem cells.
This work demonstrated that human cells could be maintained stably in a naive-like state, with the resulting cells showing gene expression profiles more similar to the inner cell mass and capable of generating cross-species chimeric mouse embryos. Read Derivation of novel human ground state naive pluripotent stem cells and Deterministic direct reprogramming of somatic cells to pluripotency.
In 2016, Ohad coauthored another major contribution to the field with the publication of Co-ChIP enables genome-wide mapping of histone mark co-occurrence at single-molecule resolution in Nature Biotechnology, which presented a quantitative method for characterizing co-occurrence of histone modifications on nucleosomes.
This technique revealed complex interactions between histone modifications, including the discovery of previously undescribed co-occurrence patterns such as H3K9me1 and H3K27ac in super-enhancers. With over 2,289 citations according to Google Scholar, his research has significantly influenced the fields of pluripotent stem cell biology, developmental biology, and inter-species chimerism. Read Co-ChIP enables genome-wide mapping of histone mark co-occurrence at single-molecule resolution.
Ohad earned his Ph.D. in Pluripotent Stem Cells and Interspecies Chimerism from the Weizmann Institute of Science in 2016, where he worked in Jacob Hanna’s Laboratory for Pluripotent Cell Studies in the Department of Molecular Genetics from December 2011 to October 2016. His doctoral research focused on developing novel approaches to human pluripotency and creating the first transgene-free human naive pluripotent stem cells. His thesis was titled Delineating routes and applications of naive pluripotency.
He earned his Master of Science degree in Physiology and Biochemistry from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in 2010, where he conducted research involving molecular cloning, protein expression, and FPLC protein purifications. He completed his Bachelor of Science degree in Life Sciences at Ben-Gurion University in 2008.
Throughout his career, Ohad has published extensively in prestigious journals. His publications include work on bovine ephemeral fever transmission, sexual shift mechanisms in crayfish, and the H3K27 demethylase Utx’s role in somatic and germ cell epigenetic reprogramming published in Nature in 2012. He has presented his research at major international conferences including the International Symposium on Technology and Society and the International Society for Cell & Gene Therapy (ISCT) annual meetings. Read The H3K27 demethylase Utx regulates somatic and germ cell epigenetic reprogramming.
Ohad describes himself as a “creative, devoted, and enthusiastic scientist” with extensive background in multi-species embryonic stem cell research and somatic cell reprogramming, with emphasis on human and mouse pluripotency and differentiation. His work bridges fundamental developmental biology research with practical applications in regenerative medicine, positioning him at the forefront of efforts to develop synthetic embryo models for therapeutic applications.
As the biotechnology field advances toward creating organs on demand, Ohad’s contributions to understanding and manipulating pluripotent states continue to shape the future of regenerative medicine.
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