"We have just a few kinds of antibiotics, and certain kinds of bacteria are totally resistant to these. If these bacteria spread, as every biologist knows is about to happen at some point, we are totally helpless."
The Israeli biologist Oded Rechavi is here. The practitioner of what he describes as "radical science," he spends his life studying one millimeter long roundworms called C. elegans... but what does this have to do with humans, with inheritable traits, with our potential for survival now and in the future? Well, a lot actually. From his early passions studying art in Paris, to his breakthrough biological discovery during his PhD studies at Columbia, to his descriptions of bacteria and the possibility they can be resistant to the tools humans have developed to fight back-- the conversation is illuminating and even scary. We also learn how fortunate we are that SARS-CoV-2 turned out to be a very simple genetic code for which to combat using vaccines, and what might happen if we are confronted with a more lethal, more complex virus. It's a wild scientific world out there, and Oded Rechavi helps us sort it out.
Professor Oded Rechavi’s mission is to challenge fundamental long-held scientific dogmas. He found an exception to the original “Cell Theory," provided the first direct evidence that an acquired trait can be inherited, elucidated an alternative transgenerational inheritance mechanism (that depends on inherited small RNA molecules, not DNA molecules), discovered a mechanism that allows nematodes’ brains to control the behavior of their progeny, discovered a neuronal circuit-level mechanism that explains economic irrationality, and demonstrated that parasites can be genetically engineered to deliver drugs to the nervous system.
Recently, Prof. Rechavi utilized genome sequencing to “piece together” fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Prof. Rechavi is an ERC Fellow, and was awarded many prestigious prizes, such as the Schmidt Science Polymath award, the Kadar award, Blavatnik award, the Krill Wolf award, the Alon, and F.I.R.S.T (Bikura) Prizes, and the Gross Lipper Fellowship. Prof. Rechavi was selected as one of the “10 Most Creative People in Israel Under 40”, and one of the “40 Most Promising People in Israel Under 40.”
