San Francisco — The Machiah Foundation, a supporting foundation of the Jewish Community Endowment Fund, announces the names of the five recipients of the 2009 fellowship awards to support advanced life science research training for Israeli post-doctoral scientists to study at leading U.S. educational institutions. The Foundation initiated this program in response to the decreased training opportunities available to Israeli post-doctoral scientists at European institutions of higher learning in the last five years. Fellowship recipients, who are selected by a distinguished group of senior U.S. scientists, will each receive up to $120,000 of stipend support, awarded over a two-year period.

The recipients, research projects, and their host institutions in the U.S. are:

• Dan Levy, Weizmann Institute
  Stanford University - NSD3's function in chromatin-mediated processes and oncogenesis
• Eran Gershon, Weizmann Institute
  Salk Institute - Revealing the molecular mechanisms underlying stress-induced effects on reproduction.
• Eran Stark , Hebrew University
  Rutgers, State University of New Jersey - Temporal spiking precision underlying memory measured by neuronal recordings and photo-stimulation
• Lior Shmuelof, Hebrew University
  Columbia University - From abstract to concrete representations of action in the human motor cortex
• Michal Schwartz - Hebrew University
  UCSD - The molecular basis for nuclear receptor-dependent tumor translocations

All fellows are citizen residents of the state of Israel and have agreed to return to and reside in the state of Israel for no less than three years after the fellowship award period has concluded. Additionally, applicants must have not previously studied in the United States or Canada for a period of six or more months.

In June 2005, the Machiah Foundation board approved a grant to begin and sustain this fellowship program. Subsequently, additional donors have provided funds through the Jewish Community Endowment Fund to expand the number of fellowship awards. The 2009 cohort received research training funds from the Gerson and Barbara Bakar Philanthropic Fund, the Bernard Osher Jewish Philanthropies Foundation, the Alexander M. and June L. Maisin Foundation, the Irving & Helen Betz Foundation, as well as the Machiah Foundation.

Machiah Foundation board president Dr. Stanley N. Cohen, Professor of Genetics at Stanford University, indicated that, “the 2009 fellows were chosen from a group of 34 absolutely outstanding applicants.” He stated that he hopes that these fellowship awards will, “help to advance the progress of science not only in Israel, but also more broadly. The global scientific community and individual fields of study in the biological and medical sciences will benefit from increased interactions with excellent Israeli researchers, and the state of Israel’s scientific research will be strengthened as fellows return to live and work in Israel.”

For more information, please contact Laura Mason, Senior Program Officer at 415.512.6273 or
lauram@sfjcf.org.