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Dr. Mwafaq Ibdah

The Ibdah lab employs biochemical, molecular, and genomic tools to elucidate the biosynthetic pathways that produce novel and important plant specialized metabolites in plants, to uncover the mechanisms responsible for the evolution of these pathways in the plant kingdom, and to understand the function of a given natural product in the biology and physiology of a given plant species.

Mwafaq Ibdah, Ph.D.

NeweYaar Research Center,
Agricultural Research Organization
P.O.Box 1021
Ramat Yishay, 30095

ISRAEL

e-mail: mwafaq@volcani.agri.gov.il

https://www.agri.gov.il/en/author/mwafaq

mobile: 00972506220686

Tel: 00 97249539537

About Me

EDUCATION

Education

University Education and Additional Training

1992 -1994 B.Sc., Biology, Humboldt University (Berlin, Germany)
1994 -1997 : M.Sc., Biology, Humboldt University (Berlin, Germany)
1998 -2002 : Ph.D., Life Sciences, Department of Secondary Metabolites, Leibniz Institute of Plant Biochemistry Martin Luther University (Halle Saale, Germany)
2004-2005 : Post-doctoral position, Institute of Vegetable and Field Crops, Newe Ya′ar Research Center, Israel, with Dr. Efraim Lewinsohn
2005-2008: Post-doctoral position at the University of Michigan, Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology (MCDB), with Professor Eran Pichersky (Ann Arbor, USA)

Positions Held and Academic Status

2002-2004 : Research Scientist, “Frutavit Ltd.”, Teradion Industrial Park (Misgav, Israel)
2008-2010: Research Scientist, “Frutarom Ltd.”(Haifa, Israel)
2010-2011 : Associate Researcher, Institute of Biological Chemistry, Washington State University (Pullman, WA, USA)
2011- to date : Principal Investigator, Institute of Plant Sciences, Agricultural Research Organization, Newe Ya′ar Research Center, Israel

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Research

Dr. Mwafaq Ibdah, during his Ph.D. at the Leibniz-Institute of Biochemistry in Germany (IPB Halle-Saale) and subsequent postdoctoral position at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, USA) and at Washington State University (Pullman, USA), gained extensive experience in plant biochemistry and molecular biology of plant natural products applicable to agriculture and biotechnology. His expertise in plant biochemistry, molecular biology, biotechnology, bioinformatics, and metabolic profiling is well documented by several research paper

Plant Specialized Metabolism

Plants produce an amazing diversity of small molecular weight compounds. While the chemical structures of close to 50,000 of them have already been elucidated, the total number of such compounds is probably in the hundreds of thousands to millions. Only a small number of these are part of what have been termed “primary” metabolic pathways; the rest of these molecules are called “secondary” metabolites, also known as specialized metabolites or natural products. The vast majority of these compounds are not found in the standard crop plants of the Western world, nor in standard laboratory model plants such as Arabidopsis thaliana and Medicago trunculata. These compounds are, however, believed to play vital roles in the physiology of the plants that produce them, particularly as elements of the plants’ defensive arsenals. Because of the great diversity of life strategies and accompanying defense strategies, these compounds truly represent the great diversity in the plant kingdom. Yet, very little is known about the mechanisms involved in the formation of almost all plant natural products.

Carrot (Daucus carota) and Pear (Prunus communis)

Carrot and Pear present excellent model systems research to identify these mechanisms because (i) they synthesize high amounts of specialized compounds, ii) a substantial diversity of compounds can be found in closely related species, and iii) these compounds are often synthesized in different tissues, which makes it possible to investigate the exact role of specific enzymes and genes in the production of specific metabolites in isolation from other major biochemical pathways.

Research Aims

Our research seeks to elucidate the biosynthetic pathways that produce novel and important plant specialized metabolites in carrot and pear plants, to uncover the mechanisms responsible for these pathways in the plant kingdom and to understand the function of a given natural product in the biology and physiology of a given plant species. The most productive approach in this area has been a multidisciplinary one-which utilizes the best tools from the fields of chemistry, biochemistry, molecular biology, plant physiology, whole organism biology, and ecology-because understanding the role that a specific metabolite plays in the plant requires an understanding of the whole complexity surrounding its formation and utilization. Tools are only now becoming available which allow us to gain this understanding. Besides the intrinsic scientific value of understanding plant metabolism and how plants produce specific natural products, such knowledge is essential for rational custom-designed breeding (by classical methods) of targeted natural product profiles in chemically tailored plants. This knowledge is also essential for the application of genetic engineering techniques to improve and develop new aromatic plants.

Biosynthetic Pathway and Metabolic Engineering of

Plant Dihydrochalcones

The increasing prevalence of several diseases, like Alzheimer’s disease, obesity, cancer, and diabetes, in humans in recent decades worldwide, accompanied by rising concern regarding the safety of many synthetic chemistry-based pharmaceuticals, has raised public demand for phytochemical-based medicines. This in turn has led to increasing interest in metabolic engineering as an approach to produce such natural products on an industrial scale, which has the potential to decrease production costs of, e.g. desired dihydrochalcones.

Dihydrochalcones are plant natural products containing the phenylpropanoid backbone and derived from the plant-specific phenylpropanoid pathway. Dihydrochalcone compounds are important in plant growth and response to stresses and, thus, can have large impacts on agricultural activity. In recent years, these compounds have also received increased attention from the biomedical community for their potential as anticancer treatments and other benefits for human health. However, they are typically produced at relatively low levels in plants. Therefore, an attractive alternative is to express the plant biosynthetic pathway genes in microbial hosts and to engineer the metabolic pathway/host to improve the production of these metabolites.