Oded Beja

Oded Béjà
Born	(1964-01-29) January 29, 1964 (age 61)
Alma mater	Hebrew University, Weizmann Institute of Science
Known for	Bacterial Rhodopsin discovery, Viral Photosynthesis
Children	3
Awards	American Society for Photobiology 2002 Faculty Member of the Year 2012 Faculty of 1000 Advanced ERC grant awardee 2012
Scientific career
Fields	Metagenomics, Microbiology
Doctoral advisor	Prof. Eitan Bibi
Website	https://beja.net.technion.ac.il/

Oded Béjà is a professor in the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, in the field of marine microbiology and metagenomics.[1]

Academic work

Oded Béjà is best known for discovering the first bacterial rhodopsin[2] naming it proteorhodopsin,[3] during his postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Edward DeLong. Oded Béjà's laboratory focuses currently on the role and diversity of photosynthetic viruses infecting cyanobacteria in the oceans,[4] and the use of functional metagenomics for the discovery of new light sensing proteins.

In 2018, the team of Oded Beja discovered a new family of rhodopsins with an inverted membrane topology, which can be found in bacteria, algae, algal viruses and archaea.[5] Members of the new family were named heliorhodopsins.[5]

Early life and education

Oded Béjà graduated with a B.Sc. degree from the Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment - Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He earned his M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute of Science in 1998.[1]

Recognition

• Editorial board of the International Society for Microbial Ecology[6]
• Faculty Member of the Year 2012 by Faculty of 1000.[7]
• EMBO Young Investigator 2002-2004[8]
• American Society for Photobiology 2002 [2] New Investigator Award.
• Ranked 443 in the Ranking of scientists in Israel Institutions according to their Google Scholar Citations public profiles[9]

References

1. "Technion - Department of Biology". biology.technion.ac.il. Retrieved 2017-01-25.
2. Béjà, Oded; Aravind, L.; Koonin, Eugene V.; Suzuki, Marcelino T.; Hadd, Andrew; Nguyen, Linh P.; Jovanovich, Stevan B.; Gates, Christian M.; Feldman, Robert A. (2000-09-15). "Bacterial Rhodopsin: Evidence for a New Type of Phototrophy in the Sea". Science. 289 (5486): 1902–1906. Bibcode:2000Sci...289.1902B. doi:10.1126/science.289.5486.1902. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 10988064.
3. Grote, Mathias; O'Malley, Maureen A. (2011-11-01). "Enlightening the life sciences: the history of halobacterial and microbial rhodopsin research". FEMS Microbiology Reviews. 35 (6): 1082–1099. doi:10.1111/j.1574-6976.2011.00281.x. ISSN 1574-6976. PMID 21623844.
4. Sharon, Itai; Alperovitch, Ariella; Rohwer, Forest; Haynes, Matthew; Glaser, Fabian; Atamna-Ismaeel, Nof; Pinter, Ron Y.; Partensky, Frédéric; Koonin, Eugene V. (2009). "Photosystem I gene cassettes are present in marine virus genomes". Nature. 461 (7261): 258–262. Bibcode:2009Natur.461..258S. doi:10.1038/nature08284. PMC 4605144. PMID 19710652.
5. Pushkarev, Alina; Inoue, Keiichi; Larom, Shirley; Flores-Uribe, José; Singh, Manish; Konno, Masae; Tomida, Sahoko; Ito, Shota; Nakamura, Ryoko (June 2018). "A distinct abundant group of microbial rhodopsins discovered using functional metagenomics". Nature. 558 (7711): 595–599. Bibcode:2018Natur.558..595P. doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0225-9. ISSN 0028-0836. PMC 11128463. PMID 29925949. S2CID 49330919.
6. "Editors List | ISME-International Society for Microbial Ecology". www.isme-microbes.org. Retrieved 2017-01-26.
7. "Oded Beja | Faculty Member | Faculty Opinions".
8. "Browse Form". 194.94.44.233. Retrieved 2017-01-26.
9. "Ranking of scientists in Israel Institutions according to their Google Scholar Citations public profiles | Ranking Web of Universities". www.webometrics.info. Retrieved 2017-01-26.