Prof. Roy Kishony Awarded Landau Prize

The prestigious 2021 Landau Award in Bioinformatics has been awarded to Prof. Roy Kishony of the Faculty of Biology and the Faculty of Computer Science at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The prize is awarded annually by the Mifal HaPais Council for the Culture and Arts to outstanding artists and scientists who made significant impact in key areas.

Prof. Roy Kishony

The award committee noted that “Prof. Roy Kishony is one of the most brilliant and respected scientists working in Israel. His research combines bioinformatics, mathematical models, machine learning, and experimental work in a creative and innovative way to study basic questions in areas of crucial importance to human health.”

His work focuses on bacterial resistance to antibiotics and ways to prevent it. Prof. Kishony’s many contributions to science include “describing the interactions between antibiotics and their impact on the development of bacterial resistance, understanding how, through antibiotic monitoring, the development of resistance can be delayed or prevented, and even discovering why antibiotic resistance is uncommon in bacteria growing in natural ecosystems,” the committee noted.

In recent years, Prof. Kishony has channeled his scientific insights into advancing health systems. He developed a computational learning system for predicting the most appropriate drug based on the patient’s personal medical record. Most recently, Prof. Kishony “greatly contributed to the understanding and improvement of the testing and vaccination for COVID-19,” the committee noted. “Prof. Kishony is an original and creative world-renowned scientist in the field of systems and computational biology.”

In conclusion, the committee wrote: “His multidisciplinary research takes advantage of bioinformatics as a tool for a better understanding of biological and medical systems.”