Aviv Regev

Aviv Regev is an Israeli-American computational and systems biologist renowned for pioneering the field of single-cell genomics and co-leading foundational projects like the Human Cell Atlas. Her work focuses on understanding the regulatory circuits of cells and tissues in health and disease, particularly in immunology and cancer. Regev has held leadership positions at premier research institutions including the Broad Institute, MIT, and Harvard University, and in the biotechnology industry at Genentech and Roche.

Early life and education

Aviv Regev was born in Jerusalem and developed an early interest in mathematics and biology. She completed her undergraduate studies in bioinformatics and computer science at Tel Aviv University. Regev then pursued her doctoral degree at the Weizmann Institute of Science under the supervision of computer scientist Ehud Shapiro, earning a PhD for work that applied computational models to biological networks. Her postdoctoral training was conducted in the laboratory of Nir Friedman at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she began integrating computational approaches with experimental molecular biology.

Career and research

Regev began her independent career as a fellow at the Broad Institute and quickly rose to become a core institute member and director of its Klarman Cell Observatory. She also held professorships in the departments of Biology at the MIT and Genetics at Harvard Medical School. Her research group was instrumental in developing and applying some of the first high-throughput single-cell RNA sequencing methods, transforming the study of cellular heterogeneity in complex tissues like the immune system and tumors. A central focus of her academic career was co-founding and co-chairing the international Human Cell Atlas consortium, an ambitious project to map all cell types in the human body. In 2020, Regev transitioned to executive leadership in biotechnology, first as Head of Genentech Research and Early Development and later as Executive Vice President at Roche.

Awards and honors

Regev's transformative contributions have been recognized with numerous prestigious awards. She received the Overton Prize from the International Society for Computational Biology in 2017 for outstanding accomplishment in computational biology. She was elected as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and named an ISCB Fellow in 2019. In 2020, she was a co-recipient of the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for her work opening the field of single-cell genomics. Other notable honors include election to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the European Molecular Biology Organization.

Selected publications

Regev has authored or co-authored hundreds of highly influential scientific papers. Key publications include foundational methodological papers on single-cell RNA-seq in journals like Nature Methods and Science, and major atlas-building studies such as the first large-scale single-cell map of the immune system published in Cell. Her work on deciphering gene regulatory networks in cancer and development has also appeared in leading journals including Nature and Cell.

Personal life

Aviv Regev is married to fellow scientist Benny Chain, a professor of immunology at University College London. The couple has children and maintains connections to both the United States and Israel. Regev is also known as a mentor who has trained many leading scientists in the fields of computational biology and genomics.

Category:Israeli biologists Category:Computational biologists Category:1971 births Category:Living people