Ilan Sela
Professor Emeritus of Virology and Molecular
Biology
Born: 1936
Ph.D. (1964).
Full Professor since 1984.
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Faculty of Agricultural, Food Quality and
Environmental Sciences
Robert H. Smith Institute of Plant Sciences
and Genetics
Virus Laboratory
Rehovot 76100
Israel
Phone: +972-8-9489377
Fax: +972-8-9473402
e-mail: sela@agri.huji.ac.il
Updated:October 2008.
- Maintaining full-scale research in a
well-equipped laboratory after retiring.
- Chief Scientist of Beeologics, a
company dedicated to bee health.
- Chief Scientist of Morflora, a
company dedicated to plant improvement via
the IL-60 platform.
Main Research Interests and current research activities:
- A universal platform (IL-60) for
expression and silencing in plants.
- The use of the IL60 platform for
protecting plants from viruses, bacteria
(including phytoplasmas) and fungi.
- Innate immunity in plants.
- RNA silencing of plant and viral gene
expression.
- Integration of viral RNA sequences into
host genomes.
- Bee viruses.
- Exchange of genetic information between
Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) and the
bee genome and its relation to Colony
Collapse Disorder (CCD).
- RNA silencing in bees as a tool to
control IAPV (and CCD), and bee parasites
(Varroa, Nosema).
Teaching:
Introduction to Molecular Biology (71065)
An undergraduate course.
Experimental Aspects in Molecular Biology
(71957) A graduate course.
Laboratory Training in Molecular Biology
(71177) A graduate course.
Virology (71953) a graduate course.
Biotechnology for Law Students (62224). All
levels.
Stopped teaching upon retirement.
Graduate Students:
Theses of over a 100 M.Sc. and Ph.D. students
done under my supervision (including a number
of post-doctoral fellows). Currently the
laboratory consists of 2 researchers holding
a Ph.D. degree, 2 Ph.D. students, 2 M.Sc.
students, and 2 assisting students.
Research grants:
Recipient of Research grants from: University
internal grants, Volkswagen Foundation, BSF,
NIH, Roche, BARD, GIF, Chief Scientist of the
Ministry of Industry and Commerce, Industrial
sources in Israel, Industrial sources in the
USA.
Selected papers
(Out of 95 reviewed papers)
- Sela, I., & Appelbaum, SW. (1962).
Occurrence of antiviral factor in
virus-infected plants. Virology 17: 543-548.
- Salmon, R., Sela, I., Giveon, D., and
Littauer, U.Z. (1976). Enzymatic acylation of
histidine to TMV-RNA. Virology 71: 78-84.
- Sela, I. (1981). Plant-virus interactions
related to resistance and localization of
viral infections. Advances in Virus Research
26: 201-237.
- Orchansky, P., Rubinstein, M., &
Sela, I. (1982). Human interferons protect
plants from virus infection. Proc. Natl.
Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 79: 2278-2280.
- Devash, y., Biggs, S., & Sela, I.
(1982). Multiplication of tobacco mosaic
virusin tobacco leaf-disks is inhibited by
(2'-5') oligoadenylate. Science 216:
1415-1416.
- Sela, I. (1986). Preparation and
measurement of an antiviral protein found in
tobacco cells after infection with tobacco
mosaic virus. Methods inEnzymology 119:
734-744.
- Sela, I. (1986). Assay of effect of human
interferons on tobacco protoplasts. Methods
in Enzymology 119: 744-752.
- Devash, Y., Sela, I., & Su, R.J.
(1986). Enzymatic synthesis of plant
oligoadenylates in vitro. Methods in
Enzymology 119: 752-758.
- Edelbaum, E., Ilan, N., Grafi, G., Sher,
N., Stram, Y., Novick, D., Tal, N., Sela, I.
& Rubinstein, M. (1990). Purification and
characterization of two antivirally active
proteins from tobacco by monoclonal
antibodies to human b -interferon. Proc.
Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 87: 588-592.
- Edelbaum, O., Stein, D., Holland, N.,
Gafni, Y., Livneh, O., Novick, D.,
Rubinstein, M., & Sela, I. (1992).
Expression of active human interferon-b in
transgenic plants. J. Interferon Res. 12:
449-453.
- Vardi, E., Sela, I., Edelbaum, O.,
Livneh, O., Kuznetsova, L., & Stram, Y.,
(1993). Plants transformed with a cistron of
a potato virus Y protease (NIa) are resistant
to virus infection. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.
U.S.A. 90: 7513-7517.
- Galiakparov, N., Tanne, E., Sela, I. and
Gafny, R. (1999). Infectious RNA transcripts
from grapevine virus A cDNA clone. Virus
Genes 19:235-242.
- Galiakparov, N., Tanne, E., Sela, I. and
Gafny, R. (2003). Functional analysis of the
grapevine virus A genome. Virology 306:
42-50.
- Melamed, S., Tanne, E., Ben-Haim, R.,
Yogev, D., and Sela, I. (2003) Identification
and characterization of phytoplasmal genes,
employing a novel method of isolating
phytoplasmal genomic DNA. J. Bacteriol.
185:6513-6521.
- Levy, M., Edelbaum, E., and Sela, I.
(2004). Tobacco mosaic virus regulates the
expression of its own resistance gene
N. Plant physiology
135:1-6.
- Tanne E., and Sela, I. (2005). Occurrence
of a DNA sequence of anon-retro RNA virus in
the host plant genome and its expression:
Evidence for recombination between viral and
host RNAs. Virology 332: 614-622.
- Maori, E., Tanne, E., and Sela, I.
(2007). Reciprocal sequence exchange between
non-retro viruses and hosts leading to the
appearance of new host phenotypes.
Virology 362: 342-349.
- Rotem, N., Shemesh, E., Pertez, Y., Akad,
F., Edelbaum, O., Rabinowitch, H. D., Sela,
I., Kamenetsky, R. (2007). Reproductive
development and phenotypic differences in
garlic are associated with expression and
splicing of LEAFY homologous gaLFY. J.
Experimental Botany 58: 1133-1141.
- Peretz. Y., Mozes-Koch, R., Akad, F.,
Tanne, E., Czosnek, H., and Sela, I. A
universal Expression/Silencing Vector in
Plants (2007). Plant Physiology
145:1251-1263.
- Maori, E., Lavi, S., Mozes-Koch, R.,
Gantman, Y., l Peretz, Y., Edelbaum, O.,
Tanne, E. and Sela, I. (2007).Isolation and
characterization of IAPV, a dicistrovirus
affecting honeybees in Israel: evidence for
diversity due to intra- and inter-species
recombination. J. Gen. Virol.
88: 3428-3438.
- Peretz, Y., Levy, M., Avisar, E.
Edelbaum, O., Rabinowitch, H, and Sela, I.
(2008). A T7-driven silencing system in
transgenic plants expressing T7 RNA
polymerase is a nuclear process.
Transgenic Resaerch 17:665-694.
- Maori, E., Paldi, N., Shafir, S., Kalev,
H., Tsur, E., Glick, E. And Sela, I. (in
press). IAPV, a Bee-Affecting Virus
Associated with Colony Collapse Disorder Can
Be Silenced by dsRNA Ingestion. Insect
Molecular Biology.
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