David Gurwitz, Ph.D.
Dr. David Gurwitz is the Director (since 1995) of the National Laboratory for the Genetics of Israeli Populations (NLGIP) at the Department of Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University. The NLGIP is the National Human Biobank of Israel, holding a cell lines and DNA collections from healthy donors representing the unique ethnic diversity of the Jewish and Arab populations of Israel (see: http://nlgip.tau.ac.il/ ).
Dr. Gurwitz earned a PhD in Biochemistry from Tel-Aviv University (1986) and has spent 3 years of post-graduate studies at The University of California, Irvine. Prior to joining Tel-Aviv University he worked at the Israel Institute for Biological Research and has led the biochemistry team developing Cevimeline.
Dr. Gurwitz has been promoting the incorporation of pharmacogenetics to the MD studies curriculum, and teaches this topic at the Tel-Aviv University School of Medicine since 2001. His research is focused on (a) the diversity of genes coding for drug-metabolizing enzymes in the ethnic populations of the Middle East; (b) searching biomarkers for antidepressant drug response; (c) societal and ethical aspects of pharmacogenetics and personal genomics. David is an affiliate member of the NIH Pharmacogenetics Research Network (PGRN) and several international biobank organizations (P3G; BBMRI; EBB). In 2006 he spent a sabbatical with the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre in Seville (Spain) and co-authored the EC report on “The Socio-Economic Impact of Pharmacogenetics in the EU”. He is an associate editor of several journals including Pharmacogenomics.
