Dr. Itai Yanai

Biography

Itai Yanai is a Professor and the Scientific Director of the Applied Bioinformatics Laboratories at New York University Grossman School of Medicine. His research focuses on dynamic systems involved in tumorigenesis, host-pathogen interactions, and embryonic development, particularly through the lens of global gene expression. Yanai’s lab made significant contributions to the field by publishing the CEL-Seq methods for single-cell RNA sequencing, significantly advancing the technology with CEL-Seq2. He investigates aspects of genome evolution and developmental genetics, revealing fundamental processes such as the mid-developmental transition during embryogenesis across various animal phyla. Yanai’s groundbreaking research has been published in prestigious journals including Nature and Genome Research, highlighting the relationship between gene duplication, alternative splicing, and the control of gene expression levels. His work continues to push the boundaries of our understanding of the genetic underpinnings of complex biological processes.

Research Interests