Research Areas

The Albert Katz Department for Dryland Biotechnologies is located at the Sede-Boqer Campus of Ben-Gurion University of Negev.
The Department offers courses in "Agriculture and biotechnology for sustainable dryland development" in the framework of the International School for Desert Studies and at other BGU departments.
Research facilities of the Department include well equipped laboratories for physiological and molecular research. We have greenhouses, growth chambers, germplasm collections, and a central institutional equipment laboratory that holds special analytical instruments for general use.

Areas of research in brief:

Aquaculture

Aquatic Animal Health

Cellular and Molecular Biology of Plants in Controlled Environment

Desert Plant Biotechnology

Microalgal Biotechnology

Plant Molecular Genetics

Aquaculture - S. Appelbaum

The activities of the Desert Aquaculture unit include research on fish biology, nutrition and behaviour, development and invention of new and invention of new and improved aquaculture equipment and techniques, generally with a commercial application. Also, design and set-up of environmentally and ecologically based commercial enterprises. The varieties of fish used in our work include carp, eel, Tilapia, catfish, sea bream and ornamental fish.
Research and development in our unit emphasizes low cost, simple devices, which require little maintenance and retain water quality without the use of excessive amounts of water. Our systems are affordable for the small-scale fish farmer, an important factor in the current economic climate.

Aquatic Animal Health Laboratory - Dina Zilberg

The aquatic animal health laboratory conducts research on topics that aim to contribute to the development and strengthening of fish and shrimp culture in the Israeli Negev and Arava. The laboratory also provides routine health services to local aquaculture farms. Research topics include: the development of plant derived treatments against selected diseases of aquatic organisms to replace the traditionally used antibiotics and chemicals and to be used in organic fish culture. Research is also conducted on major disease problems and abnormalities that emerge in farms in these regions, so is the tetrahymena disease of guppies, Poecilia reticulata, and the occurrence of swimbladder non-inflation in angelfish, Pterophyllum scalare.

Cellular and Molecular Biology of Plants in Controlled Environment - Yair Heimer, Micha Guy

Agriculture in arid lands is limited mainly due to shortage in water resources on the one hand, and high irradiance throughout the year on the other hand. Growth of plants in closed and controlled systems is thus one of the more promising solutions for agriculture in arid lands. The research is focused on characterization of factors, which limit growth of plants in closed systems (effect of environmental and nutritional factors). This characterization will enable suggestion of physiological, biochemical and molecular solutions, as well as offering models of closed systems, which are much improved than those existing in the market today.

Desert Plant Biotechnology - Avi Golan

The underlying hypothesis of the research at the Desert Plant Biotechnology Laboratory is that desert plants contain unique biochemicals, which enable them to survive under the extreme environmental conditions of the desert. We have been screening desert plants for various biological activities, such as anti-malarial, anti-bacterial, anti-viral, cytotoxicity against cancer cells in vitro and plants for phytoremediation of polluted soil and water. Several plant species and compounds were identified in each of the screening criteria and they are under detailed investigation.

Microalgal Biotechnology - Claude Aflalo, Sammy Boussiba, Zvi Cohen, Avigad Vonshak

The overall aim of research in the Microalgal Biotechnology Laboratory (MBL) is to develop the biotechnology involved in mass production of microalgae for various commercial purposes, utilizing the high temperature, brackish or sea water, and solar irradiance that abound year round in the desert.
Research in our group is targeted to the following topics: Search for natural products with particular interest in pigments and food-chain components used in aquaculture, as well as polyunsaturated fatty acids used in infant nutrition as well as for various pharmaceutical preparations. We study their biosynthesis and algal productivity in the laboratory as well as in mass cultures outdoors. The major recent focus for research is the cellular and molecular aspect. We are in the process of investing the substantial physiological know-how gained in our group into cell biochemistry and genetic/metabolic engineering, by harnessing molecular techniques to identify new natural products and develop further the algal productivity.
Research in our lab includes studying the environmental factors governing biomass production in outdoor cultures, potential applications of N₂-fixing cyanobacteria as biological vectors to encounter environmental problems, and development of suitable photobioreactors for mass cultivation of photoautotrophic microorganisms.

Plant Molecular Genetics - Simon Barak

The Plant Molecular Genetics Laboratory uses a combination of bioinformatics, functional genomics and molecular biology in order to isolate genes that regulate plant responses to environmental stress. Arabidopsis thaliana is our model plant of choice, and we are also using a close relative of Arabidopsis, the halophyte Thellungiella halophila, in order to isolate novel stress-regulatory genes that might not be present in Arabidopsis. In addition we are interested in the plant circadian clock since many stress genes exhibit circadian expression. We have isolated several Arabidopsis clock mutants and are characterizing the role of the defective genes