Joseph Klafter

Biography

Joseph Klafter is Professor of Physical Chemistry at Tel Aviv University, Israel. He studied physics at the University of New York in 1969. He studied Physics at the University of New York, where he received his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in 1969. He received his doctorate at the Tel Aviv University in 1978. He worked as a postdoctoral fellow for two years in the chemistry department , Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). From 1980 to 1987 he worked at the Exxon Research and Engineering Company. He joined the Tel Aviv University in 1987 and became chair professor of chemistry in 1998. In 2008 he became a fellow of the School of Soft Matter Research at the newly founded institute, FRIAS, Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies. Fellow of the American Physical Society (1993) and Head of Exact Sciences and Technology section of the Israel Science Foundation (1996-2002). Since 2001 he has been a member of the European Science Foundation, PESC Committee, as well as Chairman of the Academic Board of the Israel Science Foundation, ISF since 2002. Joseph Klafter has been distinguished by several awards, both nationally and internationally. In 1996 he was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Prize. He received the Weizmann Prize for Science in 1999, the Kolthoff Award of the Technion in 2003, the Rothschild Prize in Chemistry, 2004, and the Israel Chemical Society Prize of 2005.

Research Interest

His current research focuses on Manipulating molecules one by one Single-molecule spectroscopy at room temperature has become an established approach, which can be reported on the distribution of various properties of individual molecules (ie, reactivities, conformational changes, diffusion, unfolding rates, etc.) on a wide spectrum of scales. The information obtained from single-molecule spectroscopy could be valuable in particular for biomolecules. In particular, living cells provide striking examples for systems where subdiffusion has been repeatedly observed experimentally on a single molecule level. However, the microscopic origin of subdiffusion in cells is stillbeing debated. (Ii) dynamics of proteins in membranes / cellular systems and their relation to biological functions and (iii) crowding effects in cells.