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Joseph Yanai

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Joseph Yanai is a researcher pioneering in studying the reversal of neurobehavioral birth defects in animal models. He serves as a professor and Director of the Ross Laboratory for Studies in Neural Birth Defects at the Department of Medical Neurobiology, The Institute For Medical Research, Israel-Canada (IMRIC) at the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School Jerusalem, Israel and was also appointed as Adjunct Professor, Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, USA.


Education

Yanai was born in Rehovot, Israel in 1944. After graduating from the Mikveh Israel Agricultural High School, he received his BSc Agr. in agriculture and genetics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1967; both his MA in 1970 and PhD in 1971 from the University of Colorado Boulder

Professional career

  • Professor, Department of Medical Neurobiology, Hebrew University, Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem, since 1978.
  • Adjunct professor, Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, North Carolina, 1991-2020.[1]
  • Director, Ross Laboratory for Studies in Neural Birth Defects, Department of Neurobiology, Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem, since 1987.

Research work

Since 1973, he has been among the pioneers in the study of behavioral birth defects. Yanai has studied the mechanism by which certain neuroteratogens induce their deleterious effect, focusing on behavioral defects that are mechanistically related to the septohippocampal cholinergic innervation. The results showed alterations in cholinergic neurotransmission cascade into the abolishment of the cholinergic receptor-induced activation/translocation PKC activity. By ascertaining the mechanisms of the neuroteratogenicity, he pointed to the future of the field by establishing the concept of “neurobehavioral teratology.” Since 1987, Yanai has developed animal models for the reversal of neurobehavioral birth defects, starting with manipulation of A10 septal dopaminergic innervation, nicotine therapy, but most significantly, by transplantation of cells to the impaired brain. These included fetal differentiated brain cells and, in subsequent studies, stem cells of various origins: embryonic, neural stem cells, subventricular stem cells,and mesenchymal stem cells.[2] Transplantation of cells of all types reversed the prenatally-induced behavioral deficits and the mechanistically related neural alterations. He has established the principle that the induction of neurogenesis is one of the major mechanisms by which stem cells exert their therapeutic effect.[3]

Yanai developed a method to replace defective cells in the brains of mice whose mothers were given heroin during pregnancy. They injected embryonic neural stem cells directly into the brains of the affected mice. These cells migrate in the brain, search for the deficiency that caused the defect, and then differentiate into becoming the cells needed to repair the damage. Their findings were published in the leading journal, Molecular Psychiatry,[4][5] and presented[6][7] at international conferences in San Antonio, Texas, in June 2016[8] and in Basel, Switzerland in Feb. 2017.

Books

  • Yanai, J. (Ed) Neurobehavioral Teratology. Elsevier, Amsterdam. (1984) ISBN: 9780444805164[9]
  • Yanai, J., R. Bauml, P. Eldar and J.M. Rosenfeld (Eds) Alcohol Dependence the Family and the Community. Freund, London. (1988)

Selected publications

  • "Neuronal Deficits in Mice Following Prenatal Exposure to Phenobarbital", EXPERIMENTAL NEUROLOGY Volume: 64 Issue: 2 Pages: 237-244 Published: 1979 (92 times)
  • "Alterations in Hippocampal Cholinergic receptors and Hippocampal Behaviors after Early Exposure to Nicotine", BRAIN RESEARCH BULLETIN Volume: 29 Issue: 3-4 Pages: 363-368 Published: SEP-OCT 1992 (80 times)
  • "Deficits in Development of Central Cholinergic Pathways Caused by Fetal Nicotine Exposure - Differential-Effects on Choline-Acetyltransferase Activity and (H-3) Hemicholinium-3 Binding", NEUROTOXICOLOGY AND TERATOLOGY Volume: 14 Issue: 6 Pages: 375-382 Published: NOV-DEC 1992 (78 times)

References

  1. ^ "Professor Joseph Yanai". The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
  2. ^ "Stem cell therapy may reverse brain birth defects". Oneindia.com. 30 December 2008.
  3. ^ "Health Scan: Stem cell therapy may reverse brain defects". The Jerusalem Post.
  4. ^ "Israeli scientists reverse brain birth defects using stem cells". ISRAEL21c. 25 December 2008. Retrieved 28 March 2022.
  5. ^ Ben-Shaanan, TL, Ben-Hur, T, and Yanai, J.: “Transplantation of neural progenitors enhances production of endogeneous cells in the impaired brain”. Molecular Psychiatry, Sep. 18, 2007. Vol. 13, No. 2, pp222-231
  6. ^ "Hebrew University Scientists Succeed Through Stem Cell Therapy in Reversing Brain Birth Defects". Technology Networks.
  7. ^ "Stem Cells Undo Birth Defects". MIT Technology Review.
  8. ^ Fortieth Anniversary Annual Meeting of the Developmental Neurotoxicology Society Held in Conjunction with the 56th Annual Meeting of the Teratology Society Grand Hyatt San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas June 25, 2016 10:15-11AM
  9. ^ "Reversal of neurobehavioral teratogenicity in animal models and human: Three decades of progress". Brain Research Bulletin. 150: 328–342. August 2019. doi:10.1016/j.brainresbull.2019.06.009. ISSN 1873-2747.
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