Prof. Nir Friedman: Cell-free chromatin - a non-invasive window into human disease

Prof. Nir Friedman is a professor at the School of Computer Science and Engineering and the Faculty of Medicine at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he works at the interface of computational biology, genomics and medicine. He is a pioneer in applying probabilistic and computational approaches to understand gene regulation and complex biological systems.

In recent years, his research has increasingly focused on developing non-invasive approaches to monitor molecular processes in human tissues through circulating cell-free DNA and nucleosomes. His group pioneered cfChIP-seq, which uses chromatin fragments circulating in the blood to infer gene-expression programs and cellular states in tissues that would otherwise require invasive sampling. This work opens new opportunities for liquid biopsies to detect and monitor physiological and pathological processes throughout the body. Recent studies have extended these approaches to areas including inflammatory and autoimmune disease, cancer and tissue turnover.