Karen B. Avraham is an Israeli-American human geneticist. Born in Canada in 1962, Avraham moved to the US at a young age. She holds the Drs Sarah and Felix Dumont Chair for Research of Hearing Disorders.
As a full professor at Tel Aviv University, and the current Vice Dean of the Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Avraham has a laboratory in the Department of Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry. Currently resides as the President of the Israel Society for Auditory Research, Avraham held presidency with the Federation of Israel Societies for Experimental Biology as well a former board membership of the I-CORE: Gene Regulation in Complex Human Disease. Avraham is a council member of the European Molecular Biology Organization, chair of the Scientific Committee of the Fondation Pour L’Audition in France, council member of the Human Genome Organization, an elected member of the International Collegium Oto-Rhino-Laryngologicum Amicitiae Sacrum, and past president of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology and the Genetic Society of Israel. She is an editor of Mammalian Genome, section editor of the European Journal of Human Genetics, associate editor of Human Genomics, and on the advisory editorial board of EMBO Molecular Medicine. Avraham's research has centered on the discovery of disease genes, focusing on hereditary hearing loss. Her team studies the molecular basis of hearing loss using genetic, developmental, biochemical, cellular and bioinformatic tools. She leads the effort in exome sequencing for the discovery of disease genes to identify mutations that are relevant for the hearing-impaired population. Her group has demonstrated that microRNAs are essential for development and function of inner ear hair cells in vertebrates and has characterized the first long non-coding RNAs and methylation in the auditory system. Avraham has supervised many students through their M.Sc. or Ph.D. training, students, physicians and post docs have trained in her lab. She has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals, with an H-index of 48, and written reviews and book chapters.
Positional-Candidate Cloning of Genes from Mouse Mutants, Karen B. Avraham, Gene knockout protocols, Martin J. Tymms; Ismail Kola. John M. Walker, Methods in molecular biology series, 158. Humana Press, c2001.
Avraham, Karen B.; Hasson, Tama. Genes and mutations in hearing impairment, Genetics and auditory disorders. Keats, Bronya J. B.; Popper, Arthur N.; Fay, Richard R., Springer handbook of auditory research, 14, Springer, c2002.
Hertzano, Ronna; Avraham, Karen B. POU-Domain transcription factors, Genetic hearing loss. Patrick J. Willems, Marcel Dekker, c2004.
Positional-Candidate Cloning of Genes from Mouse Mutants, Gene knockout protocols, Martin J. Tymms and Ismail Kola. John M. Walker, Methods in molecular biology series 158. Humana Press, c2010.
2. Molecular Etiology of Deafness and Cochlear Consequences, Brownstein, Zippora; Shivatzki, Shaked; Avraham, Karen B., Deafness, Kral, Andrej; Popper, Arthur N.; Fay, Richard R..Springer handbook of auditory research, 47. Springer, c2013.
