Dr. Kafri is a cell biologist at the Hospital for Sick Children and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto. He completed his MSc and PhD at the Weizmann Institute of Science and his Postdoctoral Fellowship at Harvard Medical School.

As a panelist for the Weizmann League’s Innovation Game, Dr. Kafri spoke of the collaborative nature at the Weizmann Institute, and the accessibility to academic/research advisors in comparison to North American institutions. “If I discovered something exciting in the lab, I could call my advisor and he’d say: ‘I’ll be there in 15 minutes, I’m just putting the kids to bed’.” The collaborative atmosphere and open-door policy on campus is what makes the Weizmann Institute so unique.

Today, Dr. Kafri’s research investigates cell size, and his team is also working to develop inference methods for drug discovery. Dr. Kafri’s experience at the Weizmann Institute of Science had such a profound impact on him as a researcher that he continually strives to incorporate Weizmann’s interdisciplinary and collaborative approach into his own lab at SickKids.