Dr. Natalia Freund is specializing in antibody responses towards diseases. At the start of her academic path, Natalia completed her B.Sc at Tel Aviv University, Faculty of Life Sciences, majoring in Biology as part of the IDF Cadet Program, following which she received an Academic Officer rank and served as a Biological Researcher at the Israeli Ministry of Defense.

 

After discharge, Natalia has completed her Ph.D. from the Cell Research and Immunology Department in Life Sciences Faculty at the of Tel Aviv University. In her thesis she focused on antibody:epitope recognition with the premise of developing an epitope-based vaccine against SARS Coronavirus 1. A patent based on her thesis work “Epitope-Based Vaccines for Human Coronaviruses” was approved by the US patent authorities.

 

Upon graduating from Tel Aviv University in 2012, she moved to The Rockefeller University in New York City as part of her postdoc training, where she investigated the antibody and B cell responses to HIV-1 in HIV-1 elite controllers individuals. During her work, she used single cell methods to profile the B cell responses to HIV-1 and isolate several anti-HIV-1 broadly neutralizing antibodies. One of the antibodies she isolated, named BG18, was licensed by GILEAD biosciences in January 2020.

 

In October 2017, she joined the Department of Clinical Microbiology and Immunology at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine of Tel Aviv University as a Faculty member heading the Lab for Human Antibody Responses, AKA: the Freund Lab.