Prof. Ron Milo earned a BSc in Physics and Mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a PhD in Biological Physics at the Weizmann Institute of Science. He was the first fellow in Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School before joining the Department of Plant & Environmental Sciences at the Weizmann Institute.

Ron and his lab members bring the tools of systems biology to bear on the challenges of sustainability. His research aims to understand the cellular highways of energy and carbon transformations known as central carbon metabolism in quantitative terms. His research team employs a combination of computational and experimental synthetic biology tools with a focus on carbon fixation, the biological process which incorporates carbon dioxide into organic compounds. He aims to understand the fundamentals of its design principles with the goal of improving the ability of humanity to produce food and fuel more efficiently. He is author (with Rob Phillips) of “Cell Biology by the Numbers”, and developed BioNumbers, a collaborative community resource of biological numbers.

Ron’s scientific awards include the GE & Science Prize for Young Life Scientists, the John F. Kennedy Prize and the D.N. Chorafas award. Between 2015-2017 he was the chairperson of the Israeli young academy and is currently the chairperson of the science and technology committee for elementary and junior high schools in the ministry of education. Ron enjoys playing the harmonica and hiking with his wife and three daughters.