Research Overview

My current scientific interests are design of cell-based therapies and development of genomic technologies.

During my Ph.D. at Princeton, I established a novel approach for large-scale genetic screens in embryonic stem (ES) cells. Using this approach, I plan to initiate studies toward rational design of stem cell therapies in the neural system. My other projects included genome-wide studies of alternative splicing and bioinformatics analysis of transcriptional networks. Before, I finished a M.Sc. degree at the Weizmann Institute (Israel), studying HIV protein-mediated membrane fusion.

Previous Publications

• Pritsker M, Doniger T, Kramer L, Westcot S, Lemischka I. (2005) Diversification of Stem Cell Molecular Repertoire by Alternative Splicing. Proceedings of National Academy of Science , 102(40), 14290-14295.
• Pritsker M, Liu YC, Beer MA, Tavazoie S. (2004) Whole-genome discovery of transcription factor binding sites by network-level conservation. Genome Research 14(1), 99-108.
• *Gerber D, * Pritsker M, Gunther-Ausborn S, Johnson B, Blumenthal R, Shai Y. (2004) Inhibition of HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein-mediated cell fusion by a D,L-amino acid-containing fusion peptide: possible recognition of the fusion complex. Journal of Biological Chemistry 279(46), 48224-48230. *Equal contribution.
• Peisajovich S, Epand RF, Pritsker M, Shai Y, Epand RM (2000) The Polar Region Consecutive to the HIV Fusion Peptide Participates in Membrane Fusion. Biochemistry 39(7), 1826-1833.
• Pritsker M, Rucker J, Hoffmann T, Doms RW, Shai Y (1999) Effect of nonpolar substitutions of the conserved Phe(11) in the fusion peptide of HIV-1 gp41 on its function, structure, and organization in membranes. Biochemistry 38(35), 11359-11371.
• Pritsker M, Jones P, Blumenthal R, Shai Y (1998) A synthetic all D-amino acid peptide corresponding to the N-terminal sequence of HIV-1 gp41 recognizes the wild-type fusion peptide in the membrane and inhibits HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein-mediated cell fusion. Proceedings of National Academy of Science 95, 7287-7292.