Moshé Yaniv

Moshe Yaniv, born in 1938 in Hadera, Israel, is a French-Israeli molecular biologist who has studied the structure and functions of oncogenic DNA viruses as well as the general mechanisms for regulating gene expression in higher organisms and their deregulation during tumor pathologies and development.

He joined Professor François Gros' laboratory at the Institute of Physico-chemical Biology to prepare a state thesis in science (1969) on the mechanisms of protein synthesis and the structure of tRNAs.

[3] At the end of his thesis he then joined Professor Paul Berg's laboratory at Stanford University in California for a postdoctoral fellowship continuing his work on the structure and functions of tRNAs.

[4][5] He identified cellular transcription factors responsible for the expression of viral genes and their functions in regulating cell growth and oncogenic transformation.

[7] His work on gene expression regulation has led him to focus on the role of transcription factors and chromatin remodeling complexes in controlling the development and organogenesis of the liver, pancreas and kidney and to generate mouse models for the study of human metabolic diseases such as diabetes, polycystosis and cancers.