Alina Shitrit

Alina Shitrit, is a computational biologist. She Worked in academia and the biotech industry, starting with bioinformatics during undergraduate studies at Ben-Gurion University and a master's degree at Tel-Aviv University. During her M.Sc., She developed a computerized model to distinguish between neutral and disease-associated mutations. During her Ph.D. at Tel-Aviv University, she focused on understanding the growth dynamics and genomic alterations of Herpes simplex-1 Defective Viral Genomes (DVGs) across laboratory passages and clinical isolates. 

Beyond academia, she explored the field of drug development in the biotech industry, using bioinformatics tools to identify potential patient cohorts for emerging therapeutics, particularly in precision oncology.  

Currently, in the Social Development Laboratory, she is investigating the intersection of computational methodologies and social sciences. In this role, she is studying value transmission between Social Media Influencers (SMIs) and adolescents. Her research focuses on annotating and predicting influencer transmitted values using Natural Language Processing (NLP) and supervised/unsupervised machine learning tools. Her aim is to shed light on the mechanisms behind effective value transmission by understanding how influencers convey values, thus revealing the interplay between digital platforms and societal values. 

alinashitrit@mail.tau.ac.il

Publications:

ORCID, Researchgate, Google Scholar

Getz, G., Starovolsky, A., & Domany, E. (2004). F2CS: FSSP to CATH and SCOP prediction server. Bioinformatics, 20(13), 2150-2152.

Hertzano, R., Shalit, E., Rzadzinska, A. K., Dror, A. A., Song, L., Ron, U., Tan, J. T., Shitrit, A. S., Fuchs, H., Hasson, T., Ben-Tal, N., Sweeney, H. L., de Angelis, M. H., Steel, K. P., & Avraham, K. B. (2008). A Myo6 mutation destroys coordination between the myosin heads, revealing new functions of myosin VI in the stereocilia of mammalian inner ear hair cells. PLoS Genet, 4(10), e1000207.

Kalid, O., Mense, M., Fischman, S., Shitrit, A., Bihler, H., Ben-Zeev, E., Schutz, N., Pedemonte, N., Thomas, P. J., Bridges, R. J., Wetmore, D. R., Marantz, Y., & Senderowitz, H. (2010). Small molecule correctors of F508del-CFTR discovered by structure-based virtual screening. J Comput Aided Mol Des, 24(12), 971-991.

Wainreb, G., Ashkenazy, H., Bromberg, Y., Starovolsky-Shitrit, A., Haliloglu, T., Ruppin, E., Avraham, K. B., Rost, B., & Ben-Tal, N. (2010). MuD: an interactive web server for the prediction of non-neutral substitutions using protein structural data. Nucleic Acids Res, 38(Web Server issue), W523-528.

Yacovan, A., Ozeri, R., Kehat, T., Mirilashvili, S., Sherman, D., Aizikovich, A., Shitrit, A., Ben-Zeev, E., Schutz, N., Bohana-Kashtan, O., Konson, A., Behar, V., & Becker, O. M. (2012). 1-(sulfonyl)-5-(arylsulfonyl)indoline as activators of the tumor cell specific M2 isoform of pyruvate kinase. Bioorg Med Chem Lett, 22(20), 6460-6468.    

Edgar, R., Mazor, Y., Rinon, A., Blumenthal, J., Golan, Y., Buzhor, E., Livnat, I., Ben-Ari, S., Lieder, I., Shitrit, A., Gilboa, Y., Ben-Yehudah, A., Edri, O., Shraga, N., Bogoch, Y., Leshansky, L., Aharoni, S., West, M. D., Warshawsky, D., & Shtrichman, R. (2013). LifeMap Discovery: the embryonic development, stem cells, and regenerative medicine research portal. PLoS One, 8(7), e66629. 

Sternberg, H., Jiang, J., Sim, P., Kidd, J., Janus, J., Rinon, A., Edgar, R., Shitrit, A., Larocca, D., Chapman, K. B., Binette, F., & West, M. D. (2014). Human embryonic stem cell-derived neural crest cells capable of expressing markers of osteochondral or meningeal-choroid plexus differentiation. Regen Med, 9(1), 53-66.

Tirosh, O., Cohen, Y., Shitrit, A., Shani, O., Le-Trilling, V. T., Trilling, M., Friedlander, G., Tanenbaum, M., & Stern-Ginossar, N. (2015). The Transcription and Translation Landscapes during Human Cytomegalovirus Infection Reveal Novel Host-Pathogen Interactions. PLoS Pathog, 11(11), e1005288.

Ben-Ari Fuchs, S., Lieder, I., Stelzer, G., Mazor, Y., Buzhor, E., Kaplan, S., Bogoch, Y., Plaschkes, I., Shitrit, A., Rappaport, N., Kohn, A., Edgar, R., Shenhav, L., Safran, M., Lancet, D., Guan-Golan, Y., Warshawsky, D., & Shtrichman, R. (2016). GeneAnalytics: An Integrative Gene Set Analysis Tool for Next Generation Sequencing, RNAseq and Microarray Data. OMICS, 20(3), 139-151.

Bercovich-Kinori, A., Tai, J., Gelbart, I. A., Shitrit, A., Ben-Moshe, S., Drori, Y., Itzkovitz, S., Mandelboim, M., & Stern-Ginossar, N. (2016). A systematic view on influenza induced host shutoff. Elife, 5.

Mizrahi, O., Nachshon, A., Shitrit, A., Gelbart, I. A., Dobesova, M., Brenner, S., Kahana, C., & Stern-Ginossar, N. (2018). Virus-Induced Changes in mRNA Secondary Structure Uncover cis-Regulatory Elements that Directly Control Gene Expression. Mol Cell, 72(5), 862-874 e865. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molcel.2018.09.003  

Shitrit, A., Zaidman, D., Kalid, O., Bloch, I., Doron, D., Yarnizky, T., Buch, I., Segev, I., Ben-Zeev, E., Segev, E., & Kobiler, O. (2020). Conserved interactions required for inhibition of the main protease of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Sci Rep, 10(1), 20808. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-77794-5  

Shitrit, A., Nisnevich, V., Rozenshtein, N., Kobo, H., Phan, H. V., Tay, S., Szpara, M., Weitzman, M. D., Drayman, N., & Kobiler, O. (2023). Shared sequence characteristics identified in non-canonical rearrangements of HSV-1 genomes. J Virol, 97(12), e0095523. https://doi.org/10.1128/jvi.00955-23