Dr. Shemesh is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Departments of Neurobiology and Bioengineering.

The Shemesh group at Pitt is creating new technologies to understand and treat brain disease, a field called “Counter Disease Engineering”.  The group is taking the technological approach to understanding diseases of the nervous system by creating tools that enable tracking the etiology of brain disease. Among these tools are sensors for the viability states of cells (is a cell healthy, necrotic or apoptotic?), actuators that switch brain cells and brain regions from healthy to a diseased state and back, novel animal models for basic research and drug screening, and devices for interfacing with the nervous system and repairing it. Dr. Shemesh’s group combines experience in protein and genetic engineering, nanotechnology, cell biology, neuroscience, computational biology and electrical engineering.

Dr. Shemesh studied Neuroscience at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and later joined the synthetic Neurobiology group at MIT to learn the nuts and bolts of technology building.

Of particular interest is using new technologies to explore the infectious etiology of neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. Shemesh is particularly passionate about Alzheimer’s Disease following his grandfather’s passing.