Joseph Yanai

Joseph Yanai was born in 1944 in Rehovot

Yanai was born in Rehovot in 1944. His parents came to the country from Poland as pioneers. He attended the Mikveh Israel agricultural school.

After his army service he studied agriculture and genetics at the Hebrew University and earned his bachelor's degree in 1967. In 1968 he began studies at the Institute for Behavioral Genetics at the University of Colorado Boulder. He received his master's degree in 1970 and his doctorate in 1971.

From 1971 to 1978 he taught and did research at universities in Connecticut, Purdue and Chicago. In 1978 he returned to Israel and joined the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, where he became a full professor. Since 1987 he has directed the Ross Laboratory for Studies in Neural Birth Defects, and from 1991 to 2020 he was an adjunct professor at Duke University.

In the 1970s he was among the research groups that opened the field of behavioral teratology. His 1984 book on neurobehavioral teratology called for research based on the mechanisms of damage and proposed that such defects could be reversed. He later reversed such defects in animal models, including by transplanting brain cells and stem cells. He is married to Julie and has 4 daughters.