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Liran Carmel

Liran Carmel is an Israeli scientist and professor of computational biology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, known for his studies of ancient DNA.

born 1971Ancient DNA researchDenisovan anatomical profileGenetics of the Canaanites

Occupation: researcher, physicist
Education: Weizmann Institute of Science

Liran Carmel was born in 1971

Liran Carmel was born in Israel in 1971 and grew up there. He earned a bachelor's degree in physics at Tel Aviv University through the Academic Atuda program.

He served in the army as a physicist at Rafael and completed a master's degree in quantum physics at the Technion during his service. He then earned a Ph.D. in mathematics and computer science at the Weizmann Institute under David Harel, working on algorithms for coding and digitizing odors.

In 2004 he began postdoctoral work at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland, in molecular evolution. In 2008 he returned to Israel and founded a computational biology group in the Hebrew University's genetics department. In 2016 he spent a year as a visiting professor in Sydney.

With Eran Meshorer, he developed a method in 2014 to rebuild DNA methylation maps from ancient DNA of Neanderthals and Denisovans. In 2019 he produced an anatomical profile of the Denisovans, and in 2020 he published a study on the genetics of the Canaanites. He received the Massry Prize in 2021.