Shimon Schuldiner

Shimon Schuldiner was born in 1946 in Buenos Aires

Schuldiner was born on August 10, 1946, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His parents, Hana Joszpe and Berko Schuldiner, were Jewish immigrants from Ukraine. He moved to Israel in 1964.

He earned a B.Sc. in 1967 and an M.Sc. in 1968 at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He received his Ph.D. in 1973 from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, working in the lab of Mordhay Avron. From 1973 to 1976 he did postdoctoral research at the Roche Institute for Molecular Biology in New Jersey.

In 1976 he joined the Department of Molecular Biology at Hadassah Medical School, and in 1990 he moved to the Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences, both at the Hebrew University. He chaired the Silberman Institute from 1999 to 2002. His research focuses on the multidrug transporter EmrE and on the Vesicular Monoamine Transporter (VMAT).

His work on EmrE led to a long debate over its structure, and he later showed that both parallel and antiparallel forms of the protein work. He is married to Monica Schuldiner, and they have 2 children and 6 grandchildren. The couple supports civil rights and peace efforts in Israel.