Lital Alfonta

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Lital Alfonta is a Full Professor in the Departments of Life Sciences and Chemistry at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, where she holds the Hyman Kreitman Chair in Bioenergetics. She received her B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; her doctoral work with Prof. Itamar Willner focused on bioelectronic devices and electrochemical biosensors. She then carried out postdoctoral research with Prof. Peter G. Schultz at The Scripps Research Institute, where she pioneered the site-specific genetic incorporation of redox-active unnatural amino acids into proteins. She joined Ben-Gurion University in 2006 and was a visiting professor at the University of California, San Diego in 2012–2013.

Her research lies at the interface of bioelectrochemistry, protein engineering and synthetic biology. Her group uses genetic code expansion and surface display to engineer redox enzymes and microorganisms that communicate efficiently with electrodes, with applications in electrochemical biosensing, point-of-care diagnostics, biofuel cells and bioelectrosynthesis. She has authored about 100 scientific publications and holds multiple granted patents.

Her honors include a European Research Council Starting Grant, the Kaye Innovation Award, the Marc Rich Foundation Prize for Women Researchers, the GenScript Citation of the Year Award and the BGU award for breakthrough research. She is President of the Israel Electrochemical Society, an Editor of Electrochimica Acta, and a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Bioelectrochemistry.