The Agricultural Research Organization of Israel

The Agricultural Research Organization (ARO) is part of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of the State of Israel. The Agricultural Research Organization is responsible for research and development in all areas of agriculture and the environment. The aims of the Newe Ya'ar Research Center are to advance the sustainability and profitability of regional and national agriculture. 

Dr Efraim Lewinsohn is a senior research scientist in the department of Vegetable Crops in the Newe Ya'ar Research Center. His main scientific interests are in the elucidation of metabolic pathways to natural products in plants and the utilisation of biotechnology to improve the quality of agricultural produce. Special emphasis is the application of functional genomic methodologies and metabolomics to understanding and manipulating metabolic pathways to enhance and modify the aromas of fruits, flowers and spice plants.

Within DISCO, the ARO team will contribute its expertise in the fields of plant secondary metabolite pathways, metabolic engineering, molecular breeding, metabolomics, bioprospecting as well as Solanaceae diversity collections for alkaloid production.