I am interested in processes that take time. Bacteria can grow, survive and reproduce. They can survive different kinds of physical and chemical stresses, which naturally occur in their life. If too powerful, a stress may lead to death. We have found that certain stresses continually affected the bacteria over a relatively long time period. A stress response normally acts fast, allowing bacteria to adapt to the stress. The acute stresses that we tested were applied suddenly, while the bacteria had no mechanism to overcome them. After exposure to these acute stresses, the culture recovered more slowly, the longer the exposure duration. In contrast, recovery from natural stresses was faster.

Many physical systems recover slowly and, additionally, exhibit memory of the duration of stress and the specific conditions that perturbed the system. An everyday example is the relaxation of a stretched rubber band. My work focuses on characterizing the behavior under acute stresses, guided by the analogy to physical aging.

I received my BSc in physics and biology from the Hebrew University. I joined the group of Prof. Nathalie Balaban in 2017 for MSc.