Staff

PhD in plant genetics, MSc in biotechnology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, The Robert H Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, Israel. M.BA. Master of Business Administration, The College of Management Academic Studies, (COLMAN) Israel.

Plant genetics, Plant resistance mechanism, Disease resistance genes, plant-virus resistance, biotic and a biotic stress, flavor and fruit nutrient materials.

Assaf accomplish his MSc and PhD degrees from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem subjects on tomatoes resistance mechanism against viruses. After Assaf graduated, he joined TomaTech R&D LTD, a commercial seed company, as a tomato breeder for several types in various regions around the world, his breeding and R&D work were mainly focused on indeterminate round, beef, cluster and plum tomatoes types. During this period, Assaf developed and ‏commercialized several new worldwide commercial varieties. In addition to the breeding programs, Assaf developed and establish several new breeding capabilities which allow identification and characterization resistances against tomato viruses. These capabilities gave the ability to identify, isolate and developed virus-resistant breeding lines and identify genetic markers for resistances traits, an important and central ability in the breeding process.
In 2022 Assaf join to the World Vegetable Center (WorldVeg) as a Senior Scientist, Tomato breeder with the aim to continuing research, breed and contribute from his experience to the tomato breeding programs. The breeding objectives will focus on disease resistance, biotic and abiotic stress, genetic multi-traits breeding lines, climate change stress, enrichment flavor and fruit nutrient materials with the aim of achieving capacity and enabling a high-quality and significant growing solution for tomatoes farmer around the world.