Maytal Bivas-Benita, PhD
Senior Researcher
KI Research Institute
Maytal Bivas-Benita is a Senior Researcher at the KI Research Institute in Israel where she applies biological, pharmaceutical, and clinical perspectives to design and analyze health-data projects in KI’s various research domains. Maytal received her PhD in bio-pharmaceutical sciences (cum laude) from Leiden University in the Netherlands and her BSc Pharm from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She completed her postdoctoral research fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School in Boston and later worked at Harvard as a staff scientist. Before joining KI Research Institute Maytal was a co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of the startup DataClue, building a platform leveraging underutilized clinical trials data to deliver new clinical insights for academic investigators and pharmaceutical companies. Prior to DataClue, she was the director of clinical research informatics at Belong.life, where she led academic projects and derived insights from real-world data, including patient-generated data in oncology.
1. Bilu Y, Flaks-Manov N, Bivas-Benita M, Akiva P, Kalkstein N, Yehezkelli Y, et al. Data-driven assessment of adolescents’ mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic [Internet]. medRxiv; 2022 [cited 2022 Sep 28]. p. 2022.01.06.22268809. Available from: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.06.22268809v2
2. Mizrahi B, Bivas-Benita M, Kalkstein N, Akiva P, Yanover C, Yehezkelli Y, et al. Results of an early second PCR test performed on SARS-CoV-2 positive patients may support risk assessment for severe COVID-19. Scientific Reports. 2021 Oct 14;11(1):20463.
3. Keshet A, Rossman H, Shilo S, Barbash-Hazan S, Amit G, Bivas-Benita M, et al. Estimating the effect of cesarean delivery on long term childhood health across two countries [Internet]. medRxiv; 2020 [cited 2022 Sep 28]. p. 2020.12.15.20248167. Available from: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.15.20248167v1
4. Olbrich CL, Bivas-Benita M, Xenakis JJ, Maldonado S, Cornwell E, Fink J, et al. Remote allergen exposure elicits eosinophil infiltration into allergen nonexposed mucosal organs and primes for allergic inflammation. Mucosal Immunol. 2020 Sep;13(5):777–87.
5. Bivas-Benita M, Gillard GO, Bar L, White KA, Webby RJ, Hovav AH, et al. Airway CD8(+) T cells induced by pulmonary DNA immunization mediate protective anti-viral immunity. Mucosal Immunol. 2013 Jan;6(1):156–66.
6. Bivas-Benita M, Bar L, Gillard GO, Kaufman DR, Simmons NL, Hovav AH, et al. Efficient generation of mucosal and systemic antigen-specific CD8+ T-cell responses following pulmonary DNA immunization. J Virol. 2010 Jun;84(11):5764–74.
7. Bivas-Benita M, Lin MY, Bal SM, van Meijgaarden KE, Franken KLMC, Friggen AH, et al. Pulmonary delivery of DNA encoding Mycobacterium tuberculosis latency antigen Rv1733c associated to PLGA-PEI nanoparticles enhances T cell responses in a DNA prime/protein boost vaccination regimen in mice. Vaccine. 2009 Jun 19;27(30):4010–7.
