Shai Carmi
Affiliated Associate Professor of Human Genetics
Research Interests
Professor Carmi’s teaching and research interests span multiple areas in statistical and population genetics. Specific domains of interests include theoretical and empirical population genetics (including ancient DNA), genetic genealogy, forensic genetics, genetic risk prediction, genetics of founder and consanguineous populations, and reproductive genetic testing.
A key area of interest is preimplantation genetic testing, namely genetic screening of IVF embryos. Professor Carmi develops methods for accurate and affordable genetic testing and studies epidemiological, clinical, and ethical considerations regarding embryo screening for late-onset, “polygenic” diseases.
Email
In addition to his position at MBZUAI, Professor Carmi is an Associate Professor at the Braun School of Public Health at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is also a consultant to multiple government offices and companies.
- Ph.D. in Physics, Bar-Ilan University, Israel
- M.Sc. in Physics, Bar-Ilan University, Israel
- B.Sc. in Physics and Computer Science, Bar-Ilan University, Israel
- Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists, Life Sciences (national), 2023
- Hebrew University presidential Ben-Porath award to an excellent young investigator, 2019
- Alon fellowship of The Council for Higher Education of Israel (national; declined) Principal investigator, 2015
- Human Frontier Science Program Cross Disciplinary Fellowship (international), 2011
- Wolf Foundation award (national), 2009
- Bar-Ilan University dean’s award, 2008
- Adams fellowship of The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 2007
- Wolf Foundation award (national), 2005
- L. Klausner, S. Carmi*, S. Ben-Shachar, N. Lev-El Halabi, L. Basel-Salmon, and D. Brabbing Goldstein*: "No association between FMR1 premutation and either ADHD or anxiety in 53,707 women undergoing genetic testing for family planning purposes", Genet. Med. 27, 101428, 2025.
- L. Klausner, A. Revital, T. Lencz, and S. Carmi: "PEStimate: Predicting offspring disease risk after Polygenic Embryo Screening", 2025.
- A. Capalbo, G. de Wert, H. Mertes, L. Klausner, …, T. Lencz, and S. Carmi: "Screening embryos for polygenic disease risk: a review of epidemiological, clinical, and ethical considerations", Hum. Reprod. Update, 2024.
- S. Waldman, …, S. Carmi*, and D. Reich*: "Genome-wide data from medieval German Jews show that the Ashkenazi founder event pre-dated the 14th century", Cell 185, 4703, 2022.
- T. Lencz*, D. Backenroth*, …, O. Zuk, and S. Carmi: "Utility of polygenic embryo screening for disease depends on the selection strategy", eLife 10, e64716, 2021.
- L. Agranat-Tamir, S. Waldman, …, B. Yakir, R. Pinhasi*, S. Carmi*, I. Finkelstein*, L. Carmel*, and D. Reich*: "The Genomic History of the Bronze Age Southern Levant", Cell 181, 1146, 2020.
- H. Fridman, D. Behar, S. Carmi, and E. Levy-Lahad: "Preconception carrier screening yield: effect of variants of unknown significance in partners of carriers with clinically significant variants", Genet. Med., 22, 646, 2020.
- D. Backenroth, F. Zahdeh, …, G. Altarescu*, S. Carmi*, and D. A. Zeevi*: "Haploseek: A 24-hour all-in-one method for preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) of monogenic disease and aneuploidy", Genet. Med. 21, 1390, 2019.
- E. Karavani*, O. Zuk*, …, T. Lencz*, and S. Carmi*: "Screening human embryos for polygenic traits has limited utility", Cell, 179, 1424, 2019.
- Y. Erlich, T. Shor, I. Pe’er, and S. Carmi: "Identity inference of genomic data using long-range familial searches", Science 362, 69, 2018. Covered by Science Magazine’s 10 breakthroughs of 2018.
- J. Xue, T. Lencz, A. Darvasi, I. Pe’er, and S. Carmi: "The Time and Place of European Admixture in Ashkenazi Jewish History", PLoS Genet. 13, e1006644, 2017.