Eran Segal


Eran Segal is a computational biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science. He works on developing quantitative models for all levels of gene regulation, including transcription, chromatin, and translation.
He gained his BA in Computer Science and Economics from Tel Aviv University in 1998 and his PhD from Stanford University in 2004 advised by Daphne Koller. In 2007 he was awarded the Overton Prize by the International Society for Computational Biology. In 2011 he was made a professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

Personalized Nutrition

Segal claims there is no "One size fits all" diet, in the sense that people will respond differently to certain types of food.
Through a study utilising continuous glucose monitoring and food journals, he produced some evidence that the glucose response to specific foods differ significantly between people. He hypothesised that personalized food plans based on further research could be beneficial in reducing the occurrence of diabetes.
Later, he employed blood DNA testing, feces analysis to gather data which was analysed with a machine learning method to create personalised diets that were expected to improve glucose responses after eating. This method was tested on a population size of 26, the results of the study supported his hypothesis, though required further testing.