About
Dr. Shani Levy heads the Coral Symbiosis and Immunology Lab. She earned her PhD in marine biology from the University of Haifa, where she studied molecular and developmental mechanisms in cnidarians. She continued with postdoctoral research at the University of Haifa and as a Marie Skłodowska Curie fellow at the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona. Her work has led to pioneering studies in coral biology, including the identification of immune cell types and the creation of single cell atlases across several coral species, enabling comprehensive characterization of all cell types and their gene expression programs.
Research in the lab focuses on symbiosis between corals and unicellular algae, on the responses of both partners to environmental stress together and separately, and on the coral innate immune system and its roles in maintaining symbiosis and in bleaching.
Publications
- Functional characterization of specialized immune cells in a cnidarian reveals an ancestral antiviral program, Kozlovski, I., Sharoni, T., Levy, S., Jaimes-Becerra, A., Talice, S., Kwak, H. J., Aleshkina, D., Aharoni, R., Grau-Bové, X., Karmi, O., Rosental, B., Sebé-Pedrós, A. & Moran, Y., Dec 2026, In: Nature Communications. 17, 1, 5699.
- The evolution of facultative symbiosis in stony corals, Levy, S., Grau-Bové, X., Kim, I. V., Najle, S. R., Księżopolska, E., Elek, A., Montes-Espuña, L., Montgomery, S. A., Mass, T. & Sebé-Pedrós, A., 11 Dec 2025, In: Nature. 648, 8093, p. 368-376 9 p.
- The Effects of Elevated Temperatures on the Reproductive Biology of a Mediterranean Coral, Oculina patagonica, Shemesh, T., Levy, S., Einbinder, A., Kolsky, I., Bellworthy, J. & Mass, T., Dec 2024, In: Oceans. 5, 4, p. 758-769 12 p.
- cGLRs are a diverse family of pattern recognition receptors in innate immunity, Li, Y., Slavik, K. M., Toyoda, H. C., Morehouse, B. R., de Oliveira Mann, C. C., Elek, A., Levy, S., Wang, Z., Mears, K. S., Liu, J., Kashin, D., Guo, X., Mass, T., Sebé-Pedrós, A., Schwede, F. & Kranzusch, P. J., 20 Jul 2023, In: Cell. 186, 15, p. 3261-3276.e20
- The Skeleton and Biomineralization Mechanism as Part of the Innate Immune System of Stony Corals, Levy, S. & Mass, T., 25 Feb 2022, In: Frontiers in Immunology. 13, p. 850338 850338.
- The calcifying interface in a stony coral primary polyp: An interplay between seawater and an extracellular calcifying space, Mor Khalifa, G., Levy, S. & Mass, T., Dec 2021, In: Journal of Structural Biology. 213, 4, p. 107803 107803.
- Contribution of Maternal and Paternal Transmission to Bacterial Colonization in Nematostella vectensis, Baldassarre, L., Levy, S., Bar-Shalom, R., Steindler, L., Lotan, T. & Fraune, S., 11 Oct 2021, In: Frontiers in Microbiology. 12, 726795.
- A stony coral cell atlas illuminates the molecular and cellular basis of coral symbiosis, calcification, and immunity, Levy, S., Elek, A., Grau-Bové, X., Menéndez-Bravo, S., Iglesias, M., Tanay, A., Mass, T. & Sebé-Pedrós, A., 27 May 2021, In: Cell. 184, 11, p. 2973-2987.e18
- Ectopic activation of GABAB receptors inhibits neurogenesis and metamorphosis in the cnidarian Nematostella vectensis, Levy, S., Brekhman, V., Bakhman, A., Malik, A., Sebé-Pedrós, A., Kosloff, M. & Lotan, T., Jan 2021, In: Nature Ecology and Evolution. 5, 1, p. 111-121 11 p.