Dana Wolf is a Professor of Virology and Infectious Diseases at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel, and a Senior Infectious Diseases Physician at the Hadassah University Hospital.

She received her M.D. degree at the Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School, and completed her Internal Medicine residency and her fellowship in Infectious Diseases at the Hadassah University Hospital.  She pursued a postdoctoral fellowship in Virology at the University of California San Diego and later spent a year as a visiting scientist at Stanford University.

Since 2002 – she is the Director of Clinical Virology at Hadassah.

Dr. Wolf is a member of several national and international advisory committees and boards, including the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and Infectious Diseases in Israel, and the European Society for Virology Executive Board, and has been an active partner in several EU Research Consortiums.

Her studies have focused on human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) transmission and pathogenesis in the materno-fetal interface; employing a unique ex vivo human placental model, she has characterized the mode of maternal-to-fetal viral spread and the impact of placental innate immune responses and new antiviral approaches on the outcome of congenital infection. In her recent studies, she explores how distinct maternal antibodies and antiviral drugs interact with HCMV within the local environment of the human materno-fetal interface. In parallel, she has also studied Zika virus infection and virus-specific innate immune responses in the human placenta.  In her clinical-diagnostic studies, she is interested in the epidemiology and early prenatal and neonatal diagnosis of congenital HCMV infection and disease.

Dr. Wolf’s lab further focuses on the discovery and evaluation of novel antiviral drugs and drug targets, and on the mechanism and impact of antiviral drug resistance. Her research has already been successful in identifying a novel compound, which is highly active against HCMV. This newly discovered antiviral drug has formed the basis for the foundation of a new biotech company dedicated to development of agents for the prevention and treatment of severe and potentially life-threatening infectious diseases. 

53. Stern-Ginossar N, Elefant N, Zimmermann A, Wolf DG, Saleh N, Biton M, Horwitz E, Prokocimer Z, Prichard M, Hahn G, Goldman-Wohl D, Greenfield C, Yagel S, Hengel H, Altuvia Y, Margalit H, Mandelboim O. Host immune system gene targeting by a viral miRNA. Science. 2007;317:376-81.

57. Shapira MY , Resnick IB, Chou S, Neumann AU., Lurain NS , Stamminger T, Caplan O, Saleh N, Efferth T,  Marschall M, Wolf DG. Artesunate as a potent antiviral agent in a patient with late drug-resistant cytomegalovirus infection after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Clin Infect Dis. 2008;46(9):1455-7.

58. Efferth T, Romero MR, Wolf DG, Stamminger T, Marin JJ, Marschall M. The antiviral activities of artemisinin and artesunate.Clin Infect Dis. 2008;47:804-11.

59. Cohen-Daniel L, Zakay-Rones Z, Resnick IB, Shapira MY, Dorozhko M, Mador N, Greenbaum E, Wolf DG. Emergence of oseltamivir-resistant influenza A/H3N2 virus with altered hemagglutination pattern in a hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipient. J Clin Virol. 2009;44:138-40.

61. Stern-Ginossar N, Saleh N, Prichard M, Wolf DG*, Mandelboim O*. Analysis of human cytomegalovirus encoded-microRNAs activity during infection. J Virol. 2009; 83:10684-93  (the last 2 authors contributed equally to the work).

62. Wolf DG, Greenberg D, Shemer-avni Y, Givon-Lavi N, Bar-Ziv J, Dagan R. Association of Human Metapneumovirus with Radiologically-Diagnosed Community-Acquired Alveolar Pneumonia in Young Children. The Journal of Pediatrics. J pediatr.  2010; 156:115-20

63. Amir J, Wolf DG, Levy I. Treatment of symptomatic congenital cytomegalovirus infection with intravenous ganciclovir followed by long-term oral valganciclovir. Eur J Pediatr. 2010; 169:1061-7

65. Rekhtman D, Wolf DG, Levy-Khademi F, Averbuch D, Kerem E, Wexler ID. Influenza A infection in young infants. Arch. Dis Child. 2010;96:1085-7. (the first 2 authors contributed equally to the work).

67. Nachmani D, Lankry D, Wolf DG, Mandelboim O. The human cytomegalovirus microRNA miR-UL112 acts synergistically with a cellular microRNA to escape immune elimination. Nat Immunol 2010; 11:806-13.

69. Engelhard D, Zakay-RonesZ, Shapira MY, Resnick I Averbuch D, Grisariu S, Dray L, Djian E, Strauss-Liviatan N, Grotto I, Wolf DG, Or R. The humoral immune response of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation recipients to AS03-adjuvanted A/California/7/2009 (H1N1)v-like virus vaccine during the 2009 pandemic. Vaccine  2011;29:1777-82 (the last 2 authors contributed equally to the work)

70. Goldberg MD, Honigman A, Weinstein J, Chou S, Taraboulos A, Rouvinski A,  Shinder V, Wolf DG. Human cytomegalovirus UL97 kinase and non-kinase functions mediate viral cytoplasmic secondary envelopment. J Virol. 2011; 85:3375-84

72. Wolf DG, Shimoni A, Resnick IB, Stamminger T, Neumann AU, Chou S, Efferth T, Caplan O, Rose J, Nagler A, Marschall M. Human cytomegalovirus kinetics following institution of artesunate after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Antiviral Res. 2011;90:183-186.

75. Weisblum Y, Panet A, Zakay-Rones Z,  Haimov-Kochman R, Goldman-Wohl D, Ariel I, Falk H, Natanson-Yaron S, Goldberg MD, Gilad R, Lurain NS, Greenfield C, Yagel S, Wolf DG. Modeling of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) maternal-fetal transmission in a novel decidual organ culture. J. Virol. 2011;85:13204-13 (Selected for the Faculty of 1000 (F-1000) library of the top 2% of published articles in biology and medicine).

80. Shmueli E, Or R, Shapira MY, Resnick IB, Caplan O, Bdolah-Abram T, Wolf DG. High rate of cytomegalovirus drug resistance in patients receiving preemptive antiviral treatment after haploidentical stem cell transplantation. J Infect Dis. 2014;209:557-61.

84. Weisblum Y, Panet A, Haimov-Kochman R, Wolf DG. Models of vertical cytomegalovirus (CMV) transmission and Pathogenesis. Semin Immunopathol. 2014 Nov;36(6):615-25.

88. Weisblum Y, Panet  A , Zakay-Rones Z, Vitenshtein A, Haimov-Kochman R,  Goldman-Wohl D , Oiknine Djian E, Yamin R, Meir K, Amsalem H, Imbar T, Mandelboim O , Yagel S, Wolf DG. Human cytomegalovirus induces a distinct innate immune response in the maternal-fetal interface. Virology 2015;485:289-296. 

89. Berger AA, Gil Y, Panet A, Weisblum Y, Oiknine-Djian E, Gropp M, Steiner D, Reubinoff BE, Wolf DG. Transition toward Human Cytomegalovirus Susceptibility in Early Human Embryonic Stem Cell-Derived Neural Precursors. J Virol. 2015; 89:11159-64. 

95. Weisblum Y, Oiknine-Djian E, Vorontsov OM, Haimov-Kochman R, Zakay-Rones Z, Meir K, Shveiky D, Elgavish S, Nevo Y, Roseman M, Bronstein M, Stockheim D, From I, Eisenberg I, Lewkowicz AA, Yagel S, Panet A, Wolf DG. Zika Virus Infects Early- and Midgestation Human Maternal Decidual Tissues, Inducing Distinct Innate Tissue Responses in the Maternal-Fetal Interface. J Virol. 2017 Oct 27;91(22). pii: e00785-17. doi: 10.1128/JVI.00785-17. 

101.Levin A, Yaari S, Stoff R, Caplan O, Wolf DG, Israeli E. Diagnosis of Cytomegalovirus Infection during Exacerbation of Ulcerative Colitis. Digestion. 2017 Aug 26;96(3):142-148. doi: 10.1159/000479865.

102.Glasner A, Oiknine-Djian E, Weisblum Y, Diab M, Panet A, Wolf DG, Mandelboim O. Zika virus escapes NK cell detection by upregulating MHC class I molecules.J Virol. 2017 Sep 6. pii: JVI.00785-17. doi: 10.1128/JVI.00785-17. (the last 2 authors contributed equally to the work)

103.Weisblum Y, Oiknine-Djian E, Zakay-Rones Z, Vorontsov O, Haimov-Kochman R, Nevo Y, Stockheim D, Yagel S, Panet A, Wolf DG. APOBEC3A is Upregulated by Human Cytomegalovirus in the Maternal-Fetal Interface, Acting as an Innate Anti-HCMV Effector.  J Virol. 2017 Sep 27. pii: JVI.01296-17. doi: 10.1128/JVI.01296-17.

107. Oiknine-Djian E, Weisblum Y, Panet A, Wong HN, Haynes RK, Wolf DG. The Artemisinin Derivative Artemisone Is a Potent Inhibitor of Human Cytomegalovirus Replication. Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2018 Apr 30. [Epub ahead of print]