Olga Khersonsky is a biological chemist primarily interested in enzymology, directed evolution, computational design and synthetic biology. She is currently a senior intern at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, working in Dr. Sarel Fleishman’s lab.

Olga was awarded her PhD in 2009 by the Weizmann Institute of Science. Her thesis, "Mechanistic Enzymology – From Classical Tools to Directed Evolution" was written under the supervision of Prof. Dan Tawfik. In recognition of her outstanding work during this time, she was awarded the Chorafas Prize for Excellent PhD Research as well as the Teva Prize for Outstanding PhD Students.

After completing her PhD, Olga received the EMBO Long-Term Fellowship for her postdoctoral studies, She then spent three years in the University of Washington working in Prof. David Baker’s lab. Her research focused on computational denovo design of hydrolytic enzymes, their characterization and directed evolution.

Born in Kiev, Olga moved to Israel at the age of 11 and was later recruited to the IDF’s “Atuda” (Academic Reserve) program. She completed two BScs in both chemistry and environmental science in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem before serving as an academic officer. Olga started her MSc studies in the Weizmann Institute during her four-year military service. Upon discharge, she continued her studies and started work on her thesis, “Mechanistic Enzymology and Physiological Substrates of Serum Paraoxonase 1”. Her thesis was written under the supervision of Prof. Dan Tawfik.

Olga’s work has been published widely in top journals such as Journal of Molecular Biology, Biochemistry, ChemBioChem, and the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Much of Olga’s research in enzymology and directed evolution is designed to generate enzymes with tailor-made properties; she believes such research may lead to the development of enzymes that will eventually be used for medicinal purposes.