Dan Tawfik

Tawfik died on 4 May 2021, in a rock climbing accident at Anića kuk in Paklenica National Park, Croatia.

Tawfik was born in Jerusalem to a family of Jewish immigrants originally from Iraq. He received his BSc in chemistry and biochemistry (1988) and MSc in biotechnology (1990) from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and his PhD from the Weizmann Institute of Science (1995). He then moved to the United Kingdom where, after two years of postdoctoral research working under Alan Fersht at the University of Cambridge (UK) and at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Centre for Protein Engineering, he became a senior research fellow at Sidney Sussex College and at the Centre for Protein Engineering, where he was appointed group leader in 1999. In 2001 he joined the Department of Biological Chemistry (now called the Department of Biomolecular Sciences) at the Weizmann Institute of Science and held the Nella and Leon Benoziyo Professorial Chair of Biochemistry from 2010. Tawfik was Vice-Chair of the Scientific Council of the Weizmann Institute of Science from 2019 until the time of his death.

Dan Salah Tawfik (28 May 1955 – 4 May 2021) was an Israeli biochemist, best known for his contributions in protein engineering, evolutionary biochemistry and, more particularly, enzyme evolution.