Roy Arav
PhD Student, Teacher Assistant, and Product Manager in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Roy was born in Belgium and lived for 5 years in Italy and 3 years in USA before moving to Israel.
After completing his GCSE and A levels in Tel Aviv he joined the army for 3 years (Military service in IDF - Israel Defense Forces) as a Network Administrator and Computer Technician. During high school and after he have been released from the army he studied a few courses in Biology and Chemistry in the Open University of Israel with Excellency.
Roy studied his B.Sc. in Chemistry and Biology (Double major) at Tel Aviv University in Israel and graduated in November 2013. His research project in chemistry focused on the design and synthesis of Multi-arm PEG-Dendrimer hybrid macromolecules for biomedical applications. His research in biology was on cryopreservation of coral reefs fragments and larvae using the vitrification technique.
During his studies Roy worked at IMT LTD as a Biologist. IMT is a biotechnology company which focuses on cryopreservation of cells, tissues and organs derived from humans and animals.
In his last year of undergraduate Roy worked as a Network Administrator at the Help-desk at the Computing Division in the of Tel Aviv University.
After completing his B.Sc Roy joined the new biomedical company FertileSAFE as a product manager. FertileSafe Ltd. is a young bio-medical company specializing in the field of cryobiology and reproduction technology.
As a product manager Roy took place in the 30th Annual Meeting of European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) in Munich, Germany, from 29 June to 2 July 2014.
In September 2014 Roy started his M.Sc in Green Chemistry and Sustainable Industrial Technology at The Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence, University of York.
Roy's research project focused on the design and synthesis of peptides in solution-phase using cyclic carbonates as sustainable solvents.
Roy completed his M.Sc. degree in September 2015 and joined Dr. Todd Lowary's group as a Ph.D. student at the University of Alberta, Edmonton in January 2016. The group research is focused in the areas of synthetic organic chemistry with an emphasis in carbohydrate chemistry. His current research project focuses on the synthesis of a highly immunogenic branched oligosaccharide epitope from glycoprotein gp72 of TrypanosomaCruzi. .
Apart from being a Ph.D researcher Roy is a Teacher Assistant in organic chemistry at the University of Alberta since January 2016.