In memoriam

Remembering Professor Yehuda Cohen (1946 – 2026)
SCELSE Co-founder and Deputy Director (2011 – 2018)

It is with profound sadness that we mourn the passing of our long-term colleague and friend, Professor Yehuda Cohen. We remember Yehuda as very much a people-person, whose energy and enthusiasm helped to establish the foundations of our centre. This reflected his approach to promote biofilm research, with strong leadership demonstrated across multiple fields. Indeed, he was a guiding force who is acknowledged for his contributions to SCELSE and the broader scientific community in Singapore and beyond.

As a founding member of SCELSE and deputy director, Yehuda helped to nurture our centre into a highly multidisciplinary R&D hub, dedicated to bridging basic and theoretical biology with environmental and life sciences engineering. As a Professor at Nanyang Technological University Singapore (NTU) and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, he inspired many students and researchers and fostered high-end collaborations involving IHLs, government agencies and industry in Singapore and abroad.

Throughout his career, Yehuda dedicated himself to advancing our understanding in critical areas of environmental life sciences engineering. He was a pioneer in community meta-‘omics of natural and bioprocess microbial biofilms, advocating for a systems biology approach to understand regulatory networks. At SCELSE his research interests extended beyond a single focus to encompass biofilm biology and ecology, mechanisms of biofilm structure and function, chemical signalling communication, and the life history of environmental pathogens.

Yehuda actively fostered the interdisciplinary collaborative research needed to decipher complex systems in ecologically relevant environments across different biofilm settings. His integrative approach to biofilm research inspired and delivered new biofilm-based insights for basic as well as translational outcomes.

Yehuda’s legacy to the international scientific community is exemplified by his involvement in scientific communication, reflecting the evolution of microbial ecology. He contributed to the founding of the International Society for Microbial Ecology (ISME) in the 1970s and co-established the prestigious ISME Journal in 2007, providing global platforms dedicated to microbial ecology. His efforts to promote the broadening field of biofilm and microbiome biology resulted in the creation of the npj Biofilms and Microbiomes journal in 2015, published in collaboration with Nature Publishing Group and NTU, with SCELSE as a partner. Both journals are now ranked within the top 10 percent of their field.

Yehuda’s impact extended beyond his scientific achievements. He was a mentor, a colleague, and a friend whose wisdom, integrity, and passion for discovery left an indelible mark on all who had the privilege of working with him.

We recall the numerous gatherings he generously hosted to bring together SCELSE members – across student groups to the centre’s research leadership – to foster team spirit and productivity, as well as friendship.

We deeply miss his insightful guidance, his unwavering dedication, and his warm presence. Yehuda’s legacy will continue to inspire our work at SCELSE, and he will be remembered for his contributions to science and his impact on building the SCELSE community.

On behalf of the SCELSE community, past and present, we send our sincere condolences to Yehuda’s family.