Technion - Israel Institute of Technology > 2018

The Olympic Committee of Israel and Technion have established a joint research center to advance Olympic Sports in Israel to be headed by Prof. Alon Wolf, Technion Faculty of Mechanical Engineering

The Israeli Olympic Sports Research Center aims to encourage studies that will enhance Olympic sports in Israel in line with US and European models.

Yigal Carmi, Chairman of the Olympic Committee of Israel (on the left) and Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie

Yigal Carmi, Chairman of the Olympic Committee of Israel said, “The (joint) establishment of the center will position Israel in an advantageous position over our competitors in world sports with regards to scientific knowledge and technology. The fields of biomechanics, motion analysis, and technological development are areas of application that will now receive special attention so the performance of our athletes can be improved. The Olympic Committee of Israel welcomes and acknowledges this strategic cooperation with Technion, which involves the fusion of brilliant scientific minds for the benefit of Israeli Olympic sports. We are certain that this will push our sports performance forward.”

Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie welcomed the establishment of the new research center and said, “The cooperation between the Olympic Committee of Israel and the Technion is exceptional and very promising. This link between Technion scientists and leading Israeli athletes will upgrade human performance and ensure future achievements.”

Yael Arad, first Israeli Olympic medalist, (on the right) and Prof. Alon Wolf

The joint research activity has already begun. The center’s first research goal is related to windsurfing. Gur Steinberg, who coaches the Israeli windsurfing team, and Yair Talmon, Scientific and Technical Coordinator of the competitive sports unit, targeted as their first goal to research surfer/ surfboard compatibility in order to provide the athlete with best performance ability.

Steinberg explained that a certain surfboard model can have various types of fins and this can make a difference in the athlete’s performance. This difference requires each surfer to examine and test the selected fin over time, but this takes much effort and sometimes even causes the fins to break.

Steinberg and Talmon’s initiative led to a Technion study named, ‘The Mechanical Signature of Olympic Surfboard Fins,’ which makes it possible to differentiate accurately among the various fins and adapt them optimally to the surfer. The research was conducted at Technion’s Material Mechanics Center Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, headed by Prof. Daniel Rittel, and with the scientific support of Prof. Nitai Drimer and Prof. Alon Wolf who is also the Head of the Laboratory for Bio-Robotics and Biomechanics. Prof Wolf’s research encompasses many areas, including robots used for surgery, rehabilitation and rescue and recovery missions; the study of the mechanics of the body; and the development of technologies to improve the motor function of healthy and sick people.

“Very often we see that a fraction of a second or a few centimeters determine whether a competitor will win a gold medal. This kind of advantage is the result of scientific understanding and its implementation in training and equipment. We believe that if we implement the knowledge and capabilities that have made Israel the Start-Up Nation that it is today, into Olympic sports, we will be able to advance the achievements of our Olympic athletes and help them become role models whose achievements will infiltrate into Israel’s sports culture,” Prof. Wolf said.

Yigal Carmi, Chairman of the Olympic Committee of Israel, Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie

The Olympic Committee in Israel is an umbrella organization for Israeli sports, one that brings together all the Olympic branches and represents Israel in the International Olympic Committee. Its main function is to ensure the optimal preparation of the athletes in Israel’s delegations to the Olympic Games and other competitions.

The new agreement was signed by the Olympic Committee in Israel, the Technion and the Technion Institute for Research and Development. The strategic agreement for the establishment of the new Israeli Olympic Sports Research Center was initiated following a seminar held at the Technion for Olympic sports coaches and in recognition of the need for extensive and in-depth research on various aspects of sports.

On behalf of the Olympic Committee of Israel, were: Chairman, Yigal Carmi; Director-General, Gili Lustig; Committee Board Member and Sports Committee Chairman, Yael Arad; Scientific Director and physiologist, Muli Epstein and European Championship silver medalist, Yoav Omer.

Technion representatives included President, Prof. Peretz Lavie; Technion Vice President for Research, Prof. Wayne D. Kaplan; Technion Vice President for External Relations and Resource Development, Prof. Boaz Golany; Dean of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering Prof. Yoram Halevi and Prof. Alon Wolf.

The world is literally hungry for new types of tasty, nutritious foods that are also inexpensive, can be produced rapidly in a relatively small space and don’t contribute to global warming or rob the Earth of its natural resources. It sounds like the protein gap is an impossible bill to fill with an expected 9.8 billion mouths to feed in 2050. Plant and algae-based – rather than animal-based – proteins provide a solution; today.

A team of graduate students at the Biotechnology and Food Engineering Faculty, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, have made an important contribution, winning first prize in the EIT Food Project (European Knowledge and Innovation Community) as part of an innovative microalgae product development competition, held in early December.

After a year’s work, the graduate students conceived, developed and produced ‘Algalafel’. The product is a novel falafel enriched with spirulina, with additional tahini enriched with astaxanthin, a health-promoting compound found naturally in certain algae and seafood. It is known for conferring salmon its reddish color, and flamingo feathers their pink hue.

Technion Team: front row (Students) left to right: Meital Katzir, Hila Tarazi, Ina Nephomnyshy, Yarden Abuhassira-Cohen and Hani Shkolnikov; Back row, left to right: Prof. Maya Davidovich-Pinhas, Prof. Avi Shpigelman, Prof. Uri Lesmes, Prof. Yoav D. Livney, Prof. Marcelle Machluf (Dean, Biotechnology & Food Engineering) and Anat Eshel Gur (Graduate Studies Secretary).

Mentored by Prof. Maya Davidovich-Pinhas, Prof. Uri Lesmes, Prof. Avi Shpigelman and project leader Prof. Yoav D. Livney the Technion team consisted of Meital Kazir, Yarden Abuhassira-Cohen, Hani Shkolnikov, Hila Tarazi, and Ina Nephomnyshy.

The ‘Algalafel’

The second prize was awarded to a team of students from the German University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart who developed ‘Algini’, a lentil-based vegan product enriched with spirulina. In the third place were students from Finland’s Helsinki University who created ‘Spurtti’, a vegan oatmeal dessert enriched with spirulina.

The two-day event, hosted by the Technion on its campus, included lectures on microalgae, a workshop on incorporating microalgae in Mediterranean food and finalized with the competition.

By connecting consumers with businesses, start-ups, researchers, and students from around Europe, EIT-Food supports creative and economically sustainable initiatives that promote health, access to quality food and the environment. The project included also three industrial partners: Israel’s Algatechnologies, which also supplied the raw microalgae materials used by the teams, Germany’s Doehler and Finland’s Fazer.

As an ecologically friendly, nutritious microalgae, spirulina has been suggested as a solution for food insecurity and malnutrition and even food for consumption during long-term space flights or Mars missions. Spirulina cultivation requires much less land and water to produce protein and energy than that needed by cattle or poultry.

Spirulina, the biomass of blue-green algae, produce their own food by photosynthesis without a living organic carbon. Dried spirulina contains 5% water, 24% carbohydrates, 8% fat, and about 60% protein.

Ironically, this natural product was utilized hundreds of years ago – it was a daily food source for the Aztecs and others in the Americas and in Africa until the 16th century, but it seemed to lose popularity when nearby lakes were drained for agriculture and urban development.

Back in 1974, the World Health Organization described spirulina as “interesting food for multiple reasons, rich in iron and protein” that can be and is able to be fed to children without any risk. Such innovative products and young entrepreneurs enable the utilization of spirulina and other algae to benefit the world’s future hungry mouths.

The ‘Algalafel’

An Optics and Photonics News honorable mention for Technion graduate’s photographed experiment

Dr. Shai Maayani, a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who completed all three of his degrees at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, has just received honorable mention in the 2018 photography competition of the Optical Society of America (OSA).

Three spheres trapped in white light<br /> Calculated intensity as particles are added reveals that each of the particles gives rise to a new power maximum near the place where the next particle settles. [Honorable mention 2018 After Image photo contest.]<br /> —Shai Maayani, MIT

Three spheres trapped in white light
Calculated intensity as particles are added reveals that each of the particles gives rise to a new power maximum near the place where the next particle settles. [Honorable mention 2018 After Image photo contest.]—Shai Maayani, MIT

All eight winners captured scientific images look like magnificent geometric works of art. Dr. Maayani’s award-winning entry shows three jewel-like spheres trapped in white light. He called the experiment he photographed “calculated intensity, as particles are added, reveals that each of the particles gives rise to a new power maximum near the place where the next particle settles.”

Her photograph appears in the special issue of the association Optics and Photonics News (OPN) journal devoted to “Optics in 2018.” He described the experiment in which three balls are trapped in a white beam of light that makes them float in the air. The balls break the light that captures them just like raindrops that break the white light to all the colors of the rainbow.

In addition, in the same issue of OPN, Dr. Maayani and Rafi Dahan conducted research on optical isolators (diodes) as one of the 30 most important optics experiments of the year. The experiment was reported in the prestigious journal Nature.

These studies were conducted in the laboratory of Prof. Tal Carmon in the Technion’s Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. It was the second consecutive year that the work of Dr. Maayani, Prof. Carmon and their partners had been selected by the OSA as one of the most important experiments. Shai is currently a postdoc scholar at MIT, where he is developing novel fiber-optics under the direction of Technion graduate Prof. Yoel Fink

Visit www.osa-opn.org/home/gallery/photo_contests/2018 for a gallery of all the submissions to this year After Image photo contest.

Japan’s NICHIA Joined the Industrial Liaison Program of the Technion

Japan’s NICHIA has joined the Technion Industry Liaison Program and will be part of a group of international companies already operating within it.

(L-R) Prof. Wayne Kaplan;
Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie; Mr. Noboru Tazaki, Vice Chairman, NICHIA

As part of the cooperation, NICHIA will receive access to the database of future Technion research interests, including emerging IP and other data that may assist the company in identifying opportunities to support novel research.

The purpose of the Technion Industry Liaison Program (TILP) is to connect academia and industry, in order to create research and business collaborations, and obtain international funding for the further advancement of research.

TILP was established in a response to the current accelerated pace of technological transformation. TILP enables a company to navigate the Technion’s resources and establish a direct line of communication with Technion researchers in relevant fields.

NICHIA is one of the world’s largest suppliers of LEDs and LDs, with nearly 9,000 employees globally and the company develops optoelectronic products: LEDs and LDs and fine materials: phosphors and battery materials. The company already started funded research with Technion.

Professor Wayne D. Kaplan: “NICHIA’s participation in TILP will lead to interesting and challenging collaboration. Every day we work to blur the boundaries and become more global. There is no doubt that our connection to NICHIA will prove this more than anything else”.

Technion Mourns the Passing of Rona Ramon

Rona Ramon and Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie,

On June 11^th 2018, Rona Ramon received an Honorary Fellowship from Technion at the Board of Governors Annual Event. The award was bestowed upon her by Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie, “In recognition of her public activity in the field of education and the promotion of youth and children in Israel; in acknowledgement of her significant contributions to the Israeli space industry and the encouragement of science and space studies; and in appreciation for her outstanding leadership and dedication to Israeli society and the State of Israel.”

“Rona Ramon was an exceptional woman who left a deep imprint on Israeli society. She founded the Ramon Foundation which aims to ignite the three essential values which Ilan and Asaf Ramon stood for – academic excellence, social leadership, and groundbreaking courage,” said Prof. Peretz Lavie.

Rona lost her beloved husband Colonel Ilan Ramon, a national hero, and first Israeli astronaut, and six years later also grieved the loss of their son, IDF Captain, Asaf Ramon who followed in his father’s footsteps and became a fighter pilot in the IDF.

Rona devoted her time to comforting others in Israel and across the globe, telling Ilan and Asaf’s story and reinforcing the ideals for which they stood.

CT for Clouds: A Fleet of Micro-Satellites Will See into the Smallest Clouds

An Israeli-German mission to launch a formation of ten tiny satellites that use medically-inspired CT (computed tomography) algorithms to answer climate questions wins a €14 million European Research Council award

Ten satellites, each around the size of a shoebox, are slated in a few years to enter orbit and begin filling in some gaping holes in our understanding of clouds and their role in climate. Inspired by medical CT (computed tomography), which observes and maps the interior of a patient, the designers are creating a system that will reveal detailed images of clouds‘ external and internal 3D structures and properties. By probing small cloud fields that are generally missed by today’s remote sensing technologies, the mission may resolve some major uncertainties that limit current atmospheric modeling and climate prediction.

(L-R) Prof. Ilan Koren, Prof. Yoav Schechner, and Prof. Klaus Schilling

This space mission, called CloudCT, was recently awarded €14 million by the European Research Council (ERC) Synergy program — the maximum sum that can be allotted from this program. Three investigators lead this unique interdisciplinary project: two Israelis and a German. Prof. Yoav Schechner of the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Technion (Haifa) is an expert in computer vision and computed tomography. Prof. Ilan Koren is an expert in cloud and rain physics in the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department of the Weizmann Institute of Science (Rehovot). Prof. Klaus Schilling of the Center for Telematics (Würzburg) is a leader in the field of small satellite formation technology.

Clouds have a key role in Earth’s energy balance and its water cycle; even small errors in assessing clouds’ properties can lead to major inaccuracies in climate predictions. “Satellites study large cloud structures, but lack the resolution to observe small clouds,” says Koren. “Although they are small, such clouds temper the climate, on the one hand, and on the other, they may be very sensitive to climate change. That is why there is a critical need to measure these small clouds properly — to understand their nature and their interplay with changing environmental conditions. CloudCT can pave the way to this understanding.”

The idea for probing these clouds from space was motivated by the technology of 3D medical imaging. “We are using human health as guidance for the planet’s health,” Schechner says. In analogy to the better-known medical CT, images in CloudCT will be taken simultaneously from many directions around and above the clouds. This feat will be made possible by the networked self-organizing formation of multiple, affordable, very small and very agile satellites. However, “Contrary to isolated clinic laboratory settings, Earth is irradiated by illumination from the Sun, which cannot be moved around or turned on and off. Our image-analysis algorithms must account for this reality and rely on light scattering, which challenges our task.”

The precision control required of the multi-satellite system (each satellite weighing around three kilograms) so as to conduct this complex imaging raises challenges in miniaturization, as well as in coordination and autonomous reaction capabilities. Schilling professes excitement about the prospects of the CloudCT project: “The distributed networked satellite systems we are developing for CloudCT are an example of the ways that innovative software compensates for the deficits brought about by miniaturization. This enables a self-organizing system to be implemented efficiently by such ultra-small satellites and for novel approaches to observation to help achieve scientific advances.”

The scientists are now building their teams and starting to work out details of the project. They will spend time designing and testing many aspects of CloudCT prior to launch. “This testing is assisted by a precursor mission of three satellites, called TOM – Telematics Earth Observation Mission, as well as our high-performance dynamics simulator in Würzburg,” says Schilling. “This project will give us the opportunity to see and measure clouds as never before,” adds Koren. “We are very pleased that the ERC selected the CloudCT project,” says Schechner. “We can already say that CloudCT is pioneering new concepts of Earth observation and the development of sophisticated computational imaging algorithms.”

It’s a Stretch: Giving Direction to Blood Vessels

Scientists from the Technion- Israel Institute of Technology and the Weizmann Institute of Science reveal the mechanical forces that influence the spatial organization of blood vessels

Prof. Shulamit Levenberg

HAIFA, ISRAEL (December 16, 2018) – Israeli scientists from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and the Weizmann Institute of Science recently combined one group’s expertise in tissue engineering with the other’s expertise in the physics of complex systems to understand in detail how mechanical forces can direct the orientation of developing blood vessels. Their findings, which were published in the scientific journal Nano Letters, may advance methods of growing artificial tissue for transplant.

Cells, whether in the body or in lab-grown tissue, constantly interact with the extracellular matrix (ECM) – a highly complex molecular network that provides structural support for cells. Until recently, scientists had assumed these interactions were primarily biochemical. Researchers have now realized that mechanical interactions – for example, the ability of cells to sense various properties of the ECM and respond in kind – also play significant roles in cell development and function.

The present research was led by doctoral student Shira Landau and Prof. Shulamit Levenberg of the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering at the Technion, and doctoral student Avraham Moriel and Prof. Eran Bouchbinder of the Weizmann Institute’s Chemical and Biological Physics Department, in collaboration with Dr. Ariel Livne, a former postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Molecular Cell Biology at the Weizmann Institute.

One of the scientific challenges to producing artificial biological tissues for transplant is that – like the real thing – they must contain a network of blood vessels to ensure a steady supply of oxygen and nutrients. Highly essential to the implant’s integration and survival is the directional order of this network. In other words, the blood vessels must organize themselves in the same direction.

In Prof. Levenberg’s laboratory, a platform designed to improve tissue generation and self-organization for transplantation has been developed. The technology is based on three-dimensional scaffolds made of polymers. Biological cells that are essential for the development of blood vessels are seeded on these polymeric scaffolds; studies have proven this technology viable and robust. In a series of studies, she and her team had previously used this platform to examine the mechanical sensitivity of vascular networks. In particular, they noted that mechanical forces have a strong influence on the properties of these networks, especially in the directions in which they grow and develop.

The effect of different external loading conditions on cells and vessels orientation. Endothelial vessels (green) and fibroblasts (red) grown within free-floating, clamped, statically and cyclically stretched scaffolds for 11-14 days. In the free-floating and clamped scaffolds, vessels and cells did not exhibit a distinct global
orientation, whereas in the statically stretched scaffolds, vessels and cells oriented in parallel to the stretch direction and in the cyclically stretched scaffolds vessels and cells oriented perpendicularly to the stretch direction. Scale bar is 50 μm.

In 2016, Prof. Levenberg and Dr. Dekel Rosenfeld, then a doctoral student in her lab, showed how an original stretching system, which applied tensile forces to the artificial tissue, affected biological processes in the cells, including differentiation, shape, migration, and organization in the structures – as well as the geometry of the emerging tissue, its maturity and stability. This earlier study also showed that tensile forces acting on the tissue during development promote the growth of blood vessels with well-defined directionality.

“We then wanted to understand how this process works and how to control it,” says Ms. Landau. “Prof. Bouchbinder and his colleagues at the Weizmann Institute of Science developed a theory that explains the effects of mechanical forces on individual cells; and together, we expanded this theory to include multicellular tissues.”

In the new study, the researchers considered two types of stretching forces that can affect the development of blood vessels. These two, known as dynamic-cyclic stretching and static stretching, can lead to the emergence of directional order in vascular networks. The researchers discovered that the biophysical mechanism behind each of these two processes is fundamentally different. “One significant challenge we faced was to understand the relationship between the complicated biological experiments and the physical theory,” says Mr. Moriel.

The study led to the establishment of a tensile stretching protocol – one that allows the controlled generation of optimal tissues, including stable, rich networks in which the blood vessels have a well-defined directional order.
The researchers believe that these results and insights they provide will advance the possibility of engineering blood vessels in tissue with structures and directionality that may enable their successful transplantation in patients.

Israeli startup Jet-Eat wins the European Institute of Innovation and Technology 2018 Food Accelerator Network Program

Haifa, Israel – Israeli startup Jet Eat, which is developing plant-based beef-like steaks using proprietary 3D printing technology, is the winner of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology 2018 Food Accelerator Network Program (EIT FAN).

Jet Eat was chosen out of dozens of successful food technology startups that participated in the initiative and was one of three final winners that received a €60,000 zero-equity prize.

This innovative Israeli startup is the first company in the world to develop 3D printing technology specifically to address major problems facing the food industry. Established in 2018 by Eshchar Ben-Shitrit, Jet-Eat aims to help reduce food waste, contribute to a more sustainable food production system, and provide vegan, vegetarians and flexitarians with healthy, natural and sustainable alternatives to meat, without comprising their culinary experience.

“We are thrilled to be selected from this impressive group of startups. Not only that the award money will help us take a major step accelerating our development, but the validation from major players in the food industry gives us back-wind in our efforts to build a new food printing ecosystem. The contribution of the EIT FAN program in general, and specifically our collaboration with the Technion, were dramatic to our efforts in the past four months. We see this collaboration as a long-term relationship combining Jet-Eat, the Technion and EIT,” says Jet-Eat founder Eshchar Ben-Shitrit.

According to Ben-Shitrit, the cattle beef industry is a major cause of adverse environmental impact and represents a massive economic potential for disruption. Incorporating 3D printing technology into the quest to find an alternative to meat, and especially beef, has the potential to fundamentally change this reality and help build a more sustainable future while opening new opportunities in high-end plant-based meat.

The Israeli startup was one of some 40 food startups, poised to change the world’s food system, taking part in the EIT Food Accelerator Network. The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School ETH Zurich and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) were chosen to run the program.

At the Technion, 10 startups took part in the four-month accelerator, led by Professors Ester Segal and Uri Lesmes of the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering. They received mentoring by leading academics at the university as well as food industry professionals from the Strauss Company.

Benoit Buntinx, Director of Business Creation for EIT Food, said: “Many congratulations to our winners from our EIT Food Accelerator Network Program. These start-ups aim to help tackle global food challenges and address the gap between innovation and the realization of genuine business opportunities.”

PEDESTRIAN BRIDGE CONSTRUCTION AT THE MAIN GATE

TRAFFIC CHANGES

On Thursday, 13.12.2018, from 20:00 until construction is complete, Yaakov Dori Road to the main gate will be closed from Roth Circle to the Main Gate.

Vehicles will not be able to exit the Main Gate via Yaakov Dori Road.

Drivers who wish to exit the Technion from Thursday at 20:00 will be redirected to Nesher Gate, which will remain open continuously on Thursday and Friday.

Single lane vehicle entrance from Malal Street and through the main gate will be allowed during the entire period of construction.

Traffic directions will be posted at the relevant sites.

Please follow Security Guard instructions.

In case of an emergency, please contact security hotline: 2222.

Technion was honored to host a senior delegation from the French Academy of Sciences on Wednesday, November 28th, 2018. The delegation visited the Technion as part of a series of jointly sponsored academic events, marking the 70^th anniversary of the State of Israel.

The French Academy of Sciences and Technion representatives

On the French side, the respected delegation included, French Academy members: Prof. Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Harvey Prize winner (1996) and Nobel Laureate (1997) and his wife, Mrs. Jacqueline Veyrat Tannoudji; Prof. Odile Eisenstein, Technion Honorary Doctor and Emeritus Director of Research at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS); Prof. Pascale Cossart of the Pasteur Institute and Secretaire Perpetuelle of the French Academy of Sciences; Prof. Thibault Damour, Theoretical Physicist, CNRS Gold Medalist, (2017); Mr. Philippe Boncour, Advisor to the second Secretaire perpetuelle Prof. Catherine Brechignac; Mr. Sebastien Linden, Scientific and Academic Attaché to the French Embassy in Israel, and Mr. Patrice Servantir of the French Consulate in Haifa.

The delegation was received by Prof. Adam Shwartz, Senior Executive Vice President; Prof. Ilan Marek of the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry and member of the French Academy of Sciences, Prof. Eric Akkermans, Faculty of Physics; Prof. Emeritus Uri Shamir, Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Prof. Shie Shamir of the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering.

During the open scientific roundtable discussions, Prof. Odile Eisenstein focused on defining specific fields of collaboration between Technion and other academic institutions in France. Prof. Eric Akkermans spoke of the high demand for collaboration, and that post-doctoral student would be a good avenue to strengthen this collaboration while Prof. Ilan Marek summarized all past efforts to strengthen the scientific relationships between Israel and France.

“There is a growing interest in France with regards to academic collaboration with Israel,” Mr. Linden said. Specifically, he mentioned the Maimonides-Israel research program, which aims to support the development of scientific and technological cooperation between French and Israeli researchers and to strengthen the scientific partnership between research groups from both countries by establishing bilateral research networks.