Month: March 2016

A study by Prof. Noam Adir of the Technion: this is how bacteria protect their photosynthetic system from overexposure

Photosynthesis, which we are familiar with from the plant world, is essential to the animal kingdom – not only for organisms that perform photosynthesis themselves, but for all living things. This is because even animals that do not perform photosynthesis consume the primary product of photosynthesis – glucose.

Due to the importance of this process, these organisms have developed mechanisms that protect them from overexposure to sunlight. Just as film in pre-digital cameras can be overexposed, natural photosynthetic systems are also liable to become impaired as a result of overexposure, leading to the death of the organism.

One of these defense mechanisms has now been revealed in a study conducted by Prof. Noam Adir and doctoral student Dvir Harris of the Technion Schulich Faculty of Chemistry, in collaboration with Dr. Diana Kirilovsky and her laboratory at I2BC-CEA, in France. The article was published in the scientific journal PNAS.

The defense mechanism was deciphered in cyanobacteria (formerly known as “blue green algae”). The main player in this mechanism is the protein OCP – a protein that modifies its structure and color in response to intense light. This change blocks the flow of energy that reaches the center of the photosynthetic reaction by means of a reaction between the active species of OCP and phycobilisome (PBS) the protein complex that functions as a light harvesting antenna in the cyanobacteria.

“In this study we discovered how the OCP blocks the energy,” explains Prof. Adir. “In effect, the protein acts as a biological switch. In response to strong light, part of the protein penetrates into the PBS, changes the PBS structure, thereby diverting the flow of energy to the reaction centers. According to experiments done by the Kirilovsky lab, this defense mechanism blocks more than 90% of the sun’s radiation. As soon as the radiation diminishes, the protein returns to its normal state and the flow of energy resumes.”

Link to the article

Technology, creativity and safety displayed at the 2016 Nadav Shoham RoboTraffic Competition

Hundreds of students from Israel, the U.S., Argentina, Russia, Ukraine and Mexico participated at the Nadav Shoham RoboTraffic Competition held at the Technion on March 17, 2016. “It is so exciting to see the next generation of Israeli leaders who will bring Israel to the forefront of international robotics,” said Prof. Moshe Shoham, Head of the Leumi Robotics Center at Technion and father of the late Nadav.

This year marks the seventh RoboTraffic competition. It has been named after Nadav Shoham who was an engineer and Master’s student at Technion’s Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. He lost his life in a devastating snowstorm while on a trek in Nepal on October 15, 2014. “Nadav loved to watch the teams compete and regularly attended the competition each year,” remembers Prof. Shoham. “He especially enjoyed viewing the designs of the school-aged children and teenagers from Israel and around the globe, and appreciated their abilities to build complex systems and their creativity already from an early age. Naming the competition after him honors his engineering talent, curiosity for technology, and volunteering spirit working with youth over many years.”

The competition involves small autonomous vehicles modeled after motor cars on a track simulating road conditions (including typical road obstacles). Students are required to program the cars to drive safely along the track according to universal road rules. The overall goal is to provide students with the knowledge and skills necessary for safe driving, in order to minimize the involvement of young drivers in road accidents.

According to Dr. Evgeny Korchnoy, Director of the Leumi Robotics Center at the Technion, “Students prepare for the competition by learning about mechanics, electricity, programming, control and electronics, as well as road safety skills. In preparation for the competition, the Leumi Robotics Center developed a ‘safe roads’ track course consisting of sensors. These sensors produce contact between the robotic car and road conditions, enabling the car to automatically respond to road obstacles including traffic lights and road signs. During the competition, the cars move along the track autonomously, in a manner that upholds traffic rules and prevents road accidents.”

Alexander Satanowsky, manager of Technology Transfer at Daimler AG – the maker of Mercedes, visited the RoboTraffic competition for the first time. He was very impressed both by the scope and achievements of students he saw. “In Germany, which is much larger, similar competitions are held that barely a hundred students attend, while here we find hundreds of pairs of bright eyes. The context of the competition – an autonomous vehicle – is very important and relevant especially today since such advanced technology is already available in this industry although it has given rise to public concern as well. People are still afraid to entrust their wellbeing to a robotic driver. The kids here today are attempting to handle this issue not from the side of the consumer but from the part of the manufacturer, so when they grow up it will be obvious to them that a robotic driver is always preferable over a human driver in all related aspects.”

The RoboTraffic competition, which started out as a national contest with 5 Israeli schools, has become an international completion with hundreds of students competing from Israel, the U.S., Argentina, Russia, Ukraine and Mexico. It is organized by the Leumi Robotics Center at the Technion’s Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, World ORT Organization, and the World Zionist Organization in cooperation with the YTEK Foundation and Eytam Robotics Ltd.

“Today the number of robotic applications automating many different aspects of our daily life is growing, and consequently the field has been identified as a strategic investment in our future,” explained Prof. Hagit Attiya, Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at the Technion. “Like many other industries that combine science and technology, the basis for its development rests on human capital – the people who are engaged in the field. Therefore, the Technion attaches great importance in attracting youth to the field of robotics and autonomous systems, and invests many resources to this end in promoting this field of study among the student population.”

“The RoboTraffic competition is one of our flagship international events and we are happy to bring to Israel students from schools all over the world to participate in such a high level robotics competition which also teaches them about road safety,” said Avi Ganon, CEO of the World ORT Kadima mada-Israel. “Technology education is a powerful tool through which we can strengthen the ties between Israel and the Jewish Diaspora.”

In his opening speech, Prof. Zvi Shiller, Chair of the Israeli Robotics Association, emphasized to the student audience, “The robotics industry in Israel is developing rapidly, and in a few years you will head up its development. The experience you have gained at an early age will help you in this great future task.”

This year thousands of elementary school and high school students participated in the competition. High school students compete in six different categories: safe driving, speed, knowledge of road rules, road safety ideas, robotic design innovation, and design skill in structuring the robot using the Solidworks drawing software.

First place overall in the elementary school student competition was awarded to Shimrit Elementary School; this was the first year this school competed in RoboTraffic.

In the racing category, the winning team was from the “Future” program of Karnei Shomron near Kfar Saba. They completed the track at a record time of 12 seconds – the fastest result ever achieved at the RoboTraffic competition. The sixth grade students who programmed the robotic vehicle were Noam Hetzroni, Matan Yosef Madmoni, Shmaya Yaid and Boaz Wolgelanter. “This is the second year our school has competed in the competition and we very much enjoyed working on the programming of the vehicle, which took us about a month,” explained Noam Hetzroni. “The main challenge was programming the vehicle so that it didn’t go off course.” Hetzroni’s classmate Shmaya Yaid added, “We won the racing category with record time – 12 seconds – it’s the fastest result at the competition.” Matan Yosef Madmoni summed up the experience, “The main programming challenges we had included adjusting the engine power and the ability to turn the vehicle back on the track course.”  

First place in the racing category of the high school student competition with the fastest result was a team from Novosibirsk, Russia; in the safe driving category the winning team was from ORT Odessa, Ukraine; and in the advanced safety driving category the team from ORT Argentina placed first. The team from Misgav, in northern Israel, won first place in the road safety innovations category and for the programming design using the Solidworks drawing software.

This weekend, Prof. Hossam Haick of the Technion received the Humboldt Research Award in Germany. In addition, Prof. Haick was selected as one of the 100 influential figures published by the American GOOD Magazine

This weekend, Prof. Hossam Haick of the Technion received the Humboldt Research Award, awarded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany. The award is given to prominent researchers who have significantly influenced their fields of study, provided they maintain some type of cooperation with research institutes in Germany. It is granted in recognition of a researcher’s achievements as a whole – discoveries, theories, and insights.

Prof. Haick, a member of the Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering and a member of the Technion’s Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute, received the award for his tremendous contribution to the diagnosis of diseases through innovative markers that he discovered in his research at Technion. These are markers that are present in the breath and skin.

At the same time as the announcement about the Humboldt Research Award, Prof. Haick was included in the list of the world’s 100 most influential people published this week by GOOD Magazine in Los Angeles. The list includes people from 37 countries who contribute to the welfare of humankind in various aspects, including science, education, and business. What they all have in common, according to the list’s compilers, is that they are figures “who spearhead change and refuse to accept the existing reality as the end of the story. Not one of the 100 people we have chosen operates out of a desire for fame – which is precisely why it is important to recognize their activity.”

Prof. Hossam Haick earned his doctorate in the field of energy and only later switched to biomedical technology. He said, “Precisely because I am not a doctor I was able to conceive such a unique development – an inexpensive and noninvasive system for diagnosing diseases based on breath. Inspired by dogs, who know how to identify disease but not to tell the person what disease he has, I developed this digital system that accurately diagnoses the disease and its stage of development. Today, we are working on several aspects of the system, including diagnosis of additional diseases and an interface that connects it to a smartphone.

Click here for the GOOD Magazine website

Technion Awards Michael R. Bloomberg Honorary Doctorate for Leadership in Positioning New York City as a Global Capital of Technological Innovation

Technion Celebrates its Innovators’ Transformative Impact at Technion Benefit on March 15 at The Plaza Hotel in NYC

New York, NY (March 16, 2016): The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology celebrated Michael R. Bloomberg, three-term New York City Mayor, philanthropist and founder of Bloomberg LP, and presented him with an Honorary Doctorate at the Technion Benefit Gala on Tuesday, March 15, at The Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. The event was sponsored by the American Technion Society, which provides critical support to the Haifa-based Technion, ranked among the world’s leading science and technology universities.

Mr. Bloomberg was honored for his vision in opening a channel of active collaboration between Technion Israel and New York City, through the selection of the Technion-Cornell bid for the establishment of a new ‘School for Genius’ on Roosevelt Island in 2011.  The Joan & Irwin Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute today promotes and leverages a synergy between its parent institutions to offer a global perspective on technology transfer, commercialization and entrepreneurship.

“To build a world-class research institute, you need a visionary leader who can look far into the future. Michael Bloomberg was that person for the Technion, and we are honored to celebrate his achievements,” said Peretz Lavie, Technion President. “Because of Mr. Bloomberg’s vision and foresight, the Technion and its partner Cornell University will create leaders in New York who will develop innovative technology and solutions to benefit mankind, establishing the City in a leading position for the 21st century and beyond.”

“The Technion is an incarnation of that quintessential Israeli idea that nothing is impossible,” said Mr. Bloomberg. “That’s an idea that Israel and New York City share. It’s what has made both centers of innovation and invention, and it is what has allowed both to respond to adversity with strength.”

Acclaimed journalist Charlie Rose served as Master of Ceremonies for the evening, which also featured a special performance from the renowned soprano, Renée Fleming, in concert with legendary Israeli pianists Leonid Ptashka and Gil Shohat.

Mr. Bloomberg worked to position New York City to become the global capital of technological innovation. From 2007-2012, jobs in the City’s tech sector grew by 74 percent, making the City second only to Silicon Valley in venture capital funding for tech startups. In December 2010, the Bloomberg administration launched Applied Sciences NYC, a competition leading academic and research institutions from around the world to propose a new or expanded applied sciences and engineering campus in New York City. Winners would receive support from the City to make those campuses a reality.

The winner was a partnership between Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. As a result, the Technion is helping lead the way to diversify and strengthen New York City’s high-tech industry. Over the next three decades, the new applied science and engineering campus being built on Roosevelt Island is expected to generate 8,000 permanent jobs, 20,000 construction jobs, hundreds of new companies and more than $23 billion in economic activity in NYC alone.

The evening also celebrated the Technion’s role in helping to create a technological revolution in New York City, similar to the one it spurred in Israel, where Technion graduates have launched and led many of Israel’s major companies, including 59 of the 121 high-tech Israeli companies traded on the NASDAQ. Additionally, the Gala highlighted the achievements of some of the Technion’s highly successful innovators, including Shiri Azenkot, Joan and Irwin Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute assistant professor, whose research is enabling blind people to see through interactive technology; and Ran Korber, Technion alumnus and CEO and Co-Founder of BreezoMeter, whose company is monitoring air quality for a healthier environment. The event also showcased the work of Dr. Kobi Vortman, Technion alumnus and founder and vice chairman of the board of INSIGHTEC, an Israeli company developing breakthrough technology for the operating room of the future.

“As a world leader in entrepreneurship and innovation, the Technion has pioneered the technologies that have built Israel as the Start-Up Nation,” said Jeff Richard, Executive Vice President of the American Technion Society. “We are proud of what the Technion has already accomplished in New York, and we look forward to seeing Technion faculty, students and alumni continue to drive groundbreaking innovations and build new businesses that improve the quality of life for people around the world.”

The 2016 Technion Benefit Gala was made possible by the generous support of Gala Chairs: Lauren and John J. Veronis, as well as Honorary Chairs: Joan and Irwin M. Jacobs, Eric Schmidt, and Joan and Sanford I. Weill. 

Additional support was provided by: BHI USA, Bank Hapoalim; Zahava Bar-Nir; Bloomberg Philanthropies; Canyon Partners, LLC; Laura Flug; Forest City Ratner Companies; Elaine and Ken Langone; The Ronald S. and Jo Carole Lauder Foundation; The Neubauer Family Foundation; Proskauer; Joanna S. and Daniel Rose; Julia and Joshua Ruch; Perri and Eric Ruttenberg; Jeanne S. and Herbert J. Siegel; Gillian and Robert Steel; and Ann and Andrew Tisch.

For more information, visit ats.org or follow #TechnionGala across social media.

Four students from the Technion have won the “Ariane de Rothschild Women Doctoral Program” scholarships , awarded by the Rothschild Caesarea Foundation to promote equal opportunities in academia and society in Israel.

The scholarship includes tuition fees and a living allowance for four years, and a one-time grant for participating in an international conference. “The threshold for admission to the program is particularly high and allows doctoral students to focus on their research field,” said Vardit Gilor, who manages the program at the Foundation. “We hope that the Foundation’s support and assistance will enable these outstanding female doctoral students to advance within academia while developing their personal and family life.”

The four students who were awarded scholarships this year are Yevgenia Orlov, doctoral student in the laboratory of Prof. Raphael Linker, Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering; Nitzan Krinsky and Hanan Abumanhal, doctoral students in the laboratory of Assistant Prof. Avi Schroeder, Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering; and Maria Salameh, doctoral student in the laboratory of Assistant Prof. Netanel Korin, Faculty of Biomedical Engineering.

Nitzan Krinsky and Hanan Abumanhal from Prof. Avi Schroeder’s laboratory are developing new customized treatments for cancer patients. “It’s a very exciting moment when two outstanding doctoral students from my group win such a distinguished award,” said Prof. Schroeder.

Nitzan Krinsky earned her bachelor’s degree at the Technion Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering as a member of the IDF’s Academic Reserve. After six years of military service, during which she conducted research at the Israel Naval Medical Institute, she returned to the Technion to study in a special doctoral track, the Interdepartmental Program in Biotechnology. “This is an applied laboratory where developments go the whole route from the concept and formulation level all the way to preclinical trials,” she explains. “What we have here is a combination of a broad range of fields – chemical engineering, biology, biomedicine, pharmacology and biotechnology – and turning basic concepts into applications in human medicine. Our group is developing targeted nanoparticles into which we put the desired substance – a drug, a protein, etc – as the realization of the concept of personalized medicine.”

Hanan Abumanhal earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in the Excellence Program in Pharmaceutical Sciences. As part of her master’s degree, under the supervision of Prof. Simon Benita, she specialized in transporting proteins to the skin by means of micro-emulsions.

“For my doctorate, I was looking for an applied nanotechnology and medicine laboratory, and that’s how I came to Prof. Avi Schroeder,” she says. Here she is developing nanotechnologies to improve the treatment of metastatic cancer, with a focus on ovarian cancer. She says, “70% of ovarian cancer patients are diagnosed late, i.e. at the metastasis stage, which is much harder to deal with. Today we realize that it’s not enough to attack the malignant cells, but must address all the surrounding tissue – blood vessels, the intercellular medium, etc – that supports the tumor. In other words, what we need is a synergistic treatment that changes the whole environmental balance, thereby ‘strangling’ the tumor.”

The “Ariane de Rothschild Women Doctoral Program” encourages giving and social engagement, and the two researchers plan to mentor two young at-risk women who participate in The Academy for Life program, which endeavors to make higher education accessible to marginalized populations. In addition, they are involved in a project that was started by Maayan Reshef, a former student in the laboratory, in collaboration with the Municipality of Haifa. This is a project for developing innovative kids for teaching science at kindergartens and elementary schools, allowing teachers to conduct scientific experiments together with the children. The experiments are designed to be simple and concrete, with an emphasis on the areas of health and nanotechnology.

Yevgenia Orlov, from Prof. Raphael Linker’s laboratory, earned her bachelor’s degree at the Technion Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering and her master’s degree at the Technion Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and began her doctoral studies a year ago. Along with her studies, she volunteers to tutor students in the Introduction to MATLAB course, a general course at the Technion.

Her doctorate is in the field of precision agriculture. “I am researching young unripe apples,” she explains. “The purpose of the study is to develop a method that will make it possible to distinguish between immature fruits that tend to survive, even after spraying, and immature fruits that will not survive. I’m trying to understand how the spray affects the rate at which the immature fruit falls and how the natural fruit falls process occurs.” She says, “The knowledge that I acquired in my two previous degrees helps me a lot in my doctorate now, although the transition to a doctoral degree was not easy. I had to study optics because the samples are examined using optical aids. My doctorate is very diverse and requires me to learn a lot in diverse fields, which is of course very challenging and interesting.”  

Maria Khoury Salameh earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Technion Faculty of Biomedical Engineering and has begun her doctoral studies at the Faculty, under the supervision of Assistant Prof. Netanel Korin. She did her master’s degree under Prof. Shulamit Levenberg.

In her doctorate, she is developing methods for directing drugs to areas of coronary atherosclerosis, in order to prevent blockages in these arteries, which supply blood to the heart.  To this end, she is studying the engineering aspects of blood flow in this area and examining ways to direct nanoparticles loaded with medication to a target. Now, at the beginning of her doctoral studies, she is focusing on conducting computerized flow simulations and building an appropriate experimental system. Along with her studies, she volunteers at an elementary school in Haifa, tutoring a group of third to eighth graders in math.

The journal Nano Letters reports on innovative technology developed at the Technion: safe delivery of particles that leads to the production of the anti-cancer drug inside the target cell. In animal model experiments, application of the technology doubled life expectancy after the development of the disease

New technology for the delivery of targeted anti-cancer therapeutics in the body has been developed at the laboratory of Prof. Marcelle Machluf of the Technion. This technology dramatically increases the therapy’s efficacy and prevents the side effects associated with existing chemotherapy. In animal model experiments, the system doubled life expectancy after the development of prostate cancer.

Although treatment of symptoms is an important medical goal, the ultimate goal of medical practice is the eradication of the disease itself by treating its root causes. This is true, of course, for cancer medicine, which aims to eliminate the tumor and its metastases. Two problems in this area are the side effects of chemotherapy and the ability of cancer cells to develop resistance to these drugs.

The good news is that gene therapy, which has enjoyed a surge in both research and clinical use in recent decades, has already proven to be effective in treating tumors and metastases. The tool of genetic therapy is the insertion of genes, i.e., nucleic acid sequences that are coded for the production of proteins. This tool enables one of two things: (a) the creation of proteins that replace damaged or missing proteins in the target cell, or (b) the insertion of genes leading to the creation of anti-cancer proteins in the target cell. This can prevent the development of resistance to chemotherapy and reduce the side effects caused by dispersion of the toxic load on its way to the tumor.

However, despite the great inherent potential of gene therapy for cancer therapy, its clinical application is still very limited. The widespread method in gene therapy – inserting genes into target cells using viruses – arouses a harsh response of the immune system in some cases.  In addition, current treatments involve ‘seeping out’ of the drug on its way to the cancer target, resulting in damage to healthy tissue causing serious side effects.

An article published on February 24 in the journal Nano Letters heralds a breakthrough in the accurate delivery of genes to the target without the use of viruses. The new technology, developed at the laboratory of Prof. Marcelle Machluf of the Technion’s Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, is an innovative delivery platform called Nano-Ghost. The Nano-Ghosts are tiny particles made from the outer membrane of a certain type of cells, called mesenchymal stem cells. These cells are able to selectively target various cancers.  With the technology developed by Prof. Machluf, together with doctoral student Limor Kaneti, these cells may be produced in large quantities in the laboratory, emptied of their contents and turned into empty packages – Nano-Ghosts. Specific genes are inserted into these packages and begin to produce an anti-cancer protein only upon reaching the tumor. Therefore, they do not harm healthy tissue on their way to the target. Moreover, the anti-cancer protein affects not only the target cells into which the gene is inserted, but also the adjacent cancer cells and the blood vessels that support the tumor and are essential for its survival.

The clinical use of this technology is simple: after the genetic material is loaded, the Nano-Ghosts are injected directly into the bloodstream, through which they navigate to the tumor. Since outwardly these are mesenchymal stem cells, the system detects these particles as friendly and does not harm them; and since the particles do not release their cargo en route, they cannot harm healthy tissues. Only after they have reached the malignant tissue and homed in on it do they insert the gene into the tumor cells and initiate the production of the anti-cancer protein. It should be noted that since these particles do not generate any immune rejection, there is no need to produce the mesenchymal stem cells from the patient him- or herself.

Animal model experiments have yielded very encouraging data: the new technology doubled the animal’s life expectancy after the development of prostate cancer, leading to a delay of over 75% in the development of prostate cancer, and of over 50% in the case of non-small cell lung carcinoma. No side effects and toxicity were observed in these animals, indicating the safety of the system.

Prof. Marcelle Machluf is a world-renowned researcher in the fields of drug delivery, gene therapy, cell therapy and tissue engineering. Her lab is developing and engineering nano systems and micro systems for the delivery of drugs and genes (as in the present study); encapsulation (“packing”) of cellular systems for treating cancer and diabetes; and the development of scaffolds for cardiac, vascular and pancreatic tissue engineering. Prof. Machluf has published over 60 articles and book chapters, and has seven patents in the process of registration.

Link to the article: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b04237

A Technion study sheds light on the embryonic development of the connection between muscles and tendons, which is vital to the organism’s motor activity

A study conducted by Assistant Prof. Peleg Hasson at the Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and recently published in Developmental Cell sheds light on the embryonic development of the muscle-tendon interface, the myotendinous junction, which is vital to the organism’s motor activity.  

The ability of muscle to move the skeleton is essential to the movement of human beings and other vertebrates. Therefore, defects in the aforementioned junction – i.e. the interaction between muscle fibers and tendon – harm its motor ability. Despite the importance of this interface, and in some cases its impact on degenerative diseases of the muscles, the molecular mechanisms that form it during the embryonic developmental stages have not yet been deciphered.  Hence, the importance of this study, which sheds light on a few essential steps in this process.

The anchoring of muscle fibers in the myotendinous junction depends on various signal transmission routes, one of which is integrin – a receptor that plays a vital role in the connection between the cells and the extra-cellular matrix. One of the main factors that control this receptor’s activity is a protein called fibronectin, which is enriched in tendons. The current study found that an enzyme called LoxL3 modulates fibronectin (via oxidation), and this modulation regulates integrin signaling. LoxL3 is secreted from the tips of developing muscle fibers. During embryonic development, the myofibers grow and reach the tendons, the secreted LoxL3 from the muscle fibers oxidizes the fibronectin molecule, highly enriched in the tendons, which in turn activates the integrin receptor. Following the change, the “anchoring plan” of the muscle fibers is realized at the correct point of interface with the tendon, as you can see on the left side of the diagram below.

In experiments with mice, Assistant Prof. Hasson found that when the enzyme LoxL3 is abnormal, i.e. is when a mutation occurs in it, the whole aforementioned chain of processes is disrupted (LoxL3 → fibronectin → integrin). This disrupts the implementation of the “anchoring plan”; the muscle fibers continue to migrate and become excessively long, thereby “missing” the correct anchoring point. The result: the muscle-tendon interface does not develop properly. The disrupted process can be seen on the right side of the diagram.

Assistant Prof. Hasson stresses that “This is basic research, and it’s still difficult to predict its clinical implications. However, the new revelations concerning the development of the connection between muscle and tendon may lead to further studies that will paint a more accurate picture of this critical process.”

Click here for the full article

 

Nearly two-thirds of the herbal medicines used by cancer patients in the Middle East have potential health risks, according to a new survey led by Professor Eran Ben-Arye, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology researcher.

The study published in the journal Cancer concludes that herbal remedies such as turmeric may increase the toxic effects of certain chemotherapies, while gingko biloba and green teas could increase the risks of bleeding in some cancer patients. Other herbs including black cumin and turmeric can alter the effectiveness of chemotherapy.

The study focused on cancer patients in the Middle East. In all, 29 of the 44 most popular herbal medicines used in 16 Middle Eastern countries—from Turkey to Tunisia—could pose one or more health risks to cancer patients in the region.

“In the Middle East, herbs are commonly used as part of traditional medicine, based on the impressive affinity of the people here to the herbal heritage that continuously prospers from the time of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia,” Ben-Arye said.

The findings come from a survey conducted by Ben-Arye and colleagues, who asked more than 300 cancer care providers in the countries about the kinds of herbal medicines their patients were using. They found that 57% of the providers had patients who used at least one herbal remedy. Women and Muslim providers were more likely to report having patients who used the herbs.

Although many patients use the herbs without telling their physicians, in this study Ben-Arye and colleagues wanted to focus on cancer care providers who are aware of their patients’ herbal supplement use. In general, Middle Eastern cancer care providers have a skeptical view of these alternative medicines, Ben-Arye said. However, his studies show that the providers also support the idea of having a physician consultant on a patient’s cancer care team who can speak to ”the effectiveness and safety of these herbal practices along with conventional cancer treatments,” he noted.

Patients feel similarly, Ben-Arye suggested. “In the majority of cases, patients seek to combine the best of the two worlds and do not perceive herbal medicine as a real alternative to modern oncology care.”

Patients most often turn to the herbs to enhance their quality of life and to cope better with the effects of their treatment, Ben-Arye added, rather than use them in an attempt to cure their cancers.

The countries in the survey with the highest rates of herbal medicine use included Turkey, the Palestinian Authority and Qatar. Stinging nettle, garlic, black cumin and turmeric were among the most used herbs, with other items such as camel’s milk and honey also making the list.

The researchers hope the new study will guide cancer care providers as they offer “open, non-judgmental” advice about the safety and effectiveness of herbal medicines.

“The majority of patients would hope to share their experience and questions of herbal option with their health care provider ‘at home’ within the oncology department rather than ‘outside’ where non-professionals and sometimes charlatans suggest miraculous potions,” Ben-Arye said.

A link to the article

“When I’m lecturing, my goal is to teach, not to sort students,” states Assoc. Prof. Ayelet Baram-Tsabari in a recent interview after being selected as an award recipient of the Yanai Prize for Excellence in Academic Education. “If all my students were to receive an ‘A+’ I would have a great sense of achievement.”  

Two years ago, Associate Professor Ayelet Baram-Tsabari was invited to CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva, which operates the world’s largest particle accelerator (Large Hadron Collide (LHC)). As an expert in the field of science communication, she was interested in the newly emerging challenges created by rumors of a “black hole that would be created by the LHC accelerator which will swallow the Earth.” Although similar rumors previously surfaced leading up to the operation of other particle accelerators, this time a new factor entered the picture causing far reaching hysteria – social media turned them into viral raging prophesies.

“This end-of-the-world hysteria confirmed my view that although information must be made accessible, it is sometimes not enough,” says Assoc. Prof. Ayelet Baram-Tsabari, a faculty member in Technion’s Faculty of Education in Science and Technology. “This is a further case in point of the insufficiency of typical high school science education in developing sufficient scientific literacy among its student population and critical reading skills for interpreting news reports on controversial science related topics. Farmers living in the vicinity of Geneva hearing about these apocalyptic prophecies can have no tools with which to assess the scientific claims of the development of a black hole. Similarly, the general public has a real problem making decisions based on news reports about vaccinations and climate change.”

From the Life Sciences to Science Communication

Assoc. Prof. Baram-Tsabari, among the founders of the science communication field in Israel, began her academic career in an entirely different discipline; she started out in the excellence program of the Faculty of Life Sciences at Tel Aviv University. “I quickly realized that despite my noble aspirations to leave a mark in the field of cancer therapy, I didn’t enjoy lab work and preferred my student job as a journalist.” In a recent interview after being selected as an award recipient of the Yanai Prize for Excellence in Academic Education, Baram-Tsabari revealed the defining moment in her career where she decided to harness her media experience, aquired during her military service in the IDF magazine ‘Ba Machane’ (Hebrew for ‘In the Compound’) and later in ‘Ha-ir’ (Hebrew for ‘The City’), in favor of promoting science in the media. “During my PhD studies in the Department of Science Teaching at the Weizmann Institute of Science, I participated in a European student training program at the University of Leeds, UK. There I exposed for the first time to the emerging ​​research field known as science communication. It was my moment of enlightenment. I discovered that there are other people out there who understand that the main encounters of the general public with the scientific world is through the media, and that this is something worthy of examination! I immediately realized that this is the research area I wanted to be involved in.”

The audience’s perspective

At that point in time the term “science communication” had yet to be coined in Hebrew. There were only a few people involved in this field in Israel and there were virtually no libraries carrying key journals on this subject area. “I decided to study how people use science in their daily lives and the role of the media in discourse related to scientific knowledge. It was very important for me to explore things from the audience’s perspective, from the reader’s point of view, and to try to understand what s/he really wants to know about science. In my dissertation I asked what children and youth want to know about science, and how the curricula address their questions.” During those years, Baram-Tsabari wrote science columns in the ‘Globes’ business newspaper and ‘Blazer’ men’s magazine, and worked as an deputy editor and scientific advisor for the newscast “Science News by Tal Berman” (on Channel 8); she also served as a commentator on scientific topics in morning shows  on the national Channels 2 and 10.

When she completed her doctorate she joined the Technion’s Faculty of Education in Science and Technology as a faculty member and in 2010 went as a visiting researcher funded by the EU’s Marie Curie program to Cornell University’s Department of Communication for the purpose of developing this field in Israel. “When I returned I had a clear goal: to bridge the public’s right to know with its ability to understand. In a democratic society the public should not only be able to make personal decisions but also to participate in setting national policy, and in both these areas it is important that decisions are based on evidence. In the last decade there has been a dramatic turnaround in the media world with the rise of blogs and social networks weakening the influence of mass media. This process shifts the task of assessing the reliability of sources from editors to readers – a situation that poses enormous challenges to the scientific community in engaging with the public.”

She is not leaving these tasks to others: this year will be the ninth time her course “Science Communication” is being held. This course, open to all Technion students, teaches participants how to make scientific topics accessible to the general public using variety of traditional and new media.

Science communication is a relatively developed field in the US, UK and Australia, in terms of research and training of scientists, yet in Israel the Technion course is the only one of its kind being offered in the country. “I hope this will change soon and that training and the development of skills in science communication will become commonplace,” remarks Baram-Tsabari. “Technion students are tomorrow’s scientists and engineers, and they must understand that learning how to make science accessible through contemporary channels of communication does not tarnish scientific discovery but rather the contrary – it is part of their professional and civic duty. Science communication is not a ‘handout’ doled out by the scientific community to ignorant citizens as a noble act. The pursuit of academic study is generated largely through public funds, so if the public does not understand the point of purchasing a microscope in millions of dollars, or the need for animal testing advancements in medical research, science could not progress.”

Escaping the Ivory Tower

According to Baram-Tsabari, the change of attitude among scientists is no longer a distant dream. “We are already seeing a welcomed change in the attitudes of Israeli academics. Many scientists are exposed to and are talking with the public. More people understand that engaging the public is not a favor that we are doing for the public but rather a favor we are doing for ourselves.”

While teaching and training scientists about science communication, Assoc. Prof. Ayelet Baram-Tsabari initiated a series of conferences on science communication topics in collaboration with the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. According to Baram-Tsabari, these conferences, which she heads today in her role as the head of the academic committee, reflect a marked improvement. “The Israeli science communication community is fast growing with excellent individuals who are coping with difficult challenges, such as the ever increasing presence of pseudo-science in public discourse.” Baram-Tsabari was recently appointed the Chairman of the Research Committee of The Second Authority for Television and Radio, the regulatory body supervising the broadcasting commercial channels. Within this framework she aims to promote processes that will transform Israeli media into a more reliable source of information about health and science issues.

Her research examines ways by which to engage students and citizens in scientific issues based on their interests and needs, and to this end develops tools that will help scientists engage with different publics.

Assoc. Prof. Baram-Tsabari has been selected to receive the Yanai Prize for Excellence in Academic Education, which has been granted by the Technion for the fifth year through a substantial donation to advance higher education. The prize was initiated by Technion alumni Moshe Yanai, who contributed 12 million dollars towards this effort. Yanai established this award in order to encourage Technion faculty to invest more in their teaching. “The dear people who are recipients of this award are true altruists. This is not a prize for the ‘nicest’ lecturer but rather for hard work and a real investment in education and in the preparation of learning materials and its presentation.”

According to Baram-Tsabari, the Yanai Prize symbolizes the importance of teaching to the Technion. “This goes to prove that the portrayal of attaining the highest number of scientific citations as the only goal was exaggerated. All along I was told that the academic world is only justified through the publication of papers, but I refused to believe this mindset and instead invested in advancing science communication in Israel through the education and training of early career scientists and science teachers.”

Her philosophy on education does not seek a normal distribution of scores around a ‘B’ average. “I worry that at the Technion sometimes we forget the difference between grading and teaching. It is a mistake to think that if everyone is succeeding then we have blundered along the way or vice versa – if everyone is doing poorly then the course level is very high. My goal is to teach so that everyone understands. If all my students were to receive an ‘A+’ I would have a great sense of achievement.” She implements this ideology in a number of ways. “Wherever possible, I make sure that coursework will be handed in twice – once as a draft for the purposes of peer review in the class, and only following revisions for grading. Peer assessment is an excellent tool that contributes both to the provider and the recipient of the feedback. When this is not possible I try to give a lot of small assignments throughout the course to promote gradual and continuous learning during the semester.”

“Throughout the term of the course it is important for me to engage students in intellectual and creative thinking, and in hands-on learning. I don’t believe you can acquire skills without putting them into practice. Looking back I think that I’ve managed to match my educational vision with the learning process, my teaching methods, and methods of assessment.”

An Overly Friendly Environment Study at the Faculty of Medicine: how a malignant tumor recruits the cells that support it

A study at the Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine sheds light on one of the malignant tumor’s survival mechanisms: cancer cells’ ability to induce their own supportive growth environment. The study, published in the journal Stem Cells, is the work of Liron Berger (as part of her doctoral dissertation) and Yeela Shamai, under the guidance of Dr. Maty Tzukerman in collaboration with Prof. Karl Skorecki at the Molecular Medicine Laboratory.

During evolution, malignant tumors developed sophisticated survival mechanisms. One of them is the recruitment of healthy cells for the development of supportive tissue (stroma), which is a tumor micro-environment that promotes its growth and development.

The malignant tumor contains both cancer cells and stromal cells, and the aim of this study was to characterize the interactions between these two types of cells. To this end, the researchers isolated stromal cells from malignant tumors of anonymous patients, and grew them in the laboratory. They found that the tumor-derived stromal cells were identified as mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) – cells that have the potential to differentiate into adipocytes, osteoblasts and chondrocytes.

The researchers examined the relationship between the tumor- derived cancer and stromal cells, and found that tumors behave differently in this regard: while the lung-cancer cells growth is independent of their stromal cells, the gastric cancer cells growth was critically dependent on the presence of their counterpart stromal cells or their conditioned medium. This dependency was also observed in in vivo experiments.

According to the researchers, The finding that none of the various other tumor-derived MSC were able to restore the specific effect of these stromal cells on the cancer cell growth, indicates exquisite specificity whereby tumor-derived MSCs are specifically recruited and ‘educated’/reprogrammed by the cancer cells to support tumor growth. Dr. Tzukerman said, “It turns out that gastric cancer cells do not express the human growth factor (HGF) gene, which is required for tumor progression, and therefore they are dependent on their counterpart stromal cells which express this gene. Our hypothesis was that cancer cells of various types summon the stromal cells that are vital to them.”

To test their hypothesis, the researchers developed a method that simulates the recruitment of cells from a healthy tissue into the tumor. The findings: gastric cancer cells proactively attract mesenchymal stem cells that express the human growth factor (HGF) gene that is crucial for their growth. Lung cancer cells, on the other hand, attract mesenchymal stem cells that do not express the HGF protein. The mesenchymal stem cells ‘recruited’ into the gastric tumor eventually undergo reprogramming to enhance the expression of HGF, thereby creating an optimal environment for the tumor cancer cells.

According to Dr. Tzukerman, “The study constitutes an additional level of cancer heterogeneity which has to be taken into consideration in anti-cancer therapeutic approaches tailored for targeting and overcoming each distinct tumor.

The journal Nano Letters reports on innovative technology developed at the Technion: safe delivery of particles that leads to the production of the anti-cancer drug inside the target cell. In animal model experiments, the technology doubled life expectancy after the development of the disease

New technology for the delivery of targeted anti-cancer therapeutics in the body has been developed at the laboratory of Prof. Marcelle Machluf of the Technion. This technology dramatically increases the therapy’s efficacy and prevents the side effects associated with existing chemotherapy. In animal model experiments, the system doubled life expectancy after the development of the prostate cancer.

Although treatment of symptoms is an important medical goal, the ultimate goal of medical practice is the eradication of the disease itself by treating its root causes. This is true, of course, for cancer medicine, which aims to eliminate the tumor and its metastases. Two problems in this area are the side effects of chemotherapy and the ability of cancer cells to develop resistance to these drugs.

The good news is that gene therapy, which has enjoyed a research and clinical boom in recent decades, has already proven to be effective in treating tumors and metastases. The tool of genetic therapy is the insertion of genes, i.e., nucleic acid sequences that are coded for the production of proteins. This tool enables one of two things: (a) the creation of proteins that replace damaged or missing proteins in the target cell, or (b) the insertion of genes leading to the creation of anti-cancer proteins in the target cell. This can prevent the development of resistance to chemotherapy and reduce the side effects caused by dispersion of the toxic load on its way to the tumor.

However, despite gene therapy’s great inherent potential for cancer therapy, its clinical application is still very limited. The widespread method in gene therapy – inserting genes into target cells using viruses – arouses a harsh response of the immune system in some cases.  In addition, current treatments involve ‘seeping out’ of the drug on its way to the cancer target, resulting in damage to healthy tissue causing serious side effects.

An article published on February 24 in the journal Nano Letters heralds a breakthrough in the accurate delivery of genes to the target without the use of viruses. The new technology, developed at the laboratory of Prof. Marcelle Machluf of the Technion Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, is an innovative delivery platform called Nano-Ghost. The Nano-Ghosts are tiny particles made from the outer membrane of a certain type of cells, called Mesenchymal Stem Cells. These cells are able to selectively target various cancers.  

With the technology developed by Prof. Machluf, together with doctoral student Limor Kaneti, these cells may be produced in large quantities in the laboratory, emptied of their contents and turned into empty packages – Nano-Ghosts. Specific genes are inserted into these packages and begin to produce an anti-cancer protein only upon reaching the tumor. Therefore they do not harm healthy tissue on their way to the target. Moreover, the anti-cancer protein affects not only the target cells into which the gene is inserted, but also the adjacent cancer cells and the blood vessels that support the tumor and are essential for its survival.

The clinical use of this technology is simple: after the genetic material is loaded, the Nano-Ghosts are injected directly into the bloodstream, through which they navigate to the tumor. Since outwardly these are mesenchymal stem cells, the system detects these particles as friendly and does not harm them; and since the particles do not release their cargo en route, they cannot harm healthy tissues. Only after they have reached the malignant tissue and homed in on it do they insert the gene into the tumor cells and initiate the production of the anti-cancer protein. It should be noted that since these particles do not generate any immune rejection, there is no need to produce the mesenchymal stem cells from the patient himself.

Animal model experiments have yielded very encouraging data: the new technology doubled the animal’s life expectancy after the development of prostate cancer, leading to a delay of over 75% in the development of prostate cancer, and of over 50% in the case of non-small cell lung carcinoma. No side effects and toxicity were observed in these animals, indicating the safety of the system.

Prof. Marcelle Machluf is a world-renowned researcher in the fields of drug delivery, gene therapy, cell therapy and tissue engineering. Her lab is developing and engineering nano systems and micro systems for the delivery of drugs and genes (as in the present study); encapsulation (“packing”) of cellular systems for treating cancer and diabetes; and the development of scaffolds for cardiac, vascular and pancreatic tissue engineering. Prof. Machluf has published over 60 articles and book chapters, and seven of her patents in the process of registration.

Link to the article: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b04237

Prof. Tali Haran of Technion’s Faculty of Biology talks to us about the language of DNA and the impact of her work on cancer research

By Jessie Safia

Prof. Tali Haran, a member of the structural biology group at Technion’s Faculty of Biology, investigates DNA structure and protein-DNA interactions. Sitting in her lab, she looks through the small window and smiles as she tries to pinpoint the beginnings of her career path. “In high school I loved art, painting and photography,” she recalls, “and I was certain that my future would be strongly tied to the arts.” The sharp change in her career direction to science came about because of a particularly incompetent chemistry teacher. “This teacher did a poor job of teaching the materials, and this forced me to take private lessons and to essentially study this subject independently. This was my initiation into the wondrous world of chemistry.”

In the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), Prof. Haran worked on image processing and enlargement of aerial photography, and this strengthened her interest in wanting to leave art and to study chemistry. Staying true to her resolve, at the end of her army service she entered the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to pursue a BSc in chemistry. Due to her high scores on the general test she took in her first semester, she was fast-tracked to the second year of the degree studies where, according to Haran, “I began to put chemistry into practice and received a first-hand glance of the creativity that is science.”

Upon completing her Bachelor’s degree, Prof. Haran began her Master’s degree at the Weizmann Institute of Science. “During that time, in the 1980’s, the Weizmann Institute was considered as ‘the only country with a friendly border with Israel’ , because everything there was carried out in English, and it felt like being abroad.  My  work towards the M.Sc. degree, focused on the molecular structure of new cephalosporin antibiotic, contributed towards very stimulating and fulfilling scientific and social experiences, but I knew even at that time that I want to study DNA structure, but it was hard to crystallize at the beginning.”

So in the meantime she gained in-depth exposure to research on the structure of DNA, which in turn, led to her doctoral thesis on DNA crystals. Her pioneering work in this area, completed at Weizmann under the guidance of Prof. Zippi Shakked, made her a recognized figure in research on the spatial organization of DNA crystals.

“I began to put chemistry into practice and received a first-hand glance of the creativity that is science.”   

In 1986, after completing her PhD, Prof. Haran began a new scientific journey – DNA structure in solution – an area far removed from the realm of crystallography. “I began my postdoctoral research in this area at Yale University, under the mentorship of Prof. Donald Crothers; my first study focused on the interactions between DNA and psoralen, a naturally organic compound that binds to human DNA and is currently used in treating psoriasis. Later, my work concentrated on global bending of DNA. This was the starting point of my current research.”

Also in this area, Prof. Haran was a pioneer, and the first Israeli to study this area in laboratories abroad. At this stage in the interview, Prof. Haran gazed at a small statue on her desk – the iconic structure of the DNA double helix. “In essence, DNA is an architectural masterpiece – its structural design coupled with the various movements at DNA bases is part of its unique makeup. What interests me is the spatial shifts that characterizes its creative responses to environmental changes.”

After spending six years in the US, Prof. Haran returned to Israel to join the Technion’s Faculty of Biology. Here, at her lab of structural biology, she investigates the recognition mechanisms of DNA by proteins, with a focus on p53 – an important protein known as the “cell genome keeper.” Her fundamental assumption is that DNA and p53 interactions are defined by an “indirect readout” mechanism – where the protein detects a target sites on the DNA through the identification of the structural properties of DNA.

“Metaphorically speaking, DNA can be understood as being a set of semantics – a language that is similar to human verbal communications. Whereas in linguistics syntax is a set of rules whereby words or other elements of sentence structure are combined to form grammatical sentences, the semantics of DNA operate in a similar manner: different DNA structures and proteins bind through specific movements that are subject to certain ‘grammatical’ rules to form complete ‘sentences.’”

The term “cell genome keeper” was given to the p53 protein because of its tumor suppressor activities. Its interaction with DNA activates genes that protect the cell from various forms of damage, such as the development of cancerous processes. It has been found that 50% of cancer cases are due to the improper functioning of p53, so its importance is abundantly clear.

Since the discovery of the “cell genome keeper” over 30 years ago, scientists across the globe have been trying to decode its activation mechanisms in a healthy body (its attachment to binding sites in DNA) and to understand the causes leading to a failure in its ability to bind to these genes. One of the greatest mysteries is the way by which the p53 protein accurately identifies its target DNA sites and its ability to bind swiftly to them.

This is where Prof. Haran’s remarkable contribution takes effect – her research work has successfully deciphered this binding mechanism. “It turns out that p53 identifies specific structures in specific DNA segments. Therefore, we are currently working on identifying these structures and the causes for failure that can disrupt its tumor suppressing activities. Once we have a ‘map’ of all these structures and segments we will be able to understand how p53 operates under different stress conditions. In addition, we will also be able to comprehend which part of its structure became faulty. Perhaps this will allow us to be able to fix the failure neutralizing the activity of p53 and allow the protein to ‘do its job’ and prevent the development of cancer.”

Jessie Safia is a student in the Faculty of Biology. The article was written and edited as part of the coursework for “Science Communication.” The course is offered by the Faculty of Education in Technology and Science and is open to all Technion students.