Month: December 2017

Welcome!

29 new faculty members joined the Technion family

Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie: “You are joining a ‘new Technion,’ half of whose academic faculty arrived in the last decade”

In 2017, 19 new faculty members joined the Technion, along with 10 physicians who joined the academic faculty of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine (hospital staff). The new faculty members specialize in a variety of research areas, including virtual currency security, artificial intelligence, artificial neural networks, two-dimensional materials, quantum computing, proton-proton collisions at the LHC particle collider in Switzerland, training math educators, the effect of the microbiome (gut bacteria) on the immune system, hereditary skin diseases, and mother and fetus medicine.

At the orientation day for the new faculty, Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie said that: “For us, this is a festive day that illustrates the Technion’s ongoing renewal process in recent years. More than half of the Technion’s academic faculty members joined us in the last decade. Indeed, one can say that you are joining a ‘new Technion.’”

Prof. Lavie pointed out that “with one-sixth of the budget of large universities such as MIT, we are excelling and leading thanks to our uncompromising excellence and sense of mission. This year, we inaugurates our two international branches–the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute in New York and the-Guangdong-Technion Israel Institute of Technology in China. The Americans and the Chinese chose the Technion not only because of its excellence but also because of its values: its success in ‘transforming Jaffa oranges into semiconductors’ and in leading the development of Israel.”

Mr. Matanyahu Englman, Executive Vice President and Director General of the Technion, cited the ongoing effort to increase the number of students pursuing advanced degrees, the number of post-docs, and of course, the number of faculty members at the Technion. “Our goal is to recruit approximately 30 new faculty members every year, which requires an enormous investment. Every year, we invest around 60 million shekels just to build new labs for the new faculty members who join us.”

Prof. Hagit Attiya, Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, said that the Technion selects its new faculty members meticulously, as evidenced by the numerous scholarships and prizes won by faculty members in the recent years. These prizes include the Alon Fellowship, Azrieli Fellowship, Krill Prize, Bruno Prize, Blavatnik Award and membership in the Israel Young Academy. Prof. Attiya told the new faculty members that, “the Technion’s promotion track will evaluate you according to your research but also according to your teaching, since the Technion is a research university that is also responsible for training engineers, scientists, physicians and architects. Your mission is to establish an independence research program, that is, a unique research identity, while at the same time striving to make a significant impact on the world.”

The new faculty members are:

Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering – Dr. Ittay Eyal, Dr. Ilya Goykhman and Dr. Daniel Soudry

Schulich Faculty of Chemistry – Dr. Graham De Ruiter

Faculty of Physics – Dr. Shay Hacohen-Gourgy and Dr. Enrique Kajomovitz

Faculty of Mathematics – Dr. Tali Pinsky

Faculty of Computer Science – Dr. Shachar Itzhaky

Faculty of Aerospace Engineering – Dr. Joseph Lefkowitz and Dr. Oksana Stalnov

Davidson Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management – Dr. Dan Garber, Dr. Itzik Cohen, Dr. Ofra Amir and Dr. Uri Shalit

Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering – Dr. Omer Yehezkeli

Department of Materials Science and Engineering – Dr. Elad Koren

Faculty of Education in Science and Technology – Dr. Zehavit Kohen

Rappaport Faculty of Medicine – Dr. Naama Geva-Zatorsky (academic faculty), Assoc. Prof. Nitza Goldenberg-Cohen (hospital faculty – regular track), Dr. Yonatan Butbul, Dr. Rinat Gabbay , Dr. Zvi Gutmacher, Dr. Roni Dodiuk Gad , Dr. Etty Daniel-Spiegel, Dr. Riad Haddad, Dr. Iyad Khamaysi, Dr. Alona Paz, Dr. Michal Stein and Dr. Ran Steinberg (hospital faculty – clinical track).

The prestigious scientific journal ‘Science’ announces a groundbreaking scientific discovery that demonstrates a photonic “Big Bang” in a Technion laboratory.

Operating on a nanometric scale, the research team is led by Prof. Erez Hasman from the Technion’s Faculty of Mechanical Engineering.

The journal ‘Science’ is publishing a groundbreaking scientific discovery by a research group headed by Prof. Erez Hasman of the Technion’s Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute (RBNI) at the Technion. The discovery demonstrates the transition from an orderly physical system to a disorderly system in optics on a nano-scale, and shows a photonic “Big Bang” in laboratory conditions, inspired by models in cosmology.

“Our research deals with the development of nanometer scale optical devices and with understanding the interaction between light and tiny structures,” explains Prof. Hasman, head of the nano-optics labs. “The aim of the current study – that was published yesterday in the journal ‘Science’ and which was inspired by the ‘Big Bang’ model in cosmology – was to investigate the optical transition from an orderly to a disorderly structure. We tried to understand the mechanism of the topological phase transition (from an orderly to an extremely disorderly state as a result of breaking the symmetry) on a nanometric scale.” The research team includes graduate students Elhanan Maguid; Michael Yannai; Arkady Faerman; Igor Yulevich; and the researcher Vladimir Kleiner.

The nanooptics Big Bang occurs when there is increased disorder and when the system reaches a critical point where there is complete disorder, meaning dispersal of the opposite spinning photons in every direction.

The “photonic big bang” was demonstrated using nanometric metasurfaces based on tiny silicone antennas (nano-antennas). “Using nano-antennas that we produced in the lab using silicone technology, we developed a method to control disorder in the system – increasing the entropy,” elaborates Prof. Hasman. “Light is composed of photons, massless particles, travelling in a speed of light. Each photon behaves like a spinning top that spins either clockwise or counter-clockwise. (In scientific terminology: positive or negative spin).

A ‘photonic spin Hall effect’ occurs when an orderly state is transformed into a state of minor disorder, meaning that the angle of the nano-antennas is slightly altered. This effect is a spatial separation between photons spinning in opposite directions; photons with positive spins move in a certain direction and others with negative spins move in the opposite direction.

This is a very small separation on the nanometer scale, and therefore the researchers used an idea formulated by Prof. Yakir Aharonov from Tel Aviv University called ‘quantum weak measurement’, in order to measure the nanometric separation between the light particles’ two opposite spin states. The nanooptics Big Bang occurs when there is increased disorder and when the system reaches a critical point where there is complete disorder, meaning dispersal of the opposite spinning photons in every direction (in scientific terminology, this is called ‘the random Rashba effect’).

The breakage of the system’s symmetry results in the creation of optical whirlpools (vortices) known as topological defects. Optical whirlpools were created as a result of interaction between a photon orbit and its spin (in scientific terminology, this is called ‘spin-orbit interaction’). A unique phenomenon was discovered during measurement – a dramatic spatial increase in the number of optical vortices and the creation of repulsion between vortices as a result of disorder.”

The global scientific breakthrough took place in Prof. Hasman’s lab at the Technion, and describes the photonic “Big Bang” – a big bang on a nanometric scale based on light.

The research provides inspiration for understanding disorder in solid states, and will impact the field of spintronics. Furthermore, it opens opportunities for designing artificial materials while controlling their level of disorder.

Prof. Hasman is a world-renowned expert in nanophotonics – the interaction of light with nanometric structures. He founded the field of spinoptics and in recent years, Prof. Hasman and his research group developed multitasking nano-devices based on silicone nano-antennas, which can be used to generate light beams and combine a large number of optical components in a single nanometric element.  

Prof. Hasman is proud of his group’s enormous achievements. “Every year for the past four years, we published a groundbreaking article in ‘Science.’ As a result of these achievements, Elhanan Maguid was awarded the prestigious Wolf Prize for outstanding doctoral students in 2017. My research group laid the foundations in 2001 for the field of photonic nanoscale metasurfaces, which is today considered one of the hottest fields in optics, with many labs researching this field,” he states.

Prof. Hasman’s group includes researchers from different disciplines, including Physics and Engineering Science, who take part in basic research as well as applied research that yields many applications for the high-tech industry. Prof. Hasman collaborates with Stanford University in the U.S. – a partnership that has led to groundbreaking joint studies and research projects, and which enables the researchers in his group to lead studies with their colleagues in the U.S. The research is supported by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) and the components were executed at the Technion’s Zisapel nanoelectronics center (MNFU).

First Israeli University Inaugurated in China

The Guangdong-Technion Israel Institute of Technology will train future innovators who will shape the world

SHANTOU, CHINA (December 19, 2017) – The Guangdong Technion-Israel Institute of Technology (GTIIT) was inaugurated in China. The project, which brings together Israeli spirit and Chinese strength, is the result of an historic partnership between the Li Ka Shing Foundation, the Guangdong Provincial Government, the Shantou Municipal Government and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. The ceremony was held on the GTIIT campus this morning, in the presence of Mr. Li Ka-shing, who conceived the idea, and Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie; Shantou Mayor Zheng Jiange; Haifa, Israel Mayor Yona Yahav; Israeli Consul General to Guangzhou, Nadav Cohen; Israeli Consul General to Hong Kong, Ahuva Spieler; Chairman of the Planning and Budgeting Committee of the Israel Council for Higher Education, Prof. Yaffa Zilbershats; Nobel Laureate in Chemistry and Technion Distinguished Prof. Aaron Ciechanover; Technion Board of Governors Chairman Lawrence Jackier; representatives of the Chinese Government; and guests from around the world.

In his speech, Technion President Lavie pointed out the great similarity between Jewish tradition and Chinese culture: Jewish and Chinese cultures both have long histories of written tradition, emphasize ethics at the center of their traditions, and hold learning as a core value. President Lavie thanked philanthropist Mr. Li Ka-shing, whose profound vision, legendary generosity and deep devotion were instrumental in the realization of the project, and blessed the inauguration of GTIIT that took place during the Hanukah Holiday, with the Hebrew blessing: “Shehecheyanu, v’kiyimanu, v’higiyanu la’z’man ha’zeh” (Who has given us life, sustained us, and allowed us to reach this day.

GTIIT was established with the support of the Governor of Guangdong Province, the Shantou Municipal Government, the Chinese Government and the Li Ka Shing Foundation (LKSF). It is intended to train an elite brand of scientists and engineers who will influence China and the world, primarily on issues concerning the environment. It will also promote cooperation between Shantou University and Technion. Such partnerships are already underway in the field of medical sciences.

The new university is headed by GTIIT Chancellor Li Jiange, who said, “China offers Technion a broad platform to realize its academic excellence. We in turn must learn from Technion and Israel as to what innovative thinking is.”

On behalf of Technion, GTIIT is led by Nobel Laureate in Chemistry and Technion Distinguished Prof. Aaron Ciechanover. Prof. Ciechanover said, “The opening of the Technion campus in China is a testament to the excellent relations between China and Israel and, no less important, to the great appreciation of the Chinese giant for Israel’s scientific and engineering achievements and to the education leading to them. It is important to remember that we also have something to learn from the Chinese – planning and carrying out large-scale projects, adhering to timetables and boundless industriousness. There is no doubt that all parties involved in the project will reap considerable benefits from it.”

The inauguration of the campus takes place just two years after the groundbreaking ceremony for GTIIT, which was held in December 2015 before an audience of 5,000. At that ceremony, the ninth President of Israel Shimon Peres said: “The establishment of a Technion campus in China is one more proof that Israeli innovation is breaking down geographic borders. China is one of Israel’s major partners in technology and high-tech, and both countries have much to share with, and learn from, one another.”

Immediately following today’s inauguration ceremony, participants proceeded to the opening of a new exhibition that was created especially for the event. Dubbed, “Technion Wisdom – The Art of Science,” the exhibition presents 37 outstanding research and innovation achievements by Technion researchers and alumni. The exhibition curator, Anat Har-Gil, gave each of these developments an artistic interpretation that renders them accessible to the general public.

The events surrounding the inauguration include a scientific conference with the participation of researchers from Technion and Shantou University. Lectures on topics will include marine biology, coastal planning and medical science.

About Guangdong Technion-Israel Institute of Technology

Guangdong Technion-Israel Institute of Technology (GTIIT), situated near the Shantou University campus, is a top level, innovative and research-oriented university. The new campus covers 100,000 square meters and includes 13 buildings, 29 classrooms, 14 teaching laboratories, and 55 research laboratories. Six buildings serve as dormitories for students and faculty.

Last year, the Chinese Ministry of Education granted accreditation to the Guangdong Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, which will “operate and promote advanced degree (Master’s and PhD) programs based on Technion’s extensive experience in this field. Master’s and PhD degrees will be issued by Technion.” The Guangdong Technion-Israel Institute of Technology will strive for economic growth and social development based on the areas where Technion excels, and in accordance with the environmental challenges faced by China.

According to the letter of approval from the Chinese Ministry of Education, the Guangdong-Technion Israel Institute of Technology will have approximately 3,000 students in its first decade (2017-2026), including 300 postgraduates. The GTIIT initial undergraduate programs are in Chemical Engineering, Biotechnology and Food Engineering, and Materials Engineering. Graduate programs include Chemical Engineering, Materials Engineering, Food Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. PhD study fields will include engineering and the sciences, according to the fields of specialization of the GTIIT faculty members.

Looking ahead, GTIIT will also include faculties in Science, Engineering and Life Sciences. In the years ahead, the Institute will grow physically and in the number of students and faculty, but in order to maintain the high level of instruction this growth will be accomplished gradually. In 2036, the student population is expected to grow to approximately 5,000, including some 1,000 graduate students. The Institute will grow accordingly, from its current area of 100,000 square meters to 400,000 square meters.

The cooperation between Technion and the Guangdong Province has already led to several other agreements, including a memorandum of understanding for scientific cooperation between the State of Israel and the Guangdong Province, economic cooperation agreements and a twin city agreement between the cities of Haifa and Shantou.

Inauguration of the Guangdong-Technion Israel Institute of Technology, in Shantou, China. Speech of Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie

 

שהחיינו וקיימנו והגיענו לזמן הזה

A special blessing is recited in Jewish tradition upon new things. It’s meaning is an expression of our gratitude for being kept alive and well, to be privileged to experience this moment. And indeed, I’m sure we all share this feeling of wonder and thankfulness today, as we inaugurate the Guangdong-Technion Israel Institute of Technology, here in the city of Shantou, in the province of Guangdong. This is happening two years after the cornerstone was laid, on December 16th, 2015. Already now, 216 students are in their first year and are enthusiastically studying in three fields, to become the first graduates of GTIIT in 2021

Together with the creation of this new academic facility, housing, teaching in chemical engineering, materials science and engineering and biotechnology and food engineering, we welcome a new era of cooperative research between Israel and China in science, engineering and the life sciences.

This amazing achievement – the establishment of this magnificent new campus – could never have been realized without the profound vision, legendary generosity and deep devotion of Mr Li Ka Shing; the provincial government of Guangdong; the city of Shantou; and our partner, the University of Shantou. Dear Mr. Li, you have stated that “you can use your skills to earn respect, but you will only touch others with your contributions.”
And in fact, you have done both like no other could – you have earned unparalleled respect for how you have used your diverse skills, and you have touched innumerous lives and countless more to come in the form of future generations of students – with your contributions. For these, on our behalf and theirs, we are forever grateful.

The notion of expressing gratitude is very deep in both Jewish and Chinese culture as well. And gratitude is far from being the only significant parallel between Jewish and Chinese traditions. The values we share make this partnership a very natural and warm collaboration. Let us look at a few additional beautiful values we share:

• Both Jewish and Chinese traditions emphasize ethics at the center of the tradition.
• Both Jewish and Chinese traditions place great importance on the relationship between parents and children and greatly value respect for parents and elders.
• Both Jewish and Chinese cultures have long histories of written tradition.
• Both Jewish and Chinese cultures have lunar calendars, and both add leap months in certain years so that the months are in tune with the agricultural season.
• And, perhaps most relevant to our celebration here today: both Jewish and Chinese traditions value learning as a core value.

The Analects of Confucius begin with these words: The Master said, “Is it not pleasant to learn with a constant perseverance and application? Is it not delightful to have friends coming from distant quarters? Is he not a man of complete virtue, who feels no discomposure though men may take no note of him?”

The initial passage of Analects, a book which many Chinese over the centuries learned by heart, focuses on learning, visiting of friends, and developing virtue. In Jewish tradition, these same values are known as Midot, the values people aspire to cultivate throughout their lives.

Another beautiful parallel can be found in the question asked by Zi Gong, one of the students of Confucius, and in Confucius’ response: Zi Gong asked, “Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one’s life?” The Master said, “Is not RECIPROCITY such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.” This is a Chinese parallel to the Jewish sage Hillel’s proverb: מה ששנוא עליך – אל תעשה לחברך . (That which you hate – do not do to your friend).

And of course, asking questions is both very Chinese and very Jewish. In the Analects of Confucius, the verb “to ask” appears over 100 times. Here at GTIIT we’ll all be encouraging much asking of inquisitive, curious, researching questions, leading today and tomorrow’s students and researchers on their quest to reveal and uncover the scientific wonders surrounding us, for the benefit of humanity.

In conclusion, allow me to express the wish that, day by day, the students will continue in excellence.

Congratulations!

Invitation to the Media

The Israel Physical Society’s annual conference will take place on December 17^th at the Technion with the participation of physicists from all over the world.

Among the subjects to be presented at the conference: the regional particle accelerator recently inaugurated in Jordan, the discovery of an enormous black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, and the theory of gravity as a power source

At 18:15, there will be a lecture open to the general public: Prof. Lisa Randall, a leading physicist from Harvard University and a popular science writer, will speak about the connection between dark matter and the extinction of dinosaurs

On Sunday, December 17^th, the Technion will host the Annual Conference of the Israel Physical Society, which was founded 63 years ago and is currently headed by Prof. Yossi Avron of the Technion’s Physics Faculty. Leading physicists from around the world will participate in the conference.

The conference’s main speakers will be:

Giorgio Paolucci, the Scientific Director of SESAME – the regional particle accelerator that was inaugurated in Jordan in June 2017 under the motto “Science for Peace.” The synchrotron is the fruit of rare cooperation between Israel, Jordan, Egypt, the Palestinian Authority, Iran, Bahrain, Pakistan, Turkey and Cyprus. During his lecture, Paolucci is expected to announce a breakthrough that was achieved by SESAME.

Prof. Reinhard Genzel, who will tell about his discovery from 2002: an enormous black hole that was found at the center of the galaxy and whose mass is 3-4 million times larger than that of the Sun. Genzel received the Technion’s Harvey Prize in 2014 and is on the faculty of Berkeley University as well as serving as the head of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany.

Prof. Erik Verlinde from the University of Amsterdam, who will lecture on a new theory that explains the discrepancy between astronomic observations and Newton and Einstein’s theories of gravity. Earlier theories contended that dark matter explained the discrepancy, but Prof. Verlinde claims that it is due to another phenomenon – microscopic quantal interweaving. His theory enables a comprehensive understanding of the phenomena that take place in galaxies and galaxy clusters.

Prof. Lisa Randall, senior physicist at Harvard University. She will talk about the scientific effort to comprehend dark matter, as well as her most recent book “Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs.” Prof. Randall is the first female physicist to have received tenure at Princeton and the first woman to have received tenure at Harvard and MIT in the field of theoretical physics. In 2007, she was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, and in the years 1999-2004, she was the most cited theoretical physicist.

Prof. Randall’s lecture, which is open to the public start at 18:15.

A ceremony awarding prizes to outstanding physics students and researchers will take place before Prof. Randall’s lecture.

At 8:15, a shuttle service will be available for conference attendees from the Hof HaCarmel train station.

The conference is being held thanks to the support of the Technion and the City of Haifa. The KLA-Tencor company is sponsoring 80 students from all of Israel’s universities, who will participate free of charge.

For the full conference schedule, click here.

For additional information: Doron Shaham, Spokesperson of the Technion – 050-3109088.

The Israeli ambassador H.E. Mark Regev welcomed representatives of the Technion to the Grosvenor Hotel where they held a private briefing on the activities of the Technion.

London, 08.12.2017 – Israel’s Ambassador to the UK Mark Regev welcomed representatives from the Technion to an exclusive private breakfast briefing at the Grosvenor Hotel on the current activities at the Technion. A lively room of over one hundred people came to listen to top investors discuss the latest start up opportunities available from its cutting edge scientific and technological knowledge and capabilities, the Technion Research & Development Foundation (TRDF).

Ambassador Regev remarked that, “Israel is rapidly establishing itself as a key component for global development. Technology innovation is becoming a major export with much larger nations like the USA and China are capitalising on the 21st century technology, innovation and conceptual products produced in Israel. I am very pleased to be here supporting the Technion, an institution that is developing future technology that will change the world.”

Professor Wayne D. Kaplan, Executive Vice President for Research of the Technion and Director of the Technion Research & Development Foundation, speaking at the event said, “Technion is a research university effervescent with new technologies, all firmly based in fundamental science. The academic, intellectual, entrepreneurial and innovative spirit on campus is tangible – you can feel it. I welcome all those in the UK to come and see for yourselves how our people are disrupting this space for generations to come. Our research at the Technion is not carried out in a vacuum but with a reason and a vision for the future.”

An independent analysis commissioned by the Technion showed that in Israel alone, in less than 20 years Technion alumni have started more than 1600 companies that created 100,000 jobs, and have a combined revenue of nearly $30 billion.

Eddy Shalev, co-founder of Genesis Partners and one of first venture capital funds in Israel remarked: “Technion people have instilled two ingrained skill sets, financial and technical. There are a mix of disciplines where there is opportunity to invest, including chip design, hardware, software, cyber and med-tech. In 1996, direct foreign investment in Israel was around $5 billion a year. In 2016 it was $22 billion. Some three hundred multinationals now have big operations in Israel employing thousands of people and the Technion is a key contributor to this amazing growth.”

Jonathan Metliss, Governor of the Technion who chaired the event in his opening welcome said, “When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that ‘Israel had to innovate or perish’ it encapsulated the spirit of the ‘start-up nation.’ Israel in its isolation from mainstream commerce with its geographical neighbours linked with the discipline from military service were major contributors to developing a technology sector that now employs over 270,000 people. This innovation has allowed Israel to become a key player on the global technology stage.”

The conference will take place on December 13-14, and will be a meeting ground for experts in the fields of medicine, engineering, computer science and biomedicine. The aim is to promote the field of personalized medicine whereby treatments are precisely tailored to individual patients. The conference is headed by Prof. Roy Kishony and Dr. Kira Radinsky, of the Lorry Lokey Interdisciplinary Center for Life Sciences and Engineering at the Technion

On December 13-14, Technion will host an international conference on biomedical informatics. This field is expected to generate massive change in the world of medicine and is based on computerized analysis of the data amassed in academia, hospitals and health clinics, using deep learning and Big Data technologies. The goal is to precisely tailor medical treatments to individual patients.

“Biomedical informatics is the basis of the new paradigm that will create a direct bridge between basic research and the clinic,” explains Prof. Roy Kishony, head of the Lorry Lokey Interdisciplinary Center for Life Sciences and Engineering. “Imagine a future of ‘preventive medicine’ that will provide techniques for diagnosing diseases prior to their outbreak – a diagnosis that will make it possible to predict the future and create a treatment that is better suited to the patient.”

“In the past, scientists used to think in terms of a single hypothesis, which they would study for many years,” explains Dr. Kira Radinsky, acclaimed scientist and visiting professor at Technion. “We are working to create a completely new approach to the way the science works. My research focuses on the question of how we can take everything that is known to humanity, in text format, and create artificial intelligence systems that will read all of this information, identify recurring patterns in the past, and predict the future.”

Prominent researchers from a wide spectrum of fields will take part in the conference:

Jonathan Adiri will deliver the keynote lecture on “The Era of Permanent Revolution” – an era in which technology is developing rapidly and the prices of products are plunging. This combination presents a host of challenges that are economic, political, and security-related. Adiri, a serial entrepreneur who served as President Shimon Peres’s Chief Technology Officer, is the founder of Getaround and was the president of the inaugural class of Singularity University, which was founded by NASA, MIT and Google. Adiri was among the ‘100 Young Global Leaders’ at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. A recent Economist piece attributed to Yonatan the “Rise of Medical Selfies”, as his company (www.healthy.io) is the first to transform an embedded smartphone camera into a clinical grade medical device. He’s a frequent contributor to leading media outlets such as CNBC, BBC  Wired Magazine and the Financial Times and has recently debated (Davos, 2017) the macro trends of technology and economic inequality alongside Nobel Laureates Robert Shiller and Angus Deaton.

John Wilbanks of Sage Bionetworks, an NGO that promotes science, will speak about the ethical aspects of precision medicine. Wilbanks is the founder of Incellico, a bioinformatics company that developed technologies for research and development of medicine. ‘Seed’ magazine defined him as a game-changer, and ‘Utne Reader’ magazine named him one of the 50 people who are changing the world. At his TED talk in 2012, he spoke about the problems of providing access to extensive medical data for the benefit of medical breakthroughs while preserving patient privacy. (https://www.ted.com/talks/john_wilbanks_let_s_pool_our_medical_data)

Isaac Kohane of the Harvard Medical School will address the role of doctors in the age of AI. (TED talk: http://www.tedmed.com/talks/show?id=17961)

Additional lecturers include Prof. Ze’ev Ronai, head of the Technion’s Integrative Cancer Center; Prof. Shai Shen-Orr from the Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine; Ran Balicer, Director of Health Policy Planning at the Clalit Health Fund; Varda Shalev, Director of the Institute of Research and Innovation Maccabitech; and researchers from academia, industry and the health system.

Conference Leaders

Dr. Kira Radinsky began studying Computer Science at Technion at the age of 15. She completed her three degrees in the Faculty of Computer Science: a BSc as part of the Rothschild Scholars Program for Excellence, and an MSc and PhD supervised by Prof. Shaul Markovitch. While pursuing her Masters, she developed a methodology for predicting future events based on Internet queries. She looked for peaks in the appearance of specific terms in these queries and used them to analyze causative patterns between different events. As a result, she successfully predicted such events as the rise in oil prices following hurricanes, unrest in Sudan after the cancellation of gas subsidies, a rise in iPad prices following a tsunami, and outbreaks of Ebola epidemics after earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

Dr. Radinsky founded SalesPredict based on the technology developed during her Technion studies. The company was later acquired by eBay. Following the acquisition, Radinsky was appointed eBay’s Chief Scientist in Israel. Working in cooperation with health funds, she is developing methods to forecast medical problems based on the overall data available in personal medical files and in medical literature. Dr. Radinsky will lecture on “Predicting the Future in Medicine Using Data Science.”

Prof. Roy Kishony, a member of the Biology and Computer Science Faculties, joined the Technion in 2014 from the Harvard Medical School where he was a tenured professor. He is the head of the Lorry Lokey Interdisciplinary Center for Life Sciences and Engineering at Technion. Prof. Kishony’s wide-ranging research includes the spread of epidemics, evolution of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and coexistence of different species in a given space. In 2016, Prof. Kishony’s article in ‘Science,’ presented an innovative platform that tracks real-time evolution of bacteria while they develop resistance to antibiotics. This platform was the first demonstration showing the link between genetic adaptation and spatial constraints: https://vimeo.com/180908160. The video was screened at the UN during an assembly on antibiotics resistance. At the conference, Prof. Kishony will lecture on “Predicting Antibiotic Resistance.”

Click here for full conference program.

Brittle Starfish Demonstrate How to Make Tough Ceramics

Researchers led by the Technion have discovered the process of creating “tempered-like optical lenses” underwater

HAIFA, ISRAEL  (December 7, 2017) An international research team led by the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology has discovered how a beautiful, brainless brittle star can create material similar to tempered glass underwater at ambient conditions. The findings, published in the December 8 issue of Science, may open new bio-inspired routes for toughening brittle ceramics in various applications.

The researchers uncovered the unique protective mechanism of highly resistant lenses located on the arms of Ophiocoma wendtii, a coral reef-dwelling brittle starfish. On the arms of this creature are hundreds of focal lenses that hold clues to making tough ceramics. Made of chalk, the lenses are powerful and accurate, and the deciphering of their crystalline and nanoscale structure has occupied lead researcher Professor Boaz Pokroy and his team for the past three years.

Prof. Pokroy researches materials created by living organisms, and produces analogous synthetic materials using methods inspired by nature. Mollusk shells, pearls, bones, and turtle shells are some examples of biominerals – minerals produced by the creature itself.

“What is impressive about biominerals is that they are made from materials available to the organism, for example, chalk,” said Prof. Pokroy. “Engineers would never choose chalk as a durable building material, but nature does, and successfully, using different toughening and strengthening strategies. Moreover, the creatures produce these biominerals under available conditions, without furnaces and pressure-generating devices available in research laboratories. It is therefore clear that, as scientists and engineers, there is much for us to learn from these processes.”

In a 2001 article in the Nature, a team led by Prof. Joanna Aizenberg (who later advised Prof. Pokroy during his postdoctoral research at Harvard University), first reported on Ophiocoma wendtii’s elaborate optical system made up of microscopic lenses made of a material called calcite. These lenses focus sunlight and project it on nerve centers that transfer the information to the rest of the body through the nervous system.

“Ophiocoma wendtii lenses are created in the open sea, not in a laboratory, and in effect we have discovered a strategy for making brittle material much more tough and durable under natural conditions,” said Prof. Pokroy. “It is ‘crystal engineering’ and tempering without heating and quenching – a process that could be very useful in materials science and engineering.”

For the sake of comparison, tempered glass and prestressed concrete are produced by exerting pressure that compresses the material and leaves it more compact than its natural state. Glass tempering, for example, is performed by heating and then rapidly cooling the material. In this process, the outside of the material cools more quickly than the inside and thereby compresses the inside.

The Technion researchers discovered that the crucial stage in the process of lens formation is the transition from the amorphous phase – the phase between liquid and solid – to the crystalline phase. At this stage calcite nanoparticles (which are richer in magnesium and characterized by being more compact on an atomic scale) separate from the rest of the material. The difference in concentration of magnesium in the calcite particles causes various degrees of hardness, density, and pressure in different regions of the material. Magnesium-rich particles press on the inner part of the lens as it crystallizes, and “temper” it into a clear and tougher crystalline material.

“Just as nature exhibits creativity in improving an organism’s abilities in various contexts such as strength, sensing, and self-defense, we see very high efficiency by the brittle star’s use of existing raw materials under natural conditions to create hardy and precise transparent lenses,” said Prof. Pokroy.

Scientists and engineers can now try to utilize this newly discovered biostrategy in toughening and strengthening synthetic ceramic materials utilized in various applications that span from optical lenses to automotive turbochargers and even biomaterial implants.

The formation of calcite lenses was discovered thanks to a long series of experiments at various facilities including the ESRF synchrotron in Grenoble, France and with the Titan microscope at the Technion. The coupled analytical and experimental mechanical analysis was conducted and led by Prof. Nicola Pugno of the University of Trento and part-time at Queen Mary University of London and Edoardi Amaldi Foundation of the Italian Space Agency. Prof. Pokroy and nine other Technion researchers are responsible for the article in Science: Dr. Iryna Polishchuk, Avigail Bracha, Yael Etinger-Geller, Stas Kozachevich, Dr. Alex Katsman, Dr. Yaron Kauffmann, Dr. Davide Levy, and Leonid Bloch. Their collaborators include Prof. Pupa Gilbert of the University of Wisconsin—Madison, Dr. Gordon Hendler of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Prof. Nicola Pugno of the University of Trento, Dr. Paul Zaslansky of Charité Hospital in Berlin, and scientists from the Synchrotron in Grenoble. The study was conducted with the support of the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute at the Technion, the Alon Fellowship, and the European Research Council.