Month: October 2020

Technology for detecting the coronavirus in the sewage system will provide information about outbreaks of the pandemic in near real-time.

Technology developed by Technion – Israel Institute of Technology researchers will make it possible for students, faculty, and staff to safely return to campus. As part of the “Creating an open and safe campus” initiative, which was launched this week, Technion’s management decided to implement a technology that samples the campus’s sewage system and detects COVID-19 outbreaks on campus at an early stage. As a result, the further spread of the virus can be avoided.

The technology was developed by a research group led by Professor Eran Friedler of the Environmental and Water Engineering Department of the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, with researchers from the Ministry of Health, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, and the Kando company. The system monitors SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater and provides data on outbreaks and their geographic dispersal on campus – information essential for early warning and for blocking the virus’ spread.

“It is extremely important to bring students, faculty members, and staff back to campus in order to return to a healthy and safe routine of teaching and researching on campus alongside the virus,” said Technion President Professor Uri Sivan. “Until a vaccine or treatment is found, we must break the chain of transmission through early detection of outbreak locations, and monitoring the virus in the sewage system will help us in this mission. The Technion campus is one of the first places to implement this innovative technology for constant monitoring of the coronavirus, and we will receive up-to-date information in near-real-time regarding coronavirus outbreaks and their locations on campus. As a result, we will be able to deal with them at an early stage and block the spread.”

One of the important advantages of monitoring the coronavirus through the sewage system is the rapid and early mapping of a large population, including asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19. Because the virus is present in human excreta, it finds its way to the sewage system naturally through defecation. Continuous monitoring is expected to make it possible to prevent recurrences of the virus at an early stage. Wastewater-based epidemiology that monitors bacteria and viruses already exists in the world, and in Israel, polio viruses were discovered in the sewage in 2013 – which led to a vaccination campaign that blocked its spread and prevented an outbreak.

“The sewage system is designed in a hierarchical manner, making it possible to divide each zone into smaller areas,” explains Prof. Friedler. “Consequently, we can monitor the wastewater at specific points and determine the coronavirus concentrations in that area. In this way, we can focus on areas with high infection rates without testing the population itself and without needing to reach many individuals, at least until the location of the outbreak is identified.”

The Technion campus project will take samples from 10 manholes via the Kando company’s smart, automatic sampling system, and will detect outbreaks according to the concentration of virus RNA in the wastewater. The samples undergo a chemical and microbial-molecular analysis: they are transferred to a special lab, where the virus RNA undergoes a process of concentration and extraction from the sewage, followed by detection and quantification using qPCR. The tests will be carried out at the end of each sampling day and the findings will be used for evaluating ongoing vulnerabilities and determining priorities for extensive surveys of people coming to the campus.

Last May, Prof. Friedler’s research group was a partner together with researchers from Ben Gurion University, Israel Ministry of Health, and Kando company in the first city-scale pilot project of its kind in Israel, which took place in Ashkelon – a city of 150,000 residents. Ashkelon is divided into neighborhoods and sampling was carried out in selected sewage manholes. The virus was detected in the city’s wastewater and the researchers successfully identified different concentrations of the virus, which indicated different levels of infection in different neighborhoods. Moreover, they succeeded in detecting the outbreak of a second wave in the city before it was discovered through traditional testing methods.

A comprehensive nationwide study is currently underway in partnership with the Ministry of Health B.G. University and Kando involving sampling of sewage systems of 14 Israeli cities. The goal is to obtain a clear picture as to which cities and neighborhoods have COVID-19 patients and to improve the methodology. In the future, this technology will provide a more precise image and will detect COVID-19 outbreaks at early stages, so that general lockdowns can be avoided.

According to Prof. Friedler, “Our experiments show that the system we developed is effective in identifying hotspots of coronavirus outbreaks, and in the future, we will also be able to use it for early detection of other diseases.”

In order to maximize the monitoring of coronavirus outbreaks at Technion, protect the health of the dorm residents, and reduce the spread of the virus as much as possible, Technion has put a coronavirus PCR testing site at the disposal of students, in collaboration with the Rambam Health Care Center. The tests are carried out under strict privacy protocols and will complete the overall picture on campus.

 

 

The first of its kind in Israel: Technion summer school program ‘Introduction to Practical Quantum Computing’ attracts over 570 registrations.

Technion opened Israel’s first summer school in practical quantum computing on Sunday, October 11, 2020. The intensive online course continued until October 16th with over 220 students taking part.

The participants were introduced to the foundations of quantum computing theory and to practical programming on the IBM quantum mini-computer. The program did not assume prior knowledge of quantum mechanics or programming. This allowed a wide student body from universities and the high-tech industries to dive into the world of quantum computing.

In recent years, quantum computing has evolved dramatically, from a purely academic field to a range of emerging technology. In this school, the Helen Diller Quantum Center has opened the doors to those interested in being part of the quantum computing revolution.

According to the course’s organizers, major multinationals such as IBM, Google, Daimler, and Pfizer, as well as large investment houses, are currently building infrastructure and human resources to prepare for the quantum age. As a leading science and technology institution, Technion encourages its students to master quantum computing in order to meet the demands of the high-tech industry of tomorrow. It also offers the opportunity to continue to advanced degrees and participate in the ongoing research in this exciting, pioneering field.

“Quantum computers are expected to revolutionize the world of computing,” said Prof. Netanel Lindner, Director of the “Quantum Computing Primer” school at the Technion. “In certain tasks, they will most likely account for a significant improvement compared to the computers with which we are currently familiar. Although we can’t predict the scope of its impact, some members of the scientific community believe that the effect of quantum computing on research, industry, and business will be enormous.”

The School for Quantum Computing is supported by Robert Magid, who has been supporting quantum research at Technion for many years. It is a part of the Technion’s Helen Diller Quantum Center.

According to the Center’s director Prof. Joseph Avron: “The quantum computers that exist today are still at the fledgling stage and do not yet have practical applications. They serve as platforms for experiments and games of quantum computing scientists and are reminiscent of the first Atari computer game console that was the precursor of the personal computer.”

The practical portion of the course, which is meant to train the participants and provide them with the knowledge required for writing software for quantum computers, was taught by Ph.D. student Tasneem Biadsy and Dr. Yossi Weinstein. “This software makes it possible to implement a wide range of quantum applications, experiments, and algorithms, and the course will give participants an opportunity to research and discover by themselves the possibilities that are hidden in the world of quantum computing,” explained Biadsy. “The participants learnt to use IBM’s graphical interface, which is available as a web browser interface. This user-friendly platform makes it possible to build quantum circuits in a graphic manner and to run them remotely on IBM’s quantum computers. Moreover, participants had in-depth practice sessions on the use of the Qiskit library, which was also developed by IBM. This library is written in the Python programming language and includes structured tools and functions that are used for building complex quantum circuits. Qiskit contains a large variety of whole quantum algorithms. One interesting example that can be found in the library is a relatively new algorithm for calculating the ground state of molecules through combined computation using both classic and quantum computers.”

 

The 2020-21 academic year opens at the Technion today (Wednesday) in the remote classroom, with a 20 percent rise in the number of students and an increase in the percentage of female students

The new academic year opened at the Technion in Israel, on Wednesday, October 21, 2020. This year is marked by a 20 percent increase in new students. Of the 9,300 students studying for their bachelor’s degree, over 40 percent are women. This year, 4,558 students will be studying at the Technion Irwin and Joan Jacobs Graduate School, of which 1,263 are for a Ph.D. and the rest for a Master’s degree.

Among the faculties and study tracks that saw a strong increase in admissions of undergraduate students are the Data Science and Engineering track at the William Davidson Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management; the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering; the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, the Henry and Marilyn Taub Faculty of Computer Science, and the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering.

In alignment with current guidelines issued by the Ministry of Health, Technion was obliged to continue online learning through virtual portals. Technion management has nevertheless defined the return to campus as a central goal, in the understanding that live activity, teaching, and research on campus are an essential component of the academic spirit.

17th Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan welcomed new and returning students and celebrated the opening of the new academic year. “The return of us all to campus is of vital importance, which far transcends our formal presence in the classroom and laboratory,” he said. “The direct encounter among students and between students and faculty is a substantial part of the academic experience. The various technological means, no matter how sophisticated, are helpful, but they cannot replace the direct interpersonal encounter on campus. Until we are able to return to the classroom, the lab, the learning environment, and campus life, we will continue to use remote learning platforms. We have made good use of the summer months to prepare for the resumption of studies, and have invested considerably in furnishing classrooms with advanced filming equipment and in preparing for the integration of on-campus studies and remote learning. We have also increased financial support for students through scholarships and special loans, and we are determined to make sure that the COVID-19 crisis does not disrupt the learning continuum of any of the Technion’s students.”

“I would like to welcome each and every one of you, and I wish you success and satisfaction in your studies”, said Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Prof. Hossam Haick. “Our primary goal here at the Technion is to equip you with the best tools to deal with the unknown by crafting your knowledge and developing your talents. The Technion has recently enhanced its teaching and learning approaches through the integration of remote learning technologies and face-to-face learning in classrooms on campus, to ensure that all students benefit from high-quality, fascinating classes, whether or not they are on campus.”

“We are here to help you realize your personal potential in your chosen field of study, particularly at this challenging time”, said Dean of Students, Prof. Ayelet Fishman. “The Dean’s office provides Technion students with broad support, including a variety of housing solutions in dormitories, economic aid, guidance, and help with studies through the Unit for the Advancement of Students, psychological services, career guidance, and a variety of culture and leisure activities.”

Prof. Fishman added that during the week, students will be returning to the dorms and that on-campus housing is in high demand. To protect the health of dorm residents and limit the spread of COVID-19 as much as possible, the Technion has made PCR swab testing stations available to students living in the dorms, where they can be tested free of charge and without a doctor’s referral.

“The Technion is an island of sanity in Israeli society, a model of coexistence”, said Chair of the Technion Student Association, Linoy Nagar Shaul. “A variety of services are available to students to help them accomplish their studies easily and successfully. The Student Association is doing everything to reconcile learning via Zoom with hybrid learning. I hope and believe that as soon as possible, all the great services that are offered to you on campus will reopen.”

Wishing you a good, productive, and successful school year!

 

Technion Harvey Prize as a predictor of the Nobel. 

In early October 2020, the Nobel Prize Committee announced the winners for this year’s prestigious international prize. Three of the new Nobel laureates were also awarded the Harvey Prize at Technion in recent years, thereby boosting the stature of the Harvey Prize as a “predictor of the Nobel.” Indeed, more than 30% of Harvey Prize winners since 1986 have gone on to win the Nobel Prize.

The Harvey Prize rewards excellence by recognizing breakthroughs in science and technology. The monetary Prize is a banner of recognition for men and women who have truly contributed to the progress of humanity. No less, however, the Prize is a source of inspiration. Serving as a stimulus, the award urges scientists and scholars forward to further accomplishment.

Leo M. Harvey (1887-1973) was a pioneer industrialist and inventor and an ardent friend and supporter of the State of Israel, particularly of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.

The Nobel Prize laureates in Chemistry for 2020 are Prof. Emmanuelle Charpentier, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, and Prof. Jennifer Doudna of the University of California, Berkeley. Both women received the Harvey Prize less than a year ago, on November 3, 2019, together with Prof. Feng Zhang. In December, they will receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing “a tool for rewriting the code of life” and for CRISPR-Cas9, a revolutionary technology for genome editing. 

Prof. Charpentier and Prof. Doudna published their historic article in 2012 in the journal Science. Here, they describe how the bacterial protein CRISPR-Cas9 can identify targets in the DNA and can easily be programmed to edit a broad range of DNA targets. These discoveries generated a revolution in life sciences and are expected to spark the development of a range of treatments for diseases. 

At the Harvey Prize ceremony at Technion, Prof. Charpentier said: “It is a great honor for me to receive this prize, and I thank Technion for acknowledging the importance of our research.” Prof. Doudna added in a taped video clip (as she was unable to attend in person): “Today, CRISPR-Cas9 is used by scientists around the world to develop treatments for genetic diseases and to repair agricultural damage caused by global warming.”

During her visit to Technion, Prof. Charpentier also gave a lecture at the Technion Faculty of Biology. “Unfortunately, basic science does not receive the same attention as applied research,” she told the audience. “These days, scientists are under pressure to devote their time to applications, while basic science requires time and depth. Therefore, it is important for governments and foundations to also provide proper support for basic science.”

Prof. Reinhard Genzel, who will receive the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics this December, is a faculty member of the University of California, Berkeley, and is Director of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany. Prof. Genzel received the Harvey Prize at Technion in 2014 along with Prof. James P. Allison, who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine two years ago. Prof. Genzel will share the Nobel Prize in Physics with Prof. Andrea Ghez of the University of California, Los Angeles for discovering “the darkest secret in the universe” – an enormous black hole in the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way.

The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics is shared with Prof. Roger Penrose of the University of Oxford for breakthroughs in different fields of Physics, including the theory of relativity, the Big Bang theory and the creation of black holes. Prof. Penrose is also involved in the field of Geometry, where he has a connection with Distinguished Prof. Dan Shechtman of the Technion Department of Materials Science and Engineering who himself became a Nobel Laureate in Chemistry in 2011. The “Penrose tiles” that Prof. Penrose developed paved the way for the discovery of the quasiperiodic crystals – a whole new class of matter – for which Prof. Shechtman won the Nobel Prize. 

 

The researchers include hematological-oncological experts from Schneider Children’s Medical Center and Tel Aviv University, and scientists from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and the University of Glasgow. They discovered that a drug that thwarts the production of fatty acids can block the spread of leukemia to the brain 

An international research group from Israel and Scotland has reported in Nature Cancer a breakthrough that may influence the treatment of metastatic leukemia spreading to the brain. The researchers include hematological-oncological experts from Schneider Children’s Medical Center and Tel Aviv University, and scientists from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and the University of Glasgow.

Their research focuses on acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), which is the most common type of cancer among children. Although the recovery rates for this disease are relatively high, the treatment is harsh and accompanied by numerous side effects that can persist years after the patient is cured. 

Since one of the main risks of ALL is that the cancer will metastasize to the brain, children diagnosed with this disease receive a prophylactic treatment that protects the brain from metastasized cells. Currently, this treatment consists of injecting chemotherapy drugs into the spinal fluid, and sometimes also radiation to the skull, which carries the risk of side effects for damaged brain function since these chemotherapy drugs also harm healthy brain cells. For this reason, a worldwide effort is underway to develop more selective treatments that will only affect the leukemia cells and not the brain cells. The current research reveals for the first time that the solution lies in fatty acids. 

Fatty acids are an essential resource for cells, including leukemia cells. Leukemia cells obtain sufficient fatty acids in the bone marrow and blood, but when they travel to the brain in a metastatic process, they reach an area that is very poor in fatty acids. According to the recently published research, in order to continue to thrive and flourish in the brain, the ALL cells develop an ability to produce fatty acids on their own. 

Based on these findings, the researchers infer that treating the patient with drugs that block the production of fatty acids will prevent the leukemia cells from producing fatty acids and will thereby “starve” them and stop them from flourishing in the brain. Indeed, the use of such drugs in mice has stopped the spread of metastatic leukemia to their brains. 

The drugs used in the current research are still being developed and therefore not yet approved for use in humans. However, the research findings provide hope for more precise treatment that will most likely be less toxic for preventing the spread of leukemia to the brain.

The article is the result of collaboration among the research groups of three scientists. The work was carried out by three young female scientists: Dr. Angela Maria Savino from Professor Shai Izraeli’s lab in the Department of Hematology-Oncology at the Schneider Children’s Medical Center, part of the Clalit Group, and the Department of Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry at Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine; Dr. Sara Isabel Fernandes from the lab of Professor Eyal Gottlieb from the Rappaport Institute and Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology; and Dr. Orianne Olivares from the lab of Professor Christina Halsey at the Wolfson Wohl Cancer Research Centre, University of Glasgow. Part of the research was also carried out in the lab of Professor Michael Kharas at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. 

The research findings are also relevant for several other types of cancer in children and adults in addition to acute lymphoblastic leukemia, since most mortalities from cancer are not caused by the primary tumor but, rather, by the spread of metastasized cells to distant organs. This research, which demonstrates that cancer cells adapt to the organs to which they spread, paves the way for biological treatments that block these adaptation mechanisms, thereby stopping the cancer cells from metastasizing. 

The research is supported by the Chief Scientist of Israel’s Ministry of Science and Technology, the Italian Foundation for Cancer Research (FIRC), the William and Elizabeth Davies Foundation, the Laura and Ike Perlmutter Fund, the German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research, the Norman and Sadie Lee Foundation, the Israel Science Foundation, the European Union (the ERA-NET TRASCALL program), the Israel Cancer Research Fund and Cancer Research UK. In addition, the project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement META-CAN No 766214.

Technion Scientists have developed a novel method for rapid and accurate sensing of coronavirus without the need to rely on PCR amplification. The new technique can identify the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in a sample by counting and quantifying the virus’ RNA molecules with single-molecule precision. Sensing is not biased by PCR amplification errors, permitting future development of a more accurate clinical diagnostic technique.    

The research, which was published in ACS Nano, was led by Professor Amit Meller and carried out by postdoctoral researchers Dr. Yana Rozevsky, Dr. Tal Gilboa, Dr. Xander van Kooten, and staff scientist Dr. Diana Huttner – all of whom are researchers in the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering – and Professor Ulrike Stein and Dr. Dennis Kobelt from the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine and the Charité Hospital in Berlin.

RT-qPCR testing, the most widely used test for COVID-19 today, involves a series of preparatory stages, including collecting the sample from a patient using a swab, “opening” the virus and extracting RNA from it. In the next stage, called reverse transcription (RT), specific ‘target’ RNA sequences are copied to the DNA form. Finally, this DNA is amplified by a polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Millions of copies are made so that enough DNA is present to be detected, finally leading to a diagnosis for COVID-19.

RT-qPCR testing requires large quantities of special reagents, expensive laboratory equipment, and highly trained professionals. Moreover, recent studies have shown that test results can change from one day to the next and that the massive amplification process can generate significant errors. For these reasons, worldwide efforts are being devoted to developing faster, more affordable, and more accurate tests. This task is particularly challenging in cases where the “viral load” (the amount of viral RNA) in a sample is low and can evade sensing. 

The new method presented by Prof. Meller’s research group relies on original technologies that the lab has developed in the past two decades, using nanofabricated holes (so-called “nanopores”) to sense single biological molecules. The effectiveness of this technology has already been demonstrated in a number of other biomedical uses. Unlike conventional molecular diagnostics, which require large volumes of samples containing millions of copies of the same molecule, nanopore sensing analyzes individual biological molecules from much smaller samples. A strong electrical field is used to unfold and thread individual DNA molecules through the nanoscopic hole containing electrical or optical sensors. Each molecule that passes through the hole gives a characteristic “signature,” which enables identification and immediate counting of the molecules. This approach opens up the possibility of miniaturizing the diagnostic systems while improving the accuracy and reliability of tests and expanding the cases where amplifying PCR is not efficient or harms the reliability of the test. 

The recently published article presents two applications of this method: identifying RNA molecules that signal the emergence of metastatic cancer and detecting coronavirus RNA. To allow unambiguous sensing, the researchers developed a process that leaves only the relevant ‘target’ molecules intact, while degrading all others.

In the first application, the researchers demonstrated the method’s potential for early detection of metastatic cancer by quantifying the levels of MACC1 – one of the primary genes known to signal the formation of a metastatic state. Thanks to its high degree of sensitivity, the new technique successfully quantified the gene’s expression in cancerous cells at the early stages of illness (known as stages I and II) – a challenge that PCR-based technologies failed to meet. Needless to say, the earlier these genetic biomarkers are discovered, the better the chances of successful treatment.

In the second application, the researchers detected the RNA molecules of the SARS-CoV-2 virus using the same approach. The technique presented in the article is not the first to analyze single molecules; however, unlike previous reports, it circumvents processes in the sample treatment that introduce “noise” and errors into the system. Two of these processes are sample purification, in which many target molecules are inadvertently lost, and DNA amplification, which may lead to errors and faulty diagnoses. According to Prof. Meller, “Our system enables quantifiable sensing of the RNA genetic expression levels using a relatively simple nano-sensor device, without needing to cleanse the sample and with no need for massive amplification processes that may harm the test’s sensitivity and reliability. We have shown that our technology preserves the level of genetic expression of the original RNA molecules throughout the entire process. In this way, we obtain a more precise analysis method, which is essential in both contexts we studied – RNA biomarkers of metastatic cancer and the SARS-CoV-2 virus.”

The recent ACS Nano article is an important milestone for Meller’s research group, but it is definitely not the end of the road. With further work, the nanopore sensing system is expected to become a portable device that will make cumbersome lab equipment unnecessary. Technological and clinical research is continuing at the Technion Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, in collaboration with the BioBank at the Rambam Health Care Campus. At the same time, steps are being taken to commercialize the technology in order to make it available for general use as soon as possible. 

The research is being supported by the European Union (through an ERC grant, as part of the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 program for research in the EU), the Israel Science Foundation (ISF), and the SignGene program which supports doctoral students.

Click here for the paper in ACS Nano.

Lior Arbel’s doctoral dissertation goes beyond typical fields of practice in science and engineering. That’s because at its center stands a new hybrid musical instrument, or more precisely a family of musical instruments he calls “Symbolen.”

The science and engineering are well integrated into Arbel’s original invention.

“There is a complex combination of different aspects of physics, electronics, design and more,” explained Arbel. “We use tools and techniques of signal processing, waves, circuit design, mechanical simulations and optimization methods to create a system that will be useful and successful musically and design-wise.”

Symbolen is based on an array of wine glasses, which connect to a stringed instrument by electrical and mechanical means, and produces, mediated by signal processing, unique acoustic effects. The research and development were published in leading conferences and journals dealing with musical acoustics and musical instrument design.

The name of the musical instrument “Symbolen” is derived from two words. The first is “Sym,” from “sympathetic” language – that is, the transfer of energy between two different components in a system in a way that creates a common resonance. The second word is taken from “Bolen-Bolen” – the native name of the Australian bird Superb lyrebird, which mimics various sounds, including the sounds of other birds. According to Arbel, “When I thought of a name of my musical instrument, I realized that the glass system mimics the sounds of other instruments, and through the glasses you can still hear the special hue of the original instrument, whether it be a guitar, piano, etc. In the end, it’s nice that the name Symbolen also includes the world Cymbal – which is half of cymbals.”

The current Symbolen is based on a series of tools he built in recent years, with continuous trials and improvements. Eventually, the sound of the glasses was created as a result of an electrical or mechanical coupling, which greatly enriches the sounds of the glasses compared to a normal sound generated by a click. In the demos, the instrument is connected to Arbel’s classical guitar, but it can act under the influence of other instruments.

Arbel explained that he got the inspiration for the development from Indian musical instruments, such as the sitar and sarangi, which act on a sympathetic effect, that is the activation of a certain element through touch with another element. “These instruments are based on operating strings without contact with them, and I realized that it can be extended from strings to other instruments.”

Arbel learned the techniques for combining technologies with traditional instruments from modern musical instruments, such as the “chameleon guitar” developed at MIT, which allows for the replacement of its resonator board, and the “hydraulophone,” an organ that operates on water flow. Eventually, Arbel arrived at the array of wine glasses. Why? “Because there is a wide and available range of glasses, so that to produce vibration and sound requires little energy, and since I was interested in the unique effect that they add to the sound of my guitar.”

Each glass of wine has its own self-frequency, and if we make a sound next to it with the same frequency it will start to shake and produce a sound on its own. And so, in the Symbolen, each glass vibrates when the sound of the guitar sounding matches its own frequency. By filling the glasses with water, and using various means such as electromagnet, signal processing and magnetic pendulum, Arbel affects the self-frequency of the glass and the sound emanating from it. He has performed with the Symbolen several times in Israel and France and hopes that his prototype will serve as a basis for the development of new sympathetic tools.

Arbel completed his bachelor’s degree at the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Technion and will soon complete his Ph.D. there (in a direct track). His supervisors are Professor Yoav Schechner from the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Dr. Noam Amir from the School of Communication Disorders at Tel Aviv University. He is also conducting his research as part of the Technion’s Industrial Design track headed by Professor Ezri Tarazi.

Intel’s Rising Star Faculty Award program selected 10 university faculty members who show great promise in developing future computing technologies. From projects such as a novel cloud system stack, to ultra-low power computing and memory platforms, to artificially intelligent (AI) systems that learn on the fly, these researchers are building advanced technologies today.

The program promotes the careers of faculty members who are early in their academic research careers and who show great promise as future academic leaders in disruptive computing technologies. The program also fosters long-term collaborative relationships with senior technical leaders at Intel.

The awards were given based on progressive research in computer science, engineering and social science in support of the global digital transition in the following areas: software, security, interconnect, memory, architecture, and process.

Faculty members who work at the following universities received Rising Star awards: Cornell University, Georgia Tech, Stanford University, Technion, University of California at San Diego, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, University of Texas at Austin, and University of Washington.

Ten assistant professors received Intel’s Rising Star Faculty Awards: (from top row, left): Asif Khan of Georgia Tech, Chelsea Finn of Stanford University, Hannaneh Hajishirzi of University of Washington, Baris Kasikci of University of Michigan, Daniel Soudry of Technion, Nadia Polikarpova of UC San Diego, Jaydeep Kulkarni of UT Austin, Bo Li of UI Urbana-Champaign, Hamed Hassani of University of Pennsylvania, and Christina Delimitrou of Cornell University.

Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering Daniel Soudry’s contributions address the core challenge of making deep learning more efficient in terms of computational resources. Despite the impressive progress made using artificial neural nets, they are still far behind the capabilities of biological neural nets in most areas — even the simplest fly is far more resourceful than the most advanced robots. Soudry’s novel approach relies on accurate models with low numerical precision. Decreasing the numerical precision of the neural network model is a simple and effective way to improve their resource efficiency. Nearly all recent deep learning related hardware relies heavily on lower precision math. The benefits are a reduction in the memory required to store the neural network, reduction in chip area, and a drastic improvement in energy efficiency.

H2PRO is a startup company that produces hydrogen using green energy based on an innovative technology invented at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The company is one of just five chosen as finalists in a prestigious competition organized by Royal Dutch Shell. It is the youngest company on the list, and the only one from Israel. There were several elimination rounds during the competition, called New Energy Challenge, and organizers recently announced the five finalists have all been designated for investment and scale-up.

H2PRO’s innovative technology heralds a new era of green hydrogen production by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using electrical power. Traditional electrolysis produces hydrogen and oxygen simultaneously, which requires a membrane to separate them. The use of a membrane makes the system and the process significantly more expensive. Green hydrogen is an alternative fuel that can replace oil and natural gas in the long term. It plays a critical role in the reduction of polluting vehicle emissions, as well as in clean production of materials and chemicals, heating and storing renewable energy. 

The new technology renders the membrane unnecessary, since the two gases are produced at different stages. Furthermore, this technology increases energy efficiency by 20-25% compared to the alternatives, significantly improves the safety of the production process, reduces the cost of building the system to approximately one half, and increases the pressure of the produced hydrogen, thereby reducing the cost of downstream hydrogen compression.

H2PRO was founded in 2019 by Technion researchers Prof. Gideon Grader (Chemical Engineering), Prof. Avner Rothschild and Dr. Hen Dotan (Materials Science and Engineering), in collaboration with the founders of Viber, headed by entrepreneur Talmon Marco. The company received an exclusive license to commercialize the technology from T3, Technion’s technology transfer unit. To date, it has raised capital from Hyundai, Sumitomo and Bazan, and from private investors and funds. The research that led to the establishment of H2PRO was supported by the Nancy and Stephen Grand Technion Energy Program (GTEP), a donation by Ed Satell, the Adelis Foundation, Israel’s Ministry of Energy and the European Commission (the EU’s 2020 program). The research was conducted together with Dr. Avigail Landman, who was a PhD student of both Prof. Rothschild and Prof. Grader.

 

Technion-Israel Institute of Technology Students have developed a lifesaving application that detects strokes at early stages; they won 2nd place in an international medical technology competition

A team of students from the Technion and the University of Missouri won 2nd place at MedHacks – a hackathon for developing medical technologies hosted by Johns Hopkins University. They were awarded for developing the Scan&Sound application, which detects strokes at early stages and alerts the victims. MedHacks is the largest hackathon in the U.S. for developing medical technologies. This year, more than 1,000 people participated, including students, doctors, engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs from all over the world. The event was a collaboration between Johns Hopkins University and MLH – Major League Hacking, which organizes hundreds of student hackathons every year, and was funded by various entities, including Google Cloud.

The Scan&Sound team is comprised of four Technion students and alumni: Hadas Braude, a 6th-year student in the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine; Sean Heilbronn-Doron, a 4th year student in the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine; Shunit Polinsky, a Master’s student in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering; and Ron Liraz, an alumnus who received a Master’s degree from the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering. The fifth student on the team was Leeore Levinstein, a 3rd year medical student at the University of Missouri. 

One in four people in the United States experiences the clinical phenomenon known as a stroke at one point in their lives. There are many different levels of severity, ranging from a stroke that one is not even aware of experiencing to an event that results in serious cognitive and motor impairments, and even death. In addition to personal harm, strokes also incur enormous financial expenses for the individual, the health system, and the country. As a result, there is a great deal of motivation to develop methods to identify strokes at the early stages when treatment is more effective. 

Scan&Sound won second place in the “Personalized Medicine Using Data-Driven Healthcare” Category. The application detects early, subtle stages of stroke by studying voices and facial expressions and analyzing the data using artificial intelligence. If there is a significant change, the application alerts the user that they are suffering from symptoms that may indicate a stroke and suggests they call predetermined contacts or an emergency call center. 

Hadas Braude, who headed the group, proposed the idea after someone close to her suffered a stroke. On the day it happened, the person met with friends and family, who immediately noticed that something was wrong. They did no=t, however, suspect a stroke.

“As a result,” said Ms. Braude, “the man arrived at the hospital late and missed the ‘treatment window.’ Since then, I haven’t stopped thinking about how to prevent the next incident, and have asked myself how it can be possible that the telephone that is always with us gathers information about us, but cannot detect and warn that something is wrong with us.”

Ms. Braude and Sean Heilbronn-Doron met before this round of competition, when they competed together in the T2Med hackathon hosted by the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion. Following their win at T2Med, the two registered for MedHacks and invited Ron Liraz, a talented and experienced electrical engineer they met at T2Med, to join them. In classic Israeli fashion, the two other members of the unique and diverse trans-Atlantic Scan&Sound team arrived through personal and family contacts.

The hackathon itself was very challenging. Besides the physical distance, the members of the team had to contend with the time difference between Israel and the U.S., as well as navigating classes and other prior commitments. They were able to achieve their goal through effective communication, planning, determination, division of labor and, most importantly, through each member’s personal commitment to the project.

The judges at the competition were extremely impressed with their project and asked the team members – in jest mixed with wonder – not to forget them after they become rich and famous. But Ms. Braude and her friends stress the project’s true goal is to enable people to receive treatment in time and to safeguard brains, identities, and lives. This is, in fact, the motivation that inspired them to establish a technological team and to create partnerships with neurological departments and rehabilitation centers in Israel and the U.S.

A team led by Technion’s Professor Jackie Schiller has uncovered surprising ways the brain learns and adapts skilled movement. The findings hold promise for future treatments of brain disease and disorders.

Survival depends on our ability to move. Whether it be to acquire food, eat, take care of our offspring, or protect ourselves, the coordinated movements we make daily require subconscious adjustments and adaptation to changes in the environment or our bodies. The brain must learn from previous movements and use that information to correct current and future movements. However, little is known about how neurons in the motor cortex – the part of the brain that directs skilled movement – process and apply experience to achieve coordinated and essential skilled movement. 

A study, published recently in the journal Neuron, addresses research questions that include whether the neurons (nerve cells) register the reward (food), the movement, or both, and how the neurons track positive or negative task outcomes irrespective of actual reward or movement. The study also uncovers new information on the cell-type-specific organization in this part of the brain, and its use for motor control and learning skilled movements.

The researchers used a dexterity task in mice – reaching and grasping for food – and monitored what was happening in the mouse primary motor cortex (M1) where motor plans are being learned and controlled. 

The experimental techniques used were versatile and encompassed biological and computational methods that included imaging, genetic, behavioral, and advanced computational tools. The study was made possible through the collaboration of a multidisciplinary team of Technion researchers led by Professors Jackie Schiller and Omri Barak of the Technion Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and lead students Shahar Levy and Maria Lavzin, together with Professors Ronen Talmon and Ron Meir and postdoc Hadas Benisty from the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Technion. The Technion team also collaborated with Dr. Adam W. Hantman of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, where Prof. Schiller and her student Maria Lavzin spent a sabbatical year and conceived the project to delve into the unknown brain mechanisms that allow a mouse to learn complex movements. 

The team discovered two different neuron populations that reported successful or failed behavior attempts. This indicated a global assessment of motor performance rather than specific kinematic parameters or reward. They also discovered that the task outcome (in this case whether the mouse achieved food) is “remembered” by the neurons and affects the initial state activity of the neurons for the next trial, and that activity in this area of the brain is necessary after the task in order for movement adaptation to occur. 

Prof. Schiller postulates that the use of performance outcome signals task success or failure, rather than specific kinematic parameters or reward, may be a key reason for why the M1 is essential for skilled dexterous behaviors. The researchers also observed that outcome evaluation (carried out by neurons in M1 layer 2–3) is distinct from movement generation (carried out by neurons in M1 layer 5). They theorize that this separation may be beneficial in some way, as it can allow different plasticity rules to operate in different networks. According to Prof. Schiller, just as artificial deep neural networks use layer separation to increase computational efficacy, the evaluation and movement separation in the motor cortex may serve a similar purpose.

The researchers’ discoveries have furthered medicine’s insight into what happens in the cerebral M1 cortex when learning skilled movement. They plan to continue the research with the hope that the findings will lead to the development of new treatments for brain diseases.

“In the future we would like to find out, for example, which brain pathways are involved in activating these cells and how these signals can be used, in combination with machine-brain interfaces, to improve movement in patients, such as those suffering from Parkinson’s disease,” said Prof. Schiller.

The study was partially supported by the Janelia Visiting Scientific Program, the Collaborative Research Computational Neuroscience (CRCNS) (BSF – NSF / NIH Foundation), Israel Science Foundation (ISF MORASHA, Biomedical Research Program), Adelis Foundation, and Allen and Jewel Prince Center for Neurodegenerative Disorders of the Brain.

Click here for the paper in Neuron

 

Researchers at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology have developed precise radiation sources that may replace the expensive and cumbersome facilities currently used for such tasks. The suggested apparatus produces controlled radiation with a narrow spectrum that can be tuned with high resolution, at a relatively low energy investment. The findings are likely to lead to breakthroughs in a variety of fields, including the analysis of chemicals and biological materials, medical imaging, X-ray equipment for security screening, and other uses of accurate X-ray sources.

Published in the journal Nature Photonics, the study was led by Professor Ido Kaminer and his master’s student Michael Shentcis as part of a collaboration with several research institutes at the Technion: the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering, the Solid State Institute, the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute (RBNI), and the Helen Diller Center for Quantum Science, Matter and Engineering.

The researchers’ paper shows an experimental observation that provides the first proof-of-concept for theoretical models developed over the last decade in a series of constitutive articles. The first article on the subject also appeared in Nature Photonics. Written by Prof. Kaminer during his postdoc at MIT, under the supervision of Prof. Marin Soljacic and Prof. John Joannopoulos, that paper presented theoretically how two-dimensional materials can create X-rays. According to Prof. Kaminer, “that article marked the beginning of a journey towards radiation sources based on the unique physics of two-dimensional materials and their various combinations — heterostructures. We have built on the theoretical breakthrough from that article to develop a series of follow-up articles, and now, we are excited to announce the first experimental observation on the creation of X-ray radiation from such materials, while precisely controlling the radiation parameters.”

Two-dimensional materials are unique artificial structures that took the scientific community by storm around the year 2004 with the development of graphene by physicists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, who later won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010. Graphene is an artificial structure of a single atomic thickness made from carbon atoms. The first graphene structures were created by the two Nobel laureates by peeling off thin layers of graphite, the “writing material” of the pencil, using duct tape. The two scientists and subsequent researchers discovered that graphene has unique and surprising properties that are different from graphite properties: immense strength, almost complete transparency, electrical conductivity, and light-transmitting capability that allows radiation emission an aspect related to the present article. These unique features make graphene and other two-dimensional materials promising for future generations of chemical and biological sensors, solar cells, semiconductors, monitors, and more.

Another Nobel laureate that should be mentioned before returning to the present study is Johannes Diderik van der Waals, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics exactly one hundred years earlier, in 1910. The materials now named after him – vdW materials – are the focus of Prof. Kaminer’s research. Graphene is also an example of a vdW material, but the new study now finds that other advanced vdW materials are more useful for the purpose of producing X-rays. The Technion researchers have produced different vdW materials and sent electron beams through them at specific angles that led to X-ray emission in a controlled and accurate manner. Furthermore, the researchers demonstrated precise tunability of the radiation spectrum at unprecedented resolution, utilizing the flexibility in designing families of vdW materials.

The new article by the research group contains experimental results and new theory that together provide a proof-of-concept for an innovative application of two-dimensional materials as a compact system that produce controlled and accurate radiation.

“The experiment and the theory we developed to explain it make a significant contribution to the study of light-matter interactions and pave the way for varied applications in X-ray imaging (medical X-ray, for example), X-ray spectroscopy used to characterize materials, and future quantum light sources in the X-ray regime,” said Prof. Kaminer.

Prof. Ido Kaminer joined the Technion faculty in 2018 and is the head of the AdQuanta Research Group and the Robert and Ruth Magid Electronic Beam Dynamics Laboratory, a faculty member at the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering, the Solid State Institute, the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute (RBNI), and the Helen Diller Center for Quantum Science, Matter and Engineering.

The current study was conducted in collaboration with various units at the Technion, including researchers from the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry, the Faculty of Material Science and Engineering, and the following international institutions: The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (ICFO), ​​Arizona State University, Technical University of Denmark, and Nanyang Technological University of Singapore.

All the experiments were performed in electron microscopes at the MIKA center for electron microscopy in the Faculty of Material Science and Engineering.

The study was supported by the European Union (ERC grant and H2020 grants), the Israel National Science Foundation (ISF), and the Azrieli Foundation.

Click here for the paper in Nature Photonics