Month: February 2023

At the beginning of February, the Technion hosted the kickoff meeting for LUCIA, an international project and consortium supported by the Horizon Europe Program and headed by coordinator Prof. Hossam Haick of the Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering. The two-day event was attended by sixty experts from Israel and several EU countries.

The consortium’s goal is to improve the early detection and management of lung cancer by in depth study of risk factors from exposure to individual biology, in order to improve prevention strategies, provide policy recommendations, help implement screening programs, improve diagnosis and enable precision medicine approaches.

Every thirty seconds, someone, somewhere in the world, dies of lung cancer, making this disease the deadliest in terms of the number of lives it claims. The average 5-year survival rate is presently 17% for men and 24% for women. Although smoking is considered a significant risk factor for this disease, lung cancer often also occurs among nonsmokers. Accordingly, the consortium will work on identifying all risk factors and on developing new methods for the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of the disease.

“The LUCIA Project is being launched at the right time, with the right partners,” said Prof. Haick at the opening of the conference. Indeed, the project starts when recent early detection and screening recommendations have been proposed in the EU, Israel and other countries. “We are fortunate to have many skilled, outstanding partners from a variety of fields, and we will be working together for the next four years, applying a multidisciplinary approach, to further the understanding of the disease and develop methods to prevent, diagnose and treat it more effectively. Our work will not focus exclusively on the medical aspects of lung cancer; rather, we will be assisted by experts on law and ethics and by decision makers to put our findings into effect for the benefit of society as a whole.”

The establishment of the consortium, headed by the Technion, was funded by the EU’s research and innovation program, Horizon Europe, which supports international collaborations expected to deliver practical technological solutions to modern-day challenges, and was awarded 14.6 million euros. LUCIA is part of the new Mission of Cancer within Horizon Europe, a key research and innovation instrument within Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan to understand the complexity of cancer through multidisciplinary collaboration in disciplines such as medicine, bioengineering, biology or computer science together with key legal, ethical and social aspects. LUCIA is part of two Clusters within the EU Cancer program, ‘Understanding’ and ‘Prevention’.

LUCIA Consortium has 22 members – academic institutions and other entities – all working together to map risk factors for lung cancer while focusing on three aspects: individual risk factors, including lifestyle and exposure to pollutants; external factors, including urban or built-up areas, traffic, climate and socio-economic aspects; and biological reactions, including aging and genetic, epigenetic and metabolic changes. To this end, LUCIA’s experts are working on gaining an understanding of the molecular mechanism of the disease, the identification and analysis of relevant data repositories, and other areas.

The Technion’s Executive Vice President for Research, Prof. Jacob (Koby) Rubinstein, commented: “Today, we understand that basic research isn’t enough; academia must keep in close touch with the field – industry, hospitals, and all other relevant bodies. When this relationship isn’t there, implementing basic research conducted in the academic world for the

good of mankind is very difficult. I say this from personal experience – it took 12 years for my development in optics to become a reality. Today, the Technion works based on a clear strategy that calls for bridging the gap between academia and industry, and the rewards are already evident – the Technion is the leading university in Israel in terms of the number of startups it has engendered. Your consortium well reflects this spirit, so I ask you – don’t stop until your research is implemented, meaning – until you have translated your findings into products and methods that will save the lives of lung cancer patients.”

As mentioned, the consortium is headed by coordinator Prof. Haick and the members of his research group: Dr. Yoav Broza (project manager), Liat Tzuri (administrative manager), and laboratory manager, Walaa Saliba. Prof. Yuval Shaked of the Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine is a partner in the consortium and is researching the mechanisms of lung cancer to support early diagnosis.

On Thursday, February 9, 2023, a special ceremony took place at the Technion’s historic campus, where Madatech – the National Museum of Science, Technology and Space in Haifa – is housed today. The event, attended by Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan, and Chairman of Madatech’s Board of Directors Mr. Leon Recanati, was held to celebrate 100 years since the historical palm trees were planted by Prof. Albert Einstein and his wife, Elsa, on February 11, 1923, in the courtyard of the Technion’s historic campus in Haifa.

A tribute plaque in three languages, Hebrew, English and Arabic, was placed by the newly planted tree, bearing the following inscription:

 

“This tree was planted on 9 February 2023 by Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan and Madatech Board of Directors Chairman Mr. Leon Recanati.

This festive occasion marks 100 years since Prof. Albert Einstein and his wife Elsa planted two palm trees in this courtyard of the Technion’s historic campus.

These trees symbolize Technion’s deep-rooted role in the establishment and blossoming of the State of Israel and signify its continuing success for the next 100 years.”

 

“The Technion’s history is closely intertwined with the life of Prof. Albert Einstein, a genius among the Jewish people and all of humanity,” said Technion President, Prof. Uri Sivan, who planted the tree with his grandchildren Shakked, Carmel and Ofri. “Prof. Einstein did a great deal for the Technion, even before it opened its doors, and his visit exactly one hundred years ago was intended to express his support for the institution, which would change the face of the Jewish community in Mandatory Palestine, and shape the character of the country that would be established twenty-five years later. Now, one hundred years since, we are gratified to be planting an oak tree together with the future generation, in honor of the next one hundred years.”

Mr. Leon Recanati, Chairman of Madatech’s Board of Directors: “We are proud that Einstein’s vision and his dreams for the future generations are being realized here, in a place that imparts the experience of the beauty and wisdom of science to thousands of visitors each year, especially to the youngest among them, who get to experience and enjoy, to understand and investigate. I am certain that some of them absorb the inspiration and later, transform it into the choice of science subjects and the pursuit of a career in the field. The museum experience and fascinating scientific exhibits, in tandem with the Department of Education and lab experiments, delivers a complete, firsthand experience that encourages people to touch, to experience, and most of all, imparts the insight that science is everywhere, it is present, and it touches every sphere, it is the magic, the essence and the spirit of our existence.”

The tree planting ceremony took place with the participation of the fifth- and six-graders of the Hebrew Reali School in Hadar, Haifa.

During his historic visit, Prof. Einstein met Jewish children who were raised and lived in Mandatory Palestine, and wrote in his diary: “For the first time, I see so many Hebrew children, and I express my deep gratitude to you for the pleasure you have given me”. Had he met Israeli children and members of the young generation today, he would most certainly have been proud. At the ceremony, the Reali students read aloud letters to the children of the future, who in one hundred years’ time will enjoy the shade of this tree. Reali fifth-grader Naomi Yuval wrote, “I am proud to be standing here, next to the palm tree planted by Albert Einstein, the man who is considered the greatest genius of all time, in the Madatech courtyard at our school”.

Sixth-grader Noa Krimmer wrote, “May these be one hundred peaceful years, with no wars, only success and achievements, only the laughter of children, sounds of joy, without tears.”

Prof. Einstein’s first visit to the Technion was in February 1923. An article covering the visit, published in the Palestine Daily Mail on February 14, 1923, stated that the festive reception held for the couple in Haifa was attended by 1,500 people. “At 11 a.m., the committee held a communal reception in the Technikum [Technion] courtyard, and the heavens helped and decided to treat the guest well, when after Friday’s rain the skies cleared and a half-springlike sun baked the earth, as if it sought to emphasize to the guest that his one foot was still in the Diaspora, while the other was standing on the soil of our country”.

At the Reali School, Prof. Einstein told his hosts that on the ship sailing to Palestine his pipe had broken, and he couldn’t fix it himself because, “With us Jews, everything has been concentrated in the brain, and nothing was left in the hands.” For this reason, Einstein added, “In this Technikum building, I see the desire to develop the hands.” He added that the concept of the Technikum was close to his heart, and he hoped to help promote it as much as possible.

The Technion mourns the passing of Professor Emeritus Abraham Lempel and sends heartfelt condolences to his family. Prof. Lempel from the Henry and Marilyn Taub Faculty of Computer Science was one of the authors of the Lempel-Ziv algorithm, which revolutionized data compression and is considered to be one of the most important technological breakthroughs achieved by Israeli researchers.

Prof. Lempel was born in Poland in 1936. He commenced his studies at the Technion in 1959, and finished his PhD 8 years later. He taught Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and in 1981-1984 served as dean of the Henry and Marilyn Taub Faculty of Computer Science. He founded the HP Labs Israel, and was put in charge of the global HP research activities in computer science and engineering, and in Physics. He was also an IEEE fellow, “for contributions to the theory of data complexity and to the practice of data compression, and to the algebraic analysis and synthesis of digital sequences”.

In 1977, Prof Lempel, together with Professor Jacob Ziv from the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, published the first version of the Lempel-Ziv algorithm, and in 1979 – the second version. This algorithm enables lossless data compression. Compression algorithms are nowadays an enabling technology for multiple file formats including GIF (images), PDF (files), MP3 (music), and more, as well as digital Cable and Satellite TV, and many other modern technologies.

Here is a quote from the ACM announcement of the 1998 Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award, one of many awards Prof. Lempel received: “The LZ algorithm can be found in virtually every modern computer. Most workstations run with one or more LZ compression algorithms in its software, hardware or both. We use the LZ algorithm often without being aware of it, archiving files; installing software that is compressed on a disk; backing up hard drives; and going online. These examples are of the practical impact added to the well-recognized theoretical significance of the work of Dr. Lempel and Dr. Ziv.”

Prof. Uri Sivan, president of the Technion: “Prof. Emeritus Lempel, was an inspiration to all of us. He’s considered one of the greatest researchers who worked in the Technion in the 100 years of its existence. The Lempel-Ziv algorithm contributed to the world an unprecedented technology which enables fast and lossless data transfer. Prof. Lempel exemplified a combination between in-depth basic science and excellent applied research. Few scientists have as much impact as he did on technological progress and on our day-to-day. May his memory be a blessing.”

Researchers from the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, together with the staff of the Micro and Nano Fabrication Unit (MNFU) at the Sara and Moshe Zisapel Nanoelectronics Center, have developed unique vertical cavity surface emitting lasers, known as VCSELs, to be used in chip scale atomic clocks. Because of their extremely small size – roughly 1000 of them could fit in a grain of salt – VCSELs are highly energy efficient, a crucial property for the battery-driven, mobile atomic clocks.

Atomic clocks are the most precise man-made machines, and have major impacts on fundamental science and numerous applications, including GPS navigation, synchronization of communication and computing systems, as well as defense systems including Iron Dome, to name but a few. The most precise clocks are very large systems, found only in a few national laboratories around the world. Such a clock would miss one second in a time longer than the life of the universe. The so-called cesium fountain clock is somewhat more abundant and is used universally to define one second. Small chip scale atomic clocks were developed to enable very small, inexpensive, and mobile, yet accurate, time measurement. These battery-driven clocks would lose one second in 10,000 years. At its heart is a special VCSEL that was recently developed by the Technion.

This particular VCSEL has many characteristics that are difficult to implement, including very high accuracy of their light emission color, shape, and polarization, as well as the ability to operate at extremely high temperatures. The Technion successfully developed such VCSELs, that even outperform the best commercially available competitors.

The VCSEL development project was part of an industry-academia consortium initiated by the Israel Innovation Authority (IIA). It includes, in addition to the Technion, commercial companies such as NVIDIA, SCD, Civan, Accubeat, and PCB, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The roots for establishing the VCSEL development lie in the vision of the IIA for the significance of VCSELs to the Israeli industry, and in a long-term collaboration between the Technion and the Israeli branch of NVIDIA (formally Mellanox). However, the most important contribution to the success is the Technion itself whose scientific and technological excellence enabled this major breakthrough.

The Technion researchers within the consortium include Professors Meir Orenstein, Gadi Eisenstein, and Mordechai (Moti) Segev from the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Professor Eisenstein, the director of the Russel Berrie Nanotechnology Institute and the present head of the MNFU explains that the key figure in this project is Prof. Orenstein, a well-known expert in VCSEL technology. He designed the material structure and the device processing procedures and supervised their fabrication in the MNFU. The excellent MNFU staff, led by Director Aya Cohen, showed unequivocal capability in developing state-of-the-art devices that rival those fabricated by commercial manufacturers.

The consortium is developing other types of VCSELs, in addition to those for atomic clocks. NVIDIA leads a working group on high speed VCSELs for data communication and SCD is responsible for high power VCSEL arrays. The latter has two parts. Prof. Orenstein is developing one based on his invention of a coherent VCSEL array, a light source composed of hundreds of VCSELs working in conjunction to produce a high brightness light beam. The second solution is an array of topological VCSELs, which are unique in that they are immune to external disturbances, developed by Prof. Mordechai (Moti) Segev – the inventor of the topological laser.

The field of microelectronics was brought to the Technion in the early 1970s by Professor Izhak Kidron. Semiconductor device fabrication started after the 1973 war when the Technion took it upon itself to develop a solution to a crucial deficiency: infrared detection systems that no country was willing to supply Israel with. The successful development of those devices marked the starting point of microelectronics in Israel. Micro – and later nano – electronics activities at the Technion have continuously grown ever since and are considered “the cradle of the flourishing Israeli electronics industry.”

The present Technion fabrication facility is the MNFU, which boasts 700 sqm of cleanrooms, making it the largest center of its kind in any Israeli university. It is a shared research and development facility supporting numerous academic researchers, graduate students, and industrial researchers. The Center offers a complete set of micro- and nano-fabrication tools, as well as process and prototype developments led by its excellent engineering staff. This combines the best of two worlds: academic expertise, flexibility, and creativity together with the high-performance standards required by the industry.

 

In the hundred years that have passed since it was founded, the Technion faculty members have taught and educated the technological and scientific leadership of society in Israel – Tens of thousands of engineers, scientists, doctors, and architects who are entrusted with the responsibility of preserving, developing and nurturing the security and health of the citizens of the country and the environment in which they live. The actions of our graduates led to so much good and right in our culture, economy, security and more.

The Technion does not operate in a vacuum. An academic environment cannot be separated from the values by which society functions. When the value base in the civil environment that surrounds us is blurred, the Technion Senate and Council adhere to the basic values that have guided the institution for a hundred years and strengthen the hands of those who work to reinforce freedom and justice, social equality of rights for all citizens of the country regardless of religion, race and gender, freedom of conscience, language, education and culture.

The Technion will do whatever it takes to preserve and uphold the fundamental values that appear in the Declaration of Independence, the Technion’s constitution and its code of ethics.

Members of the Technion Senate and Council call on the leadership – in all its guises – to regain their composures, unite forces and remove any threat to the fundamental values. Surely, there is room for disputes in a free society, but on the shoulders of the officials elected by the people is the responsibility to make every effort to seek the truth and resolve disputes with full intent and with a matter-of-fact and straight-forward approach. The Technion Senate and Council call on the Knesset of Israel to stop legislative processes that undermine the democratic structure in the State of Israel, and to create a framework that will allow changes to be made with due care and with broad consensus. We call on the Prime Minister and his fellow leaders to do everything in their power to listen attentively and respectfully to the opinions of professionals who are leading Israeli society to extraordinary achievements in the social sciences and the humanities, in law and medicine, in the exact sciences and in engineering.

The Senate and the Council call on the Technion management to resolutely defend the Technion’s fundamental values: to denounce and halt in advance the seeds of discrimination, infringement of freedom of expression, offensive discourse and deviation from the pursuit of truth, responsibility and integrity. The Senate and the Council call on the Technion management to urgently formulate practical ways of dealing with the daily threat to our fundamental values, in education and in research.

Quantum computers able to perform complicated lightning-speed computations and quantum communication that can transfer quantum information across the world without it getting lost or being eavesdropped on, are hot buzzwords of our imagined future. Scientists from the Department of Physics and the Solid State Institute at the Technion – Israeli Institute of Technology bring that future one step closer to fruition. In a recent breakthrough, Doctors Dan Cogan, Zu-En Su, and Oded Kenneth, and Professor David Gershoni have demonstrated a deterministic way to generate chains of entangled and identical photons clusters.

When particles are entangled, they form a unified “system:” the state of each particle inside the group cannot be described independently of the others. Therefore, acquiring information about one particle in the group would give us information about the others. And if one particle is affected, for example by measurement, the others, even on opposite edges of the universe, would also be affected. This property of the entangled particles is the key to the advantages promised by quantum technology.

Photons are of particular interest for communication technologies in general and quantum communication in particular, thanks to light’s non-interactive nature. Photons normally don’t interact with matter around them, and therefore don’t “disappear.” This property makes light very useful for communication, for example, via optical fibers.

Likewise, photons do not interact with each other, which makes it harder to generate entangled photons. The challenge of generating photon entanglement has been the focus of Prof. Gershoni’s studies for many years. In 1999, his group proved that nanometric-size semiconductors called quantum dots, or “artificial atoms,” can be used as on-demand sources of single photons. In 2005, his group demonstrated the possibility of producing entangled photon pairs from these quantum dot sources, and in 2016, they demonstrated proof of concept generation of many entangled photons in a cluster state.

The group’s current study, published in Nature Photonics, presents a device that uses laser pulses to excite a single quantum dot. The device, also called “The Knitting Machine,” produces periodically 500 million single photons each second, where each photon in this continuous chain is entangled with the previous photon and the next one. The group has shown that every 10 consecutive photons in the chain are entangled.

The work presents the best source of entangled light demonstrated to date in terms of brightness, rate, and entanglement robustness. Equally important, the photons produced by the source are almost identical (indistinguishable). Identical photons can interfere constructively, thus providing a way to create entanglement connections between photons from different chains to scale up their cluster size and connectivity.

“We believe this breakthrough will advance the field of quantum information processing in general and quantum communication in particular. These fields will most likely form the basis of future quantum technologies. Our research motivation stems from our hope that technology will follow science and that soon, we will see wide use of genuine quantum technologies. In the near future, quantum information communication and entanglement distribution could become a feasible reality,” said Prof. Gershoni.

 

“Spooky action at a distance”

Quantum entanglement is a physical concept which emerges from the foundations of the theory of Quantum Mechanics, as amended during the 1920s by Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrödinger, and Werner Heisenberg. Quantum Mechanics, as opposed to classical mechanics, is nondeterministic and has probabilistic nature. Albert Einstein did not accept this description as complete, saying that “God does not play dice.” In an attempt to prove that Quantum Mechanics is an incomplete theory, he coauthored in 1935 a paper with Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen (the founding father of the Technion Physics Department) that became known as the EPR paradox (EPR stood for their initials). The paper expressed reservations about the notion of entanglement, which allegedly ‘allows’ for information to travel instantaneously – faster than the speed of light. Consequently, he expressed his disbelief in quantum entanglement by terming it “spooky action at a distance.”

Niels Bohr, one of the founders of Quantum Mechanics, argued with Einstein for many years. He allegedly said “Einstein, stop telling God what to do,” and referred to the remote nature of entanglement as an interaction not based on “mechanical impact,” but on the “logical effect,” on the conditions that define the behavior of the system. Einstein described Bohr’s response as “longwinded Talmudic gibberish.”

In 1962, Irish physicist John Bell suggested an experimental way to resolve the Einstein-Bohr debate. Bell proved that if the measured correlations between two particles violate a mathematical inequality, they must be entangled. His ideas were tested in research trials conducted during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s of the previous century by John F. Clauser, Allan Aspect, and Anton Zeilinger, the 2022 Nobel Prize laureates in Physics. The prize citation “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science,” shows that Niels Bohr was right.

The current work of the group of Professor Gershoni provides the best way to-date, to produce entangled photons and use them as resources for quantum information processing.

In 2012 Prof. Gershoni received the Japanese ISCS Quantum Device Award, in 2014, he received the Michael Landau Prize for Art and Sciences for his seminal contributions to this research field and In 2021, he received a Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany.

At the beginning of the academic school year, the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology inaugurated the Marc Hamon Anières House – a dormitory designed to house 120 male and female students studying at the Technion and are a part of the Anières Program. In addition to housing, the building includes shared study spaces, a club, a large balcony, a gallery, and more.

Made possible thanks to the initiative and contribution of Marc Hamon, the Anières House at the Technion is named after ORT Central Institute that Hamon studied at in the town of Anières, Switzerland, near Geneva.
A few years after the closure of the Anières Institute, the program was brought back to life in Israel at 2012, as an educational project of World ORT – Kadima Mada in collaboration with the Na’aleh program of the Ministry of Education, the Jewish Agency, the Technion, and the  Wizo Nahalal Youth Village.

“The Technion gives male and female students the best tools to become leading engineers, industry pioneers and technological pioneers, entrepreneurs, and founders of startup companies,” said Mr. Hamon. “Somewhere in history, the World ORT organization gave me the opportunity to study at a leading institution in the town of Anières, an opportunity I grabbed with both hands. Today I wish to give a similar, and even better, opportunity to our students studying at the Technion.”

Mr. Hamon is supported and joined with enthusiasm by Mr. Jacques Levy, president of the Anières Alumni Association who said, “It is a dream come true. It will become a place where all students under the same roof and via their Technion studies and their great determination to know and develop their thoughts will become human beings who take responsibility for their lives and fulfill their hopes for the future,”

During their Technion studies for degrees in engineering and computer science, the students in the Anières Program receive an envelope of financial, academic, and social support. A skilled team that is personally and directly responsible for each one of them and a program that includes plenty of workshops, interesting and cultural content, and mutual guarantees ensures that the students of the Anières Program become a strong and supportive community.

“Since its inception, the Technion has had an important social role,” said Technion President, Professor Uri Sivan. “Academic education is the key to social and economic leadership, and studying at the Technion opens a door to a promising future for its graduates. The participants in the Anières Program are outstanding students, and we will give them everything they need to reach their full potential. The Technion is grateful to each and every donor, but here the thanks are twofold – because of the identity in the worldview and social commitment and because the donor, who is a graduate of the program, is now contributing to these wonderful young people and giving them an opportunity for a better future.”

The process of establishing the Marc Hamon Anières House, and thus recreating the ORT Central Institute in Anières, had been led by Mr. Robert Singer, chairman of the board of trustees of World ORT and a co-founder of the Anières Program. Mr. Singer expressed that “the common goal between the project and the Technion is 1,000 graduates who are outstanding engineers who will lead the Israeli economy. Many engineers will continue Marc Hamon’s path both in industry and as a future leadership of the Jewish people.”

“The Anières program supports students from the geographic and socioeconomic periphery in Israel and single soldiers,” explained Professor Ayelet Fishman, dean of students at the Technion. “The Office of the Dean of Students at the Technion works to help all students deal with personal problems and reach their potential, and we are happy about the cooperation with the Anières Program. The male and female students in the program are entitled to live in the dormitories in any case, and now they will live together in the Anières building and enjoy designated activities after school hours. I am so thankful to Marc Hamon, who chose the Technion as a partner, and I wish success to all the students in the 2023 academic year.”

Ira Lotman, who leads the Anières Program in Israel, said, “Marc Hamon Anières House is a very significant step that will advance the program towards achieving its goals – building a large community, based on the values ​​of the historical institution that World ORT established in Switzerland. The male and female students join as another link in the chain where each individual becomes stronger, so that he or she can pass it on.”

“The historical Anières Alumni Association, led by Mr. Jacques Levy, continues to support and inspire our students,” she continued. “Today, after a decade of activity, the first 50 graduates of the Anières Program who started their journey with us as teenagers at Wizo Nahalal finished their studies at the Technion last year, will receive their graduation certificates this summer and emerge to influence the outside world. This is the cutting edge of Israeli society.”

One of those students is Mykola Fedotov, from the Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering, who recently started his third year of study at the Technion. He was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, where he participated in the Jewish Agency’s youth movement.

“My grandparents immigrated to Israel when I was a child and wanted me to move to Israel, too. My mother also supported me,” shared Fedotov. At the age of 15, he came to Israel as part of the Na’aleh program of youth coming on aliya before their parents and began studying as part of the Anières Program at Wizo Nahalal High School. At the end of the 10th grade, he completed the Technion’s “Archimedes” chemistry program, which awarded him a score of 100 in chemistry in the matriculation exams.

After that he began to study biology and physics in high school and at the end of his studies, was accepted into the academic reserve and began his education at the Technion. After two years in the Canada Dormitory, he now enters the Marc Hamon Anières House and is very satisfied – not only because of the view and the level of maintenance but mainly because he will live together with his friends in the Anières Program. He will take part in the program’s student committee to promote personal and community formation and enrichment. According to Fedotov, he will also continue to enjoy dancing bachata and salsa at the student house.

Another student, Inbar Isso, recently began her second year of study in the Henry and Marilyn Taub Faculty of Computer Science. Her sister is completing a degree in computer science and her brother has earned a degree in electrical and computer engineering. Isso herself studied in the program of excellence at a high school and went on to join the military service in the information technology field.

This is Isso’s second year living in the dorms, something she enjoys, “because living at the Technion saves on travel and allows us to enjoy the social life here.” She is even more enthusiastic about the new building. “It’s an amazing building, and I’m really grateful for the opportunity to live in it. We’ve already been told about the annual activity plan, and it’s really excellent. There are going to be Shabbat receptions, evenings together, workshops, lectures, and meetings that I’m really looking forward to participating in.”

On Wednesday, January 18, the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and the University of Haifa held a scholarly conference as part of a first-ever collaboration on the subject of technology and science in the study of archaeology and maritime cultures. The research collaboration, which has already begun at both universities, will propel the study of the past into the era of modern technology.

According to Professor Israel Finkelstein, head of the School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures at the University of Haifa, “These days, there is no archaeological research without exact sciences and technology – beginning, of course, with radiocarbon dating and including isotope analysis to identify the origins of metals, genetic sequencing to determine the origins of people who lived long ago and studying molecular remnants in clay pots to track early trade routes. At the University of Haifa, we are opening an Archaeological Science Department and nothing is more natural than collaborating with the researchers at the Technion, who are located just a short cable car ride away. This collaboration will boost our understanding of the past and of historical and social processes that occurred here thousands of years ago.”

Professor Kobi Rubinstein, Executive Vice President for Research at the Technion, said that, “Archaeology might be the most fascinating profession I know. Few people are interested in my field, Mathematics, but Archaeology affects a very large group of people because it teaches us who we are and what we are. Research in this field deals with the smallest details, but can not make progress without creating – and seeing – the larger picture, even when it is clear that some of the pieces of the picture are missing. Therefore, I was delighted when the rector of the University of Haifa suggested that we cooperate in this field, and I wish everyone much success with the conference and with the collaboration.”

In recent years, archaeological studies have developed into multidisciplinary research field that combines advanced scientific and technological tools with traditional archaeological methods. DNA analyses of bones and other organic substances such as plants, observations of sediment under a microscope to understand economic patterns in ancient sites, chemical and molecular analyses to determine the origins of tiny cotton fibers, and the use of powerful microscopes to reconstruct ancient techniques have all become an integral part of archaeological research. Innovative methods enable researchers to build three-dimensional models of ancient sites, discover lost secrets thanks to innovative laser scanners, and use AI and deep learning to create Big Data databases that amass enormous amounts of information from the profusion of findings that have already been discovered.

“These techniques, which are based on technologies at the forefront of science, are also used in the field of biological anthropology to study human evolution, so the collaboration between the institutions on archaeological research is a synergy in our endeavor to study the human past,” adds Dr. Assaf Marom, head of the Anatomy and Human Evolution Lab at the Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, who is leading the collaboration on behalf of the Technion.

The collaboration will harness the unique skills of the researchers at both institutions in order to conduct cutting-edge interdisciplinary research, especially given the enormous wealth of archaeological discoveries in Israel. For example, Professor Guy Bar-Oz of the University of Haifa is working with Professor Sima Yaron, dean of the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering at the Technion. Prof. Bar-Oz is in possession of numerous chicken eggs, some of which are thousands of years old. Together with Prof. Yaron, he is attempting to determine when and how salmonella bacteria passed from chicken eggs to humans, and how our forefathers dealt with the new disease. Professor Deborah Cvikel of the University of Haifa and Professor Moris Eisen of the Technion’s Schulich Faculty of Chemistry are collaborating in an effort to understand how early seafaring people used sails and how they protected the sails from the ocean’s humidity and salt and made sure they would be sufficiently strong and flexible.

The joint conference officially launched the collaboration between the two institutions. An “Introduction to Archaeology” course will soon be offered as part of the Technion’s Department of Humanities and will be taught by researchers from the University of Haifa’s School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures, in order to impart the foundations of archaeology to Technion students during their undergraduate studies. The course “Evolution of Humans,” which will be offered at the Technion and will be open to students from both universities, also promotes the partnership. In the future, research students will receive grants for research projects that combine archaeology and science.

“This collaboration is the beginning of a process that will enable us to better understand the past, and it will turn Haifa – with its two prominent research institutions – into a global hub for researching the history of humanity,” the partners concluded.

The Technion hosted a festive evening in honor of the 18 new researchers who recently joined the academic faculty. “You have joined an institution whose legacy spans more than 100 years,” said Technion President Professor Uri Sivan. “In its first decades, the Technion laid the foundations for the establishment of the State of Israel, and its national and social mission has always been our guiding light. I recently attended a ceremony for retired Technion employees and now I am speaking to you at a welcoming event for new faculty members. These two extremes illustrate the Technion’s role as a link in the historical chain – a chain that has always had an impact on, and continues to impact, the State of Israel and all of humanity. You were accepted thanks to your outstanding abilities and we anticipate that this excellence will be manifested in your research, in the education of our students, and on campus life. I wish you much success.”

“Congratulations on joining the Technion,” said Professor Naama Brenner, Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs. “I hope you will view the Technion as your home and wish you success in all your research and teaching endeavors.”

These are the new faculty members who recently joined the Technion:

• Faculty of Aerospace Engineering:
  • Prof. Vitaly Shaferman
  • Igal Gluzman
• Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning:
  • Guy Austern
• Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering:
  • Dr. Dan Bracha
• Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering:
  • Dan Mendels
• Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering:
  • Nicolo Pollini
• Faculty of Data and Decision Sciences:
  • Omer Ben-Porat
  • Allon Vishkin
• Faculty of Education in Science and Technology:
  • Areej Mawasi
• Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering:
  • Prof. Joseph Keshet
  • Uziau Pereg
  • Kiril Solovey
• Department of Humanities and Arts:
  • Dustin Lazarovici
• Faculty of Mathematics:
  • Ron Levie
• Faculty of Mechanical Engineering:
  • Leeya Engel
  • Christian Grussler
• Rappaport Faculty of Medicine:
  • Ariella Glasner
  • Dr. Boris Slobodin

Five Technion researchers have been awarded the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) for pioneering projects in their respective disciplines. The ERC Consolidator grant aims to help excellent scientists, who have 7 to 12 years’ experience after completing their PhDs, strengthen their research teams and pursue their most promising ideas. Each grant is for up to € 2 million for a period of 5 years.

The winning researchers are:

Prof. Nadav Amdursky from the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry, studies biological electron and proton transfer. In his new study, he will develop tools to explore the transfer of protons within proteins. To date, there are no direct means to measure specific proton-transfer pathways within proteins, and most research is based on following the end-product of the reaction. Among other applications, these tools will enable the group to answer questions relating to cellular respiration – the process by which cells convert nutrients into energy.

Prof. Meytal Landau from the Faculty of Biology studies amyloids – fibrillar aggregates of proteins. Amyloids are associated with numerous human diseases, including microbial and neurodegenerative diseases. In a previous study, Prof. Landau’s group showed effective anti-bacterial fibrils. In the study to be funded by the ERC grant, Prof. Landau will delve into amyloid structure-function relationships and mechanisms, hoping to gain insights for rational design of antimicrobials.

Prof. Asya Rolls from the Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine studies the physiological mechanisms underlying brain-body communication. She explores how emotional and cognitive processes affect immunity. Specifically, in her project, she will investigate the connection between the brain, the immune system, and the fascia. The fascia is the largest tissue in the body, the connective tissue delineates the skin, surrounds muscles, and closely envelops all organs. Clinically, it is mainly considered a mechanical barrier separating organs and muscles. Prof. Rolls will examine the role of the fascia in neuro-immune communication.

Prof. Graham de Ruiter from the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry develops new chemical methodologies to replace the more toxic, hazardous, and scarce precious metals for more environmentally friendly earth-abundant metals in catalysis. He will apply this concept to address outstanding challenges in organic chemistry where the use of iron, for example, in cross-coupling, alkene, metathesis, and C-H bond functionalization remains limited. The impact of these discoveries will influence many existing processes in the agricultural, fine-chemical, and pharmaceutical industry, where the use of earth-abundant metals in catalysis carries enormous potential.

Prof. Avi Schroeder from the Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering will focus on treating aging and neurodegenerative brain conditions, including Alzheimer disease and Parkinson’s, using advanced nanotechnology medicines.

 

President of the European Research Council Prof. Maria Leptin said: “ERC Consolidator grants support researchers at a crucial time of their careers, strengthening their independence, reinforcing their teams and helping them establish themselves as leaders in their fields. And this backing above all gives them a chance to pursue their scientific dreams.”

The Technion’s Executive Vice President for Research, Prof. Jacob (Koby) Rubinstein, said “ERC Consolidator grants are considered the flagship of research excellence under the Horizon Europe Research & Innovation program. Our winners lead ground-breaking research in a wide range of disciplines: new insights in biology and medicine that hold the power to improve the effectiveness of medical treatments, and breakthroughs in chemistry that will revolutionise the industry and protect our planet. The best researchers in Europe compete for these prestigious grants. It is a testimony to the excellence of our scientists and to the merit and potential that the ERC panel sees in their proposed research. While these are personal achievements of our researchers, we see their collective win as a testimony to the quality of research in the Technion as a whole.”