Author: shlomi ben-oz

New Hope for Coronavirus Patients with Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome

Technion Professor Josué Sznitman and his team have developed an innovative technology that could dramatically improve the efficacy of existing drugs for treating Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). The technology could help save the lives of severe COVID-19 patients suffering from ARDS. Due to the global crisis, its development is being fast-tracked.

Prof. Sznitman’s team in the Technion Faculty of Biomedical Engineering is exploring the effectiveness of an innovative pulmonary treatment for ARDS, which is recognized as the leading cause of mortality in COVID-19 patients.

The team is in a race to launch clinical trials within a few months, and to evaluate the new technology for treating severe Coronavirus patients suffering from ARDS. To date, there is no existing therapy to treat ARDS patients. These patients undergo assisted ventilation and oxygenation, oftentimes under intubation, in intensive care units.

One of the hallmarks of ARDS is damage to pulmonary surfactant (the liquid that coats the surface of alveoli in the lungs). Surfactant has many roles, but perhaps most importantly it reduces the forces required for breathing. While research is ongoing to understand the SARS-COV-2 virus, it was recently shown that the virus kills the epithelial cells that secrete surfactant inside alveoli, after binding to a receptor (called ACE2) on the cell’s surface. Prof. Sznitman’s team hypothesizes that surfactant depletion may be particularly severe in COVID-19-related ARDS.

Surfactant Replacement Therapy (SRT) exists and is an established and life-saving clinical procedure in treating a similar type of ARDS that affects preterm newborn children, whose immature lungs lack pulmonary surfactant. In neonates, SRT is based on endotracheal administration of liquid surfactant (i.e. injecting external surfactant into the neonate’s lungs). As a result of differences in lung size, this delivery method has been highly ineffective in adults. Liquid instillations are strongly affected by gravity and thus quickly drain into pools, drowning some lung regions and leaving others entirely untreated.

The patent-pending technology, invented by Dr. Yan Ostrovski and Prof. Sznitman, and known as Liquid Foam Therapy (LIFT), is intended to dramatically improve the distribution of surfactant across the lungs. More generally, LIFT is a radical new method for pulmonary drug delivery with the potential of delivering therapeutics homogeneously into the lungs and, importantly in large doses. This is accomplished by loading the drug within the foam, or alternatively foaming the drug directly when possible. In both cases, and unlike liquids, the foam defies gravity and prevents the formation of pools.

In their findings (which will soon be submitted for scientific publication and subject to rigorous peer-review), the team thoroughly examined in a preclinical in vivo study, the safety and efficacy of employing LIFT with foamed surfactant in a severe ARDS model induced in rats. The rats recovered a healthy state within 15-30 minutes, with no adverse events. As rat lungs are too small to demonstrate improved distribution that is critically sought in adult lungs, the team used ex vivo experiments in adult-sized porcine lungs to show how LIFT spreads homogenously compared with liquid administration.

Following these encouraging results, the team is now in a race to construct a fully functional delivery device and move to a preclinical in vivo study in severe ARDS models in pigs. If successful, the researchers will pursue the first clinical trials of the therapy, in an effort to critically accelerate the development of a treatment for the most severe COVID-19 patients with ARDS. The LIFT technology will be licensed to the newly founded start-up company, Neshima Medical, led by Dr. Ostrovski and supported by the Technion’s Business Development Unit T³.

“Air-Shield” Improves the Effectiveness of Doctors’ Protective Masks

The Design-Tech Lab at Technion and Rambam Health Care Campus have developed an innovative device for medical staff’s masks, that continuously blows air on their faces, improving protection against infection while eliminating fogging and overheating.

Prof. Ezri Tarazi, Chair of the Industrial Design Program and head of the Design-Tech Lab at Technion, together with doctors at the Clinical Research Institute at Rambam Health Care Campus, have developed a breakthrough device that dramatically improves the efficacy of protective masks worn by COVID-19 medical staff everywhere. Body temperature often causes condensation to build up inside the protective gear, which makes the masks fog up, so that it is difficult for medical staff to see properly when treating patients.  There is additional concern that current protective masks are not sufficiently effective at eliminating infection by the virus aerosol droplets. 

“As medical teams continue to care for Coronavirus patients when one medical worker becomes infected, everyone on the team must be isolated. Therefore, protecting the entire team is a high priority,” says Tarazi.

Dr. Ronen Zalts, the first to test the device in Rambam’s COVID-19 department, and Prof. Tarazi explained that “the new invention generates airflow downwards from the forehead area and creates an ‘air shield’ inside the protective mask that isolates the doctor from the surrounding atmosphere, which may carry COVID-19 droplets. A small pump attached to the waist blows air through a tube up to the forehead, which is expelled via small holes in a manifold attached to the mask.” 

“We tested several different prototypes and made some improvements in order to refine the design and to optimize its effectiveness,” said Dr. Asaf Miller, head of the Internal Medicine ICU and a member of the COVID-19 management team at Rambam.

Prof. David Greenblatt of Technion’s Faculty of Mechanical Engineering carried out tests to ensure that the airflow is uniform.

Although the N95 masks used by medical staff provide 95% protection, the team sought to further improve the protection level. The new technology is the product of an outstanding collaboration between Technion and the Rambam Health Care Center in Haifa. The Technion team developed the mask, while Rambam staff carried out the clinical trials in a highly accelerated timeframe of collaboration.

Medical staff worldwide report that problems of overheating and foggy glasses are among the additional challenges that make it difficult for the medical staff to care for COVID-19 patients. Prof. Tarazi based the idea on pumps used in the IDF protective masks against nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) warfare, and adapted them to the needs of the medical professionals. “We integrated a thin flexible tube, a lightweight manifold, a thin shield and a rechargeable battery. All the components already existed, except for the manifold, which is being specially manufactured at Technion using Hewlett Packard industrial 3D printers.”

Dr. Zalts added, “I wore the shield while working in the COVID-19 department on Friday and it was amazing. It cooled me off and prevented condensation from accumulating, making it significantly easier to treat patients, and gave me an added sense of security since it continuously expelled air providing extra protection against droplet infection.”

Technion has produced an initial quantity of air shields for the Rambam Health Care Campus which are already in use.

COROBOT to Provide Remote Medical Care to COVID-19 Patients at Rambam Health Care Campus

Students and alumni of the FIRST robotics program from the Reali School in Haifa, led by Prof. Gil Yudilevitch of Technion’s Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, have designed a robotic platform to be operated remotely by medical staff, reducing the risk of infection by COVID-19

Over the last weeks, thousands of medical professionals have been forced to stop working after exposure to – or infection by – the novel Coronavirus. When a medical worker is diagnosed with the Coronavirus, the entire team must self-isolate for extended periods of time.

Safeguarding the health of medical workers has become a national priority.

Since medical professionals are on the front-line of the fight against COVID-19 and are the most exposed to the virus. Therefore, it is of critical importance to minimize their direct contact with patients where possible.

Prof. Michael Halbertal, Director General of the Rambam Health Care Campus, has been struggling with this challenge ever since the hospital’s Coronavirus Department was opened. He raised the problem with his predecessor Prof. Rafael Bayer and Technion VP for External Relations and Resource Development Prof. Alon Wolf, an expert in robotics. They discussed the need to develop a robot that would serve the Coronavirus patients and reduce the medical staff’s exposure to the virus. 

Prof. Wolf, academic head of the FIRST robotics program in Israel, contacted the principal of the Reali School in Haifa, Dr. Yosi Ben-Dov. The Reali School has a vibrant robotics club – “Galaxia 5987 in memory of David Zohar” – that has taken part in FIRST championships in the US. From that point on, things moved swiftly and last week the robot they designed was presented to the Rambam medical team. 

Prof. Yudilevitch joined the effort together with Profs. Ezri Tarazi and Reuven Katz. The first prototype fulfills the task of transporting supplies to and from the Coronavirus department. The robot is operated remotely by medical staff using a joystick or smartphone app, with the help of video cameras attached to the robot. 

School principal Dr. Ben-Dov says that “in recent days we have been working very hard, while complying with the Ministry of Health’s guidelines. In less than one week, we developed a robot according to Rambam’s requirements. Kudos to the high school students and the alumni – some are in the army, some are Technion students and others have been laid off from work during the crisis – and of course to the parents who became involved and are supporting this essential project. I would also like to thank teachers Tirza Hochberg and Asaf Shulman, who spared no effort in helping with this important project, as well as Schnapp Batteries, which donated important components for the robot.”

According to Prof. Alon Wolf, “If the robot will successfully pass its installation at Rambam, in a relatively short amount of time we will be able to build more robots for Rambam and for similar departments in other Israeli hospitals. Then additional FIRST groups all over Israel will join the effort.”

“In the next stage, the robot will incorporate a communication system that will include a screen, camera, microphone, and speaker, and will be able to move from patient to patient and transmit information to the medical staff in real-time,” adds Prof. Gil Yudilevitch. “I hope that in the future we will add features that will help with the actual treatment, such as sensors that will check patients’ pulse rates and blood oxygen levels.”

About FIRST

FIRST is an international educational organization that uses robotics competitions to promote entrepreneurship and learning among children and youth. FIRST ISRAEL, led by Technion, runs hundreds of groups across the country totaling approximately 14,000 students between the ages of 6 and 18. 

This is a season in which we are united in staying apart, liberated through lockdown, and elevated through the deep bond we feel reverberating throughout the whole Technion family – regardless of the boundaries of time and space.

From Israel with love, and wishing you a blessed and safe Passover,
The Technion LIVE Team

How is this night unlike any other night?

Holiday blessings from Technion, Israel Institute of Technology

Nanotech stickers for surgical masks via 3D-printing; cutting-edge systems to remotely screen for COVID-19; a proliferation of student volunteers; and the keys to psychological and physical immunity.

In the midst of a state of emergency, hundreds of Technion students volunteer to support the nationwide measures to counter the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Technion Student Association (TSA) has rapidly mobilized the many students who are volunteering time and energy to minimize the human cost of COVID-19 in Israel. Hundreds of Technion students are contributing their time and skills to help those most affected by the crisis. 

In late February and early March 2020, around 15 students were self-quarantined in the dorms of Technion City. Many of these don’t have families in Israel. The TSA rapidly stepped up to support them by staying in contact, providing food and helping in a variety of other ways. Since then, the student association has also been actively involved in ensuring that students are not affected academically by COVID-19, in particular as the entire Technion has switched to online platforms. 

Suddenly, most of Israel’s population has moved into lockdown. This led to a number of TSA initiatives of social support. Several of these include close collaboration with Haifa’s Welfare Department. Many senior citizens who are currently self-isolating suffer from loneliness, practical difficulties, and other quarantine-related issues. The TSA obtained a list of elderly people from Haifa’s Welfare Department and over one hundred Technion students are maintaining contact with people on the list, calling them regularly to alleviate their sense of isolation and checking to make sure they are alright. If necessary, they pass on specific problems and requests to the appropriate entities. 

More than 150 Technion students have joined up to provide meals to elderly citizens in need, many of whom previously picked up their meals in person but cannot do so during the coronavirus pandemic. Volunteers help pack the food and physically distribute the meals throughout the Haifa region.   

Another project in which the TSA is coordinating with Haifa’s Welfare Department involves donating computers to the city’s children and students. Since children are expected to continue their education remotely, those that do not have computers are unable to participate and are forced to stop studying. For years, the TSA has run a project whereby old Technion computers are fixed and upgraded by student volunteers and donated to Technion students. This project has been extended so that Haifa’s school children and students can receive computers and pursue their education from home. Technion’s Faculty of Computer Science has generously donated a large number of computers and TSA volunteers are also contacting high-tech companies and other potential donors. The volunteers personally deliver the computers to the homes of eligible recipients. 

“As Technion students, we understand the importance of education and we want to ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity,” says Linoy Nagar Shaul, Chair of the Technion Student Association, adding that other cities in northern Israel have also approached them to join the computer donation project. 

Several impressive initiatives involve medical students at Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine. Among other projects, they are volunteering to staff an ad hoc school for the children of doctors working at Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center. Since doctors are even more overworked than usual these days, schools are closed, and grandparents need protection, caring for their children is a national priority. 

Technion medical students are also volunteering with Magen David Adom (Israel’s Red Cross) at the drive-through COVID-19 testing station in Haifa, as well as testing people in their homes. They were trained at the Faculty of Medicine and at the MDA station in Haifa and have been certified to carry out the testing. 

In a project led by Dr. Lilach Dolev, medical students are also helping out at Clalit Health Fund clinics, taking on tasks such as triage at the entrance to the clinics and equipping possible Coronavirus patients with protective gear. They also assist in the clinics’ call centers, responding to queries that can be handled by phone. Under the leadership of doctoral student Omer Shkadi, a group of Technion doctoral students is volunteering in virology labs in order to speed up the processing of COVID-19 tests. Medical students will also soon volunteer in Rambam’s mental health clinic – an initiative of Dr. Vered Tal. 

During this unsettling period, medical students are also volunteering to keep in touch with Holocaust survivors and senior citizens through the Foundation for the Benefit of Holocaust Victims.

In addition, the TSA is organizing a blood drive on campus and is planning other activities to alleviate the plight of everyone affected by the current crisis. Indeed, in the midst of this global catastrophe, the involvement of Technion’s students in so many crucial outreach projects – despite the fact that they are busy with their academic obligations – shows how also this cloud has a silver lining.

Fighting COVID-19: a Device that Combines Radar and Optical Sensors for Remote Monitoring of Patients Vital Signs 

Research at Technion in collaboration with the National Emergency Team of the Defense Ministry’s Directorate of Defense R&D (DDR&D) developed a system to remotely measure vital signs of patients to help in the fight against COVID-19. 

The new technology combines radars and optical sensors and enables medical teams to measure a patient’s vital signs without endangering their own health. 

The vital signs are monitored using a thermal imaging method developed by Dr. Yonatan Savir of Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine together with radar technology developed at Elbit and Elta. 

Implementing the new technology will be of great benefit to the medical staff performing triage on suspected infected corona patients upon their arrival at the hospital emergency room. In the future, the technology could be used for rapid detection of sick people at the entrance to public places such as stores, workplaces, and army bases, without requiring physical contact between the person and the tester, and without the need for trained medical personnel. In addition, the accuracy of the test is not affected by lighting conditions. 

The innovative technology is based on deep learning research conducted in Savir’s lab. It uses unique algorithms that extract precise data from simple and inexpensive thermal imaging cameras. The problem with these cameras is that they are not as precise as expensive sophisticated thermal imaging cameras. The Savir breakthrough overcomes this limitation, making it possible to obtain reliable and precise data from inexpensive thermal cameras. 

Dr. Yonatan Savir is a faculty member in the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine. He earned a dual BSc from Technion in Physics and Electrical Engineering, and MSc and Ph.D. degrees in Theoretical Physics from the Weizmann Institute of Science, followed by a postdoc at Harvard Medical School. The Savir Lab conducts interdisciplinary research that combines biophysics, systems biology and deep learning.  

The research was conducted in partnership with Neteera, Vayyar, EchoCare Technologies, Rabin Medical Center, and was led by Brig.-Gen. Yaniv Rotem of the Defense Ministry’s Directorate of Defense R&D (DDR&D) and the Sensor Systems team headed by Col. A., and additional research groups from academia and the IDF.

New High-Tech Sticker Improves the Effectiveness of Surgical Masks and Protects Medical Staff against COVID-19

Prof. Eyal Zussman of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at Technion and the COVID-19 National Emergency Team of the Defense Ministry’s Directorate of Defense R&D (DDR&D) have developed a unique sticker that can be affixed to surgical masks and renders them more effective. The sticker was developed in conjunction with the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya. The new device will reduce the instances of infection and provide improved protection for the medical staff.  

Prof. Zussman is the head of the Nano-Engineering Lab in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. Together with the lab team, he developed a unique sticker that is affixed to standard surgical masks and improves their effectiveness. The sticker, named ‘Maya,’ is manufactured using a 3D printer and consists of nanometric fibers coated with antiseptics – which improves the trapping of nanometric particles and efficiently neutralizes viruses from droplets that might reach the mask.

The sticker was developed in partnership with scientists from the Chemical and Biological Section of the DDR&D, led by Dr. Dan Greenstein in partnership with Prof. Samer Srouji, Director of Oral Surgery at the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya.

The Ministry of Health has granted the ‘Maya’ sticker a preliminary approval and in upcoming days a pilot project will begin at the Galilee Medical Center to assess the adaptability of the medical staff to the sticker. Dr. Masad Barhoum, General Director of the Galilee Medical Center, thanked the Ministry of Defense and Technion for the fruitful collaboration and expressed his hope that the new sticker will reduce the incidence of COVID-19 infection among the medical staff. 

“This is an available and fast solution based on sophisticated technology. We hope that the pilot project will succeed and that this unique innovation will be introduced to many other hospitals around the country,” said Srouji.

The COVID-19 National Emergency Team continues to search for and develop advanced technologies that will help fight the spread of the virus. The Team is adapting defense technologies to civil applications. They are working around the clock in order to swiftly bring tested solutions to answer the critical needs of the hospitals. 

Researchers from the Technion and from Aleph Farms have achieved a breakthrough in the production of cultivated meat grown outside an animal’s body. As reported in the journal Nature Food, soy protein―which is readily available and economically efficient―can be used as scaffolds for growing bovine tissue. 

The research carried out by Technion scientists and Aleph Farms was recently published in Nature Food. The innovative technology, originally developed for medical applications particularly for tissue engineering in humans transplants, has been spearheaded for the past few decades by Prof. Shulamit Levenberg, Dean of the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering. This technology has now been successfully applied to growing cultured meat on scaffolds made of soy protein.  

There are several incentives for developing cultured meat. These include environmental damage caused by the meat production industry, increased use of antibiotics that accelerates the growth of drug-resistant bacteria, ethical reservations about the suffering of animals during the meat production process, and the industry’s detrimental ecological impact due to the intensive use of natural resources. 

Aleph Farms is the first company to successfully grow slaughter-free steaks, using original technology developed by Prof. Levenberg and her team. Prof. Levenberg is the company’s founding partner and chief scientist, and the current research was carried out by doctoral student Tom Ben-Arye and Dr. Yulia Shandalov.  

The article in Nature Food presents an innovative process for growing cultured meat tissue in only three-to-four weeks that resembles the texture and taste of beef. The process is inspired by nature, meaning that the cells grow in a controlled setting similar to the way they would grow inside a cow’s body. 

The cells grow on a scaffold that replaces the extracellular matrix (ECM) found in animals. Since this is a food product, the scaffold must be edible, and therefore only edible alternatives were considered. Soy protein was selected as the scaffold to which the cells adhere and proliferate with the help of myogenesis-related growth factors, similar to the tissue engineering technology developed by Prof. Levenberg.

Soy protein, an inexpensive byproduct obtained during the production of soy oil, is readily available and rich in protein. It is a porous material, and its structure promotes cell and tissue growth. Soy protein’s tiny holes are suitable for cell adherence, division, and proliferation. It also has larger holes that transmit oxygen and nutrients essential for building muscle tissue. Furthermore, soy protein scaffolds for growing cultured meat can be produced in different sizes and shapes, as required. 

The cultured meat in this research underwent testing that confirmed its resemblance to slaughtered steak in texture and taste. According to Prof. Levenberg, “We expect that in the future it will be possible to also use other vegetable proteins to build the scaffolds. However, the current research using soy protein is important in proving the feasibility of producing meat from several types of cells on plant-based platforms, which increases its similarity to conventional bovine meat.”

Prof. Shulamit Levenberg earned a BSc in biology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a direct-track Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute of Science. She pursued postdoctoral research at MIT, where she began developing the unique technology for creating in vitro 3-D tissue for medical applications. Since then, she has continued developing these technologies and in recent years has achieved impressive breakthroughs in this field, including repairing severed spinal cords in rats. 

Prof. Levenberg is the head of the Stem Cell and Tissue Engineering Lab, director of the Technion Center for 3D Bioprinting, director of the Rina and Avner Schneur Center for Diabetes Research, and Dean of the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering.

For the full article in Nature Food click here

“We are committed to leveraging data and innovative technology to help flatten the curve of the epidemic, bolster healthcare delivery and save lives.” 

In this issue of Technion LIVE we offer an informed and eloquent explanation of COVID-19. Also, tune into Prof. Marcelle Machluf to understand how her fascinating research on Nano Ghosts is now being pursued as a therapy to tackle the Coronavirus pandemic.