Author: shlomi ben-oz

Ultrasound-Responsive Nanoparticles Developed to Fight Pediatric Cancers

A new technology that uses ultrasound-responsive nanoparticles to kill a tumor by focused ultrasound has been developed by researchers in the Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The nanoparticles, which have been found to be especially effective in cells characteristic of pediatric cancers, are designed so that they enable the encapsulation and targeting of anti-cancer drugs in combined treatments. 

The researchers, Professor Alejandro Sosnik and master’s degree student Vladi Kushnirov-Melnitzer, verified the micro-structure of the platform in Themis – the advanced electron microscope (transmission electron microscope or TEM) installed at the MIKA Center of Technion.

The transport of drugs in the body is a medical challenge that has accelerated in recent years as a result of the integration of nanotechnology in this field. The basic idea is to encapsulate the intended drug within nanoscale particles that carry it to the damaged tissue, where it is discharged without a decline in critical concentration or damage to healthy tissues. 

To realize this concept, the scientific community has to deal with a series of complicated challenges that include the synthesis of new nanometer particles that will both suit the drug and be of very controlled size, so that it fits the target body tissue. According to Prof. Sosnik, “these particles must exhibit some vital capabilities, including chemical resistance, stability in a biological environment, and biocompatibility – that is, the substance’s depletion after it is broken down in the body. In addition, each drug requires that the particles have other properties that are a big different, so it is necessary to have flexibility in the production of the particles.” 

The uniqueness of the new nanometric particles developed in Prof. Sosnik’s lab lies in the integration of ceramic and polymer elements.

“In fact, these nanometric particles of titanium dioxide [TiO2] mixed with a polymer exhibit a combination of properties such as high physical stability and encapsulation of hydrophobic [water-repelling] drugs,” said Prof. Sosnik. “In addition, we have achieved precise control over the size of these particles in a very wide range of dimensions – from 26 to 230 nanometers – which are relevant to the accumulation of a wide variety of tissues and organs in the body such as a tumor.”

The researchers discovered that these particles are sensitive to ultrasound – a fact that gives them great significance in destroying cancer cells. For instance, a brief excitation of the particles by using therapeutic ultrasound causes the formation of molecules with very high oxidation abilities (reactive oxygen species) that kill all nearby cells. The study demonstrated the particles’ efficacy in the treatment of cancer cells characteristic of cancers in children.

The researchers’ clinical goal is the use of this innovative technology for the treatment of a wide variety of malignant tumors through initial targeting of particles to the cancer and the localized irradiation of the tumor with ultrasound. In this way, one can minimize the side effects of regular chemotherapy and localize the elimination of the tumor without damaging healthy cells. 

The researchers also showed that the nanoscale particles can capture inside the hydrophobic drug nitazoxanide, which is used in the treatment of parasites and viral infections, mostly in children. 

“This is the first time that titanium oxide nanoparticles have been used successfully to capture drugs at the synthesis stage,” said Sosnik. “We have already protected this invention in the US with a patent application for this technology, and we hope that the success of our experiments will lead to preclinical trials that will validate its therapeutic efficacy.”

The research was supported by the European Commission (FP7) and the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute at the Technion (RBNI). The researchers thank Dr. Yaron Kaufman, head of the Technion’s Electron Microscopy Center, for his assistance in characterizing the particles in the Themis microscope. 

 

Technion Study Reveals New Mechanism that Supervises Identity of Mature Cells

Loss of identity is characteristic of old age, and likely perturbation to newly discovered mechanism is involved in neurodegenerative and other aging-related diseases including diabetes and cancer

Researchers in the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology discovered a new mechanism that supervises the identity of mature cells. Maintaining cellular identity is essential for the physiological functioning of the cell, the tissue, and the survival of the living creature. The research, published recently in eLife magazine,  was conducted by Professor Amir Orian, Dr. Naama Flint Brodsly, Dr. Olga Boico, Adi Shafat, and Eliya Bitman-Lotan.

The study focused on enterocytes, the primary mature (differentiated) cells in the inner wall of the small intestine in the fermentation fly model (Drosophila). The rapid aging of the Drosophila flies – they are “old” at 2-3 weeks – allows researchers to trace aging-related processes relatively quickly. Moreover, the cellular structure of the fly’s gut is relatively simple, highly similar to the human gut, and therefore advantageous to study.

One hallmark of multicellular organisms is the differentiation of stem cells to give rise to differentiated cells of the body – skin cells, bone cells, intestinal cells, etc.. As a result, the stem cells are a sort of “factory” for producing assorted cells. How stems cells differentiate is an issue of study for many research groups around the world. The Technion research group, on the other hand, examined what happens after differentiation. They focused on how mature cells safeguard their identity, for example, how enterocytes retain their identity as enterocytes.

“It turns out that the preservation of cellular identity is not a default option,” said Prof. Orian. “The fact that a gut cell does not at times become a skin cell, for example, is not self-evident. Safeguarding the differentiated/mature state requires constant effort by active molecular mechanisms. It’s a little like in a human relationship; it is not enough to start.  You also need to work to keep the relationship functioning.”

The researchers explain that without strict control over the preservation of cellular identity, the gene system required for the designated cell type will cease to manifest itself, and irrelevant programs will manifest out of place (e.g. genes of the heart will manifest in intestinal cells). These disruptions will impair the tissue’s ability to perform its physiological tasks. Moreover, loss of cell identity is accompanied by processes such as pathological de-differentiation, which makes differentiated cell turn into new cell types and may lead to conditions such as cancer and progeria-like diseases, which are characterized by accelerated aging and caused by mutations in the nuclear Lamin protein. As such, the discovery of the mechanism that maintains the cellular identity of mature cells is of great interest.

The Orian Lab discovered that two of the main factors in preserving cellular identity are the transcription factor Hey and the proteins at the vicinity of the cell nucleus envelope termed Nuclear Lamins.

Transcription factors are the main players in the genetic control mechanism. Their effect is focused on the translation of genetic information from DNA to mRNA, the molecule that contains the information needed to build the proteins in the cell. Their proper functioning is essential for the proper creation of proteins as well as for the proper functioning of the organism as a whole. The researchers found that the transcription factor Hey promotes the expression of the unique differentiated Lamin gene in the differentiated enterocyte. At the same time, Hey inhibits the expression of the stem cell-related Lamin gene. In the differentiated cell, Hey together with the mature Lamin shapes the structure of the nucleus generating a unique organization to the mature enterocyte cell nucleus. This design is required for the continuous control of the differentiated cell identity; in aging cells, the level of Hey decreases, leading to loss the unique structure of the nucleus, and thereby loss of cell identity and physiological impartment of the gut tissue.

Based on this understanding, the researchers demonstrated that genetic manipulation leading to the acute deficiency of Hey or Lamin in enterocytes leads to premature aging of the intestinal tissue and premature death of young files, similar to the physiological process that occurs in old age. In contrast, strengthening the expression of the Hey gene in enterocytes prevented the appearance of defects related to the aging of gut cells, thereby improving the functioning of the gut tissue and slowing its aging.  

This discovery is a breakthrough since it identifies key supervisors and new mechanisms that safeguard the identity of mature cells. The translation of these findings into the cancer arena and the aging processes has the potential to be the basis for improving treatments for age-related diseases. Future pharmacological inhibition of key supervisors will also enable a significant improvement in stem cell rep-programing and engineering required for the repair of various medical disruptions.

Associate Professor Amir Orian, graduated from the MD/Ph.D. program at the Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine. He heads the Ruth and Stan Flinkman Genetic Networks Laboratory in the Technion Faculty of Medicine and is a member of the Technion Integrated Cancer Center (TICC).

The research was supported by a grant from the Israel Science Foundation (739/15), the Rappaport Research Institute for Medical Research, and the Ruth Marandy-Flinkman Cancer Research Fund.

Source

A multinational research team from the Technion and National Taiwan University have developed hollow nanometric balls that are expected to be used for drug delivery and safe immunizations. 

Based on the chemical behavior of natural viruses, researchers from the Technion and  National Taiwan University have developed hollow nanometric balls that are expected to be used for drug delivery and safe immunizations. The study, a collaboration between Professor Ehud Keinan and Dr. Ephrath Solel from the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion and their colleagues in Taiwan under the direction of Prof. Yi-Tsu Chan, was published in Nature Communications.

Spherical objects are found frequently in nature, in both the inanimate and living worlds. They are usually created through the assembly of 12 pentagon-shaped tiles. Examples of this phenomenon include the buckyball (carbon 60 molecule), spherical viruses, and artificial structures, such as soccer balls and geodesic domes. 

Spherical viruses in nature implement this symmetry in order to build their shells with an external diameter ranging from 15 to 500 nanometers. According to Prof. Keinan, “these shells assemble spontaneously from their components under the proper conditions, and disassemble under other conditions, thus enabling the viral life cycle. The icosahedral virus capsids teach us important lessons, including the economy of surface area-to-volume ratio and the genetic efficiency of subunit-based symmetric assembly. The shells of viruses teach us a valuable lesson about how to build artificial spherical objects.”

Chemical imitation of spherical objects has many potential implementations that include packaging and delivering drugs and other sensitive substances, synthesis of uniformly sized nanometric particles, control over the chemical activities of various substances, chemical analysis, catalysis, molecular architecture, and safe immunization based on synthetic antigens that imitate the natural viruses. 

In 2007, some of the research team members proposed a general strategy for building spherical shells using chemical synthesis. The idea was to manufacture pentagon-shaped tiles in the laboratory that could assemble into a ball according to various chemical mechanisms, similar to the process by which a soccer ball is assembled (see illustration). While the principle seems simple, implementing it experimentally entailed many difficulties and the experiments continued unsuccessfully for 12 years, in other research groups as well.

Ultimately, the Technion and Taiwan researchers succeeded in implementing this strategy. They produced pentagon-shaped molecular tiles in the laboratory that resembled shallow bowls. The spontaneous assembly of 12 pentagon-shaped tiles and 30 cadmium ions created a spherical cage with an external diameter of 6 nanometers and shell thickness of 1 nanometer. 

Now the researchers are planning to produce spheres with different chemical compositions to meet different needs, such as for immunization purposes, controlled release of medications, molecular architecture, and exploiting solar energy. 

For the complete article in Nature Communications, click here.

The lightest car in the history of the “Formula Student” competitions in Europe returns home from the Czech Republic to the Technion, with a trophy for first place in the final Skidpad round.

The Technion’s current racecar is the lightest vehicle in the history of Formula Student competitions – weighing only 132 kilos after shedding more than 120 kilos in just three years. The victory in the Skidpad is the first trophy won by an Israeli team in the dynamic round of these competitions.

This year, the team participated in three competitions in the World Round of Formula Students in Europe. Some 600 universities from around the world participated in the competitions, which were held in Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic. The Formula Project has been held at the Technion since 2013, and this is the seventh consecutive year that the Technion team has participated in the competition. At the same time, construction of the autonomous Formula car, which is expected to join the races in the summer of 2020, is underway.

The “Formula Technion” project currently involves 35 students from three faculties: Mechanical Engineering; Aerospace Engineering and Industrial Engineering and Management. The team is headed by student Tal Lifshitz of the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering. 

Minister of Science and Technology Ofir Akunis congratulated the delegation on winning: “This is another huge achievement for Israeli innovation. We continue to triumph in all international science and technology competitions and get proof of our success and of the government decision I initiated to fund Israeli delegations to international competitions.”

Formula Technion cars are designed and constructed by students as part of the “New Product Design” course held at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering under the guidance of Prof. Reuven Katz. The project is supported by many entities, most notably the Nancy and Stephen Grand Technion Energy Program. The delegation also received funding from the Ministry of Science and Technology for the students to travel abroad. 

Technion in 85th place on the Shanghai Ranking – the highest position for an Israeli institution

The Technion–Israel Institute of Technology is ranked 85th on the list of the world’s top academic institutions, as determined by the world’s leading index for higher education. The 2019 edition of the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) was published on Thursday, August 15. The Technion was also ranked 25th in space engineering and 39th in the field of automation and control and was in the top 100 in computer science & engineering and chemistry. The Technion has consistently appeared in the Shanghai Ranking’s top 100 since 2012, and was ranked 77th in 2018.

“The Technion’s presence as one of the world’s top 100 universities for 8 consecutive years is a significant and important achievement,” said Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie. “This is international recognition of the Technion’s excellence. However, it is important to keep in mind that a university’s exact position in the Ranking often changes because of one more or one less scientific publication.

“I am finishing a decade as president of the Technion, where the institution has significantly strengthened its global status and saw prosperous development on the Haifa campus. These achievements are reflected in the recruitment of hundreds of new faculty members, the development of the campus, the establishment of Technion branches in New York and China, and strategic collaborations with leading universities around the world. I am sure these achievements will continue in the future and strengthen the status of the Technion at the forefront of global research.”

The Shanghai Ranking, published since 2003, grades academic institutions worldwide according to objective criteria, including the number of Nobel Prizes and prestigious awards, the number of scholarly articles published in the leading journals Nature and Science, and other factors relative to the size of the university. The in-depth study covers 1,200 universities, from which the top 500 are selected.

The list of the world’s top 500 universities is once again led by – Harvard, Stanford, Cambridge, MIT and Berkeley. For the full ranking click here.

For the rankings of academic institutions in Israel click here.

 

The Technion profoundly mourns the untimely death of its student Aya Naamneh from the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering and stands together with the family during this difficult and painful time.

Aya participated in a Technion academic program, that took place in the city of Mekelle in Ethiopia together with students from Technion, York University in Canada and Mekelle University. The four-week program ended this past Wednesday (14.8). After completion of the program, six students, including Aya, stayed in Ethiopia for a private trip during which Aya separated from the group.

The Technion is in direct contact with the family and is helping them in every way that is needed.

Technion-developed Application Will Help Visually Impaired Cross Street

The app was developed by two students from the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering

Roni Ash and Dolev Ofri, students from the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology, have developed an innovative application expected to significantly assist the visually impaired and the blind. The app was presented at the 2018 ICSEE International Conference in Eilat, Israel, and won the Thomas Schwartz Outstanding Project Award.

The app allows visually impaired pedestrians to safely cross the street at a traffic light. It recognizes the pedestrian traffic light and notifies the user of its color. The user is only required to point the phone camera in the desired general direction – it does not need to be accurate – and the app notifies him or her if it is possible to cross. The need for the development of such assistive technology is particularly great when it comes to a crosswalk where there is no audio indication for the blind.

The app’s high credibility is based on deep learning, training an artificial neural network that learns to identify the traffic light color based on a large set of traffic light examples. The dataset used for training the system was built by the students who developed the app as an undergraduate final project in the Signal and Image Processing Laboratory (SIPL) of the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering, headed by Professor David Malah and Laboratory Engineer Nimrod Peleg. They performed the project under the guidance of Laboratory Engineer Yair Moshe and also received help from student Ayelet Cohen. The project is a collaboration of the lab with the social hub at the Technion.

To increase awareness of using the app and demonstrate its use, its creators are shooting these days a short humorous video. The video will be directed by filmmaker Elad Kidan, an Ophir Award winner, who heard about the app and volunteered for the task.

 

 

Researchers from the Technion and Tel Aviv University succeeded in gaining control of one of the world’s most secure industrial programmable logic controller (PLC)

As part of the attack, the researchers managed to turn the controller on and off, download rogue command logic, and change the operating and source codes. Moreover, they succeeded in creating a situation in which the engineer operating the controller did not recognize their “hostile intervention.”

The attack on the Siemens Simatic S7 controller will be presented TODAY at the prestigious Black Hat Hacking Conference.

Researchers from the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology and Tel Aviv University, in collaboration with Israel National Cyber Directorate have managed to take control of a Siemens PLC, which is considered to be one of the safest controllers in the world. They will present the attack at the prestigious Black Hat Conference in Las Vegas on August 8. 

A version of the paper was sent in advance to Siemens so that it could fix the vulnerabilities found.

The attack was led by Professor Eli Biham, the head of the Hiroshi Fujiwara Cyber Security Research Center at the Technion and Dr. Sara Bitan, from the Technion’s Faculty of Computer Science, and Professor Avishai Wool of the School of Electrical Engineering at Tel Aviv University, together with the students Aviad Carmel, Alon Dankner and Uriel Malin.

As part of the attack, the researchers analyzed and identified the code elements of the Siemens proprietary cryptographic protocol, and on the basis of their analysis, created a fake engineering station, an alternative to Siemens’ official station. The fake engineering station was able to command the controller according to the will of the attackers. They were able to turn the controller on and off, download rogue command logic according to their wishes, and change the operation and source codes. They also succeeded in creating a situation in which the engineer operating the controller did not recognize their “hostile intervention.”

The research leading to the attack focused on Siemens S7 Simatic systems, a series of programmable logic controllers. PLCs are currently used in a wide spectrum of operations that include critical infrastructures such as power stations, water pumps, building controls, production lines, lighting systems, vehicles, aircraft, automatic irrigation, and smart homes. Their main goal is automatic process control that optimally responds to environmental conditions and changes. The controllers receive instructions from a computer and operate the relevant terminal equipment for the operator: sensors, motors, traffic lights, and more. 

The new generations of the Simatic S7 family are considered safer and more protected than their predecessors, mainly due to improvements in the quality of encryption. Therefore, attacks on them constitute a complex challenge that requires extensive knowledge in various fields.

Since Siemens does not publish the protocol of operation of the controllers, the researchers recreated the protocol through reverse-engineering. According to Prof. Wool, this part of “detective work” took many months.

After the protocol was reconstructed, the researchers went on to map the security and encryption systems of the controller and detect weaknesses in these systems. Indeed, they were able to determine common keys with the controller and through them impersonate a legitimate engineering station from the point of view of the controller.

All this allowed them to load the controller malware despite the cryptographic security inherent in the systems. According to Prof. Biham, “this was a complex challenge because of the improvements that Siemens introduced in newer versions of Simatic controllers. Our success is linked to our vast experience in the study of controllers and their security and in combination with our in-depth knowledge in several areas – systems understanding, reverse engineering capabilities, communications protocol analysis, and cryptographic analysis.”

Dr. Bitan noted that the attack underscores the need for investment by both manufacturers and customers in securing industrial control systems. According to her, the attack shows that securing industrial control systems is a more difficult and challenging task than securing information systems.

Mr. Malin and Dr. Bitan will present the research at the prestigious Black Hat Hacking Conference in Las Vegas from 11:00–11:50 a.m. on Thursday, August 8.

More Medals for Israel at the International Science Olympiad

The Israeli Chemistry Team’s Impressive Achievements: One Silver and Three Bronze Medals

The Israeli delegation is returning home decorated with medals won last week at the International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO) for high school students in Paris. This follows Israel’s outstanding achievements at the International Physics and Mathematics Olympiads. Four team members won medals – three bronze and one silver. The Israeli Chemistry Team was trained at the Technion Schulich Faculty of Chemistry under the direction of Prof. Zeev Gross and was supported by the Ministry of Education and the Maimonides Fund.

These are the delegation members who have made Israel proud:

• Roi Peer from Magen Haim – gold medal 
• Ron Shprints from Ashdod – bronze medal 
• Ron Raphaeli from Kfar Yedidyah – bronze medal 
• Hallel Shohat from Jerusalem – bronze medal 

The International Chemistry Olympiad is the oldest of the International Science Olympiads  for high school students. The event was held for the 51st time this year in Paris, France with the participation of 300 high school students from 80 countries across the globe. Israel has been participating since 2006 and over the years has amassed impressive achievements: two gold medals, six silver medals, 24 bronze medals and four honorable mentions.

The delegation was headed by Professor Zeev Gross from the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion and head of the Technion Youth Program in Chemistry. Dr. Izana Nigel-Etinger was the main coach. Two Technion graduate students who won chemistry medals in the past—Assaf Mauda and Raz Lotan—helped train the students, along with laboratory engineers Gabriele Halevi and Emma Gratz, and with Dr. Avital Lahav, who runs the faculty’s youth program.

Prof. Zeev Gross, Head of the Youth Program, Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion: “Bravo to our students for courageously persisting throughout the grueling preparations and training. Under the guidance of Dr. Izana Nigel-Etinger, the delegation members engaged in extensive and in-depth preparations and developed the emotional resilience that enabled them to do their utmost when it counted. The competition included a five-hour hands-on examination in which the students were required to conduct three different laboratory experiments and a five-hour theoretical examination that entailed solving more than 100 problems. Senior faculty members, laboratory engineers, and other doctoral students, all from the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry, were partners to this major effort. Particular thanks go to the two former medal winners—Assaf Mauda and Raz Lotan—who are currently graduate students at the Technion.”

Rabbi Rafi Peretz, Education Minister:  “I congratulate our students on their impressive achievement in chemistry. Together with Israel’s achievements in mathematics and physics, this notable achievement places Israel at the forefront. For the winners, this achievement is only their first step on their way toward groundbreaking achievements in chemistry research. I have no doubt they and their fellow physics and mathematics students will lead Israel to major achievements in the future and will position Israel among the world’s leading nations. Science is the torch that lights our way, and we will continue to strengthen and promote it.”

Shimshon Shoshani, Chair, Maimonides Fund Future Scientists Center: “The Israeli science teams are continuing to make the State of Israel proud and to attain outstanding individual and international achievements. The Israeli chemistry team’s inspirational achievements are proof that investment, perseverance, and determination to excel lead to success and achievements. The State of Israel has been blessed with talented young people and we must continue to do our utmost to maximize their potential.”

 

“The Technion is an important part of our success.” 

– Brothers Zohar and Yehuda Zisapel at the cornerstone laying ceremony for the Technion Zisapel Electrical Engineering Building.

Brothers Zohar and Yehuda Zisapel, alumni of the Technion, laid the cornerstone for the Zisapel Electrical Engineering Building at a festive ceremony held at the Technion last Thursday. 

The new Zisapel Electrical Engineering Building will be used for the continued development of the Technion’s Faculty of Electrical Engineering and for the strengthening of ties with industry.

“This is a holiday for the entire Technion family and for the Faculty of Electrical Engineering,” said Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie, who thanked the Zisapel brothers and the Vice President for External Relations and Resource Development Prof. Boaz Golany, who played a major role in promoting the project. “Thirteen years ago, brothers Zohar and Yehuda Zisapel changed the face of the Technion with the establishment of the Zisapel Center for Nanoelectronics Research,” said Prof. Lavie. “Without this center, the Technion would not be where it is today, and I believe that the new building will also greatly contribute to the advancement of the faculty and the Technion. Towards the end of my term as president of the Technion, I couldn’t imagine a better gift than this.”

“As a student, I never imagined that we would donate buildings to the Technion, but it is part of life’s packages – they are surprising,” said Yehuda Zisapel, recounting his studies at the Technion. “The Technion is an important part of our success. As topics and knowledge are rapidly changing in the technological world, the Technion taught us how to learn new subjects quickly and how to keep up with the changes. I would like to thank the Technion for choosing to erect the new building in this wonderful place, between two existing buildings of the faculty. It is very important to us that the building is used not only for the development of the faculty but also for the strengthening of the links between the Technion and Israeli industry.”

“During our studies here, there were discussions in the faculty about whether it should focus on electricity or electronics,” added Zohar Zisapel, “But today, I understand that you must focus on both and also be open to many other areas. The Technion always knew how to respond to the needs of industry and it’s important that it continues to stay up to date and enter into areas that are expected to develop in the future.”

“Yehuda and Zohar Zisapel, of the most prominent entrepreneurs in Israeli industry, have been closely following and supporting our activities for years,” said Prof. Nahum Shimkin, dean of the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering. “They are a source of inspiration and pride for us. The new building will provide us with the space needed to continue the expansion of the faculty and will enable us to continue to lead and excel in teaching and research and to assist in the advancement of Israeli technology.”

The Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering is Technion’s largest faculty and the largest engineering department in Israel, with over 2,200 students. During its 80 years of existence, the Faculty has educated approximately 15,000 alumni who led the transformation of Israel from an agricultural economy to a high-tech powerhouse. These alumni form the backbone of Israel’s civilian and military knowledge-intensive industries.

The Zisapel brothers, founders of the RAD Bynet Group, have maintained a warm relationship with Technion through the years, helping with financial support and also through personal involvement. Yehuda Zisapel, former head of the Technion Alumni Association, initiated the “From Three to Five” project, which helps high-school students complete high-level matriculation exams in STEM subjects; and the “Ofakim l’High-Tech” program (now called “Achievements for High-Tech”), that helps discharged soldiers from Israel’s periphery to pursue academic studies in engineering and science.  Zohar Zisapel has also supported Technion in numerous ways and contributes millions of dollars for children’s technological education and to expose every Israeli child to the world of computers and the internet. Last year, he was named the Israeli Chair of Technion’s global fundraising campaign, which aims to raise US$ 1.8 billion to strengthen Technion’s leadership position in the global arena.

‘Invasive species of parrots – a danger to agriculture’

Ecologist Dr. Assaf Shwartz of the Technion leads a multi-national team that investigates the effect of invasive species in Israel and Europe: “It is important to prevent the release of non-native species in nature”

Non-native parrots can cause substantial agricultural damage and threaten native biodiversity, although impacts vary strongly depending on where these parrots have been introduced. Brought to Europe as pets, escaped or released parrots have established numerous wild populations across Europe. Tens of thousands of ring-necked and monk parakeets make up the bulk of Europe’s parrots, but several more species are also gaining a foothold. A pan-European team of researchers, conservationists, wildlife managers, and policy-makers worked together under the umbrella of ParrotNet, an EU COST Action, and have reviewed the available evidence on parrot damage, concluding that measures to prevent parrots from invading new areas are paramount for limiting future harm.

Today there are more than 200 populations of parrot species originating in South America and India. “These are parrots that were brought to Israel as pets and some of them were released or escaped from their cages and created huge free populations,” said lead researcher Dr. Assaf Shwartz, of the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology. “These populations are growing every year, and today there are more than 10,000 ring-necked parakeets and monk parakeets in Israel.”

Introduced parrots can damage the environment, but severe impacts are rare and localized. Most reports of damage were linked to the widespread and locally abundant ring-necked and monk parakeets. Studies show that in their native ranges, both species can, and regularly do, inflict large crop losses, but in Temperate Europe, expectations of comparable widespread and severe damage to agriculture have so far failed to materialize. Severe impacts on crops were recorded in Mediterranean Europe. Competition with native species presents a more serious problem, especially for ring-necked parakeets as they can compete with native species for food and breeding sites. In the Americas, monk parakeets are notorious for the damage their stick nests cause to power infrastructures by catching fire, yet very little evidence for such problems exist in Europe. Reported impacts for other parakeet species in Europe are virtually nonexistent, probably because these species have been introduced more recently and currently exist as relatively small and localized populations.

The study, published in Neobiota, also highlights that differences in the type of damage, and the way they are reported and summarized influences the outcomes of invasive species impact assessments. The generalized threat level that invasive species pose is often based on their worst known impacts, whilst the capabilities of a species to do damage often requires specific circumstances. While this is relevant information for identifying those invaders that can potentially have major impacts, it is not necessarily representative of the impacts the species is likely to have when introduced to a new area. Similarly, including damage reports from the native range or from other invaded ranges typically results in higher threat level estimates compared to what actually has been observed in Europe.

“The ring-neck parakeets and monk parakeets have already established large populations in Israel and in Europe,” said Dr. Shwartz. “Ultimately, the decision on ways to reduce the damage is in the hands of the decision-makers, but as scientists, it is important to note that the best way to combat species invasions is to prevent the release of non-native species in nature. Studies have shown that in the islands it is possible to eradicate/mitigate populations of invaders (for example in the Seychelles), but on large continents, in areas such as Israel and Europe, there is no ‘silver bullet’ solution to the problems, so it is important to conduct wide cost-benefit studies before taking various measures.”

The paper can be accessed here: Neobiota 

 

Researchers from the Technion Faculty of Biology have discovered a sophisticated, autoregulatory mechanism that makes protein synthesis in the human body more efficient

The researchers say damage to this mechanism may be linked to many illnesses

Researchers from the Technion Faculty of Biology have discovered a sophisticated regulatory mechanism that makes protein synthesis in the human body more efficient. The researchers say damage to this mechanism may be linked to many illnesses, and that their findings are likely to lead to a better understanding and improved treatment of biological disruptions. The findings of the study led by Professor Yoav Arava and doctoral student Ofri Levi were recently published in PLoS Biology.

Proteins, a major component of the human body, are synthesized by a cellular factory known as the ribosome. For protein synthesis, the ribosome uses two main components: mRNA, which contains the necessary code for protein synthesis, and tRNA, which carries the amino acids, the protein’s building blocks. 

The research conducted at the Technion focused on a unique family of enzymes –Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (aaRSs) – that play an important role in properly binding the amino acid molecule to the corresponding tRNA. The precision and efficiency of these enzymes are critical to the quality of the raw materials reaching the ribosome and hence to the quality of the future protein. While research groups around the world have been investigating the role of these enzymes for decades, the Technion researchers discovered another, previously unknown function.

Prof. Arava’s research group discovered that in addition to binding the amino acids to their matching  tRNA, these enzymes also regulate their prevalence in accordance with the amount of available amino acids. When amino acids are abundant and large quantity of enzymes are required, the enzymes activate an autoregulatory mechanism that increases their production. The opposite occurs when a smaller quantity of enzymes is needed. Furthermore, the researchers deciphered the molecular mechanism that executes this action: the enzyme binds its own mRNA in a region that mimics the binding site on its natural tRNA target.

Even though in the current research the Technion researchers focused on a single enzyme from the Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases family, they believe that this autoregulatory mechanism exists in all twenty enzymes belonging to this family. This intelligent mechanism enables the molecule to regulate its amount in accordance with the cell’s needs and probably developed in an early stage of evolution.

Due to the critical role of Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases in determining the quality of the raw materials in the ribosome, any disruption in their activity is likely to lead to the synthesis of harmful proteins. Indeed, mutations of these enzymes are involved in many human illnesses, in particular those related to the nervous system such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT). Hence, this research may lead to a better understanding of illnesses and to the development of new ways to treat them.

The research is funded by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF), the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF) and the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute (RBNI) at the Technion.

Prof. Yoav Arava completed his bachelor’s degree in the Faculty of Agriculture in Rehovot, his master’s and doctorate in the Faculty of Biochemistry at the Weizmann Institute of Science and his post-doctorate in the Department of Biochemistry at Stanford University. He has been the recipient of many awards, including the Yanai Prize for Excellence in Academic Education (2012) and the Mani Award for Excellence in Teaching (2009). Prof. Arava’s laboratory focuses on proteins that bind to RNA molecules and on the biochemical and molecular attributes of their functioning. “We use two main experimental systems: yeast cells (used for the research described here) and nerve cells,” he said. “By generating genetic changes in these systems we attempt to understand the communication between proteins and RNA and its contribution to the physiology of the cell. The current paper is a classic example of the work in our laboratory: we identified a link between proteins and particular RNA molecules, and by generating genetic changes in the protein or the RNA we were able to expose a new physiological function and its underlying mechanism.”

For the article in PLOS Biology click here