Author: shlomi ben-oz

TECHNION AND CORNELL CELEBRATE

2017 GRADUATES OF THE JACOBS TECHNION-CORNELL INSTITUTE

Students to Receive Dual Degrees from the Technion and Cornell,

A New Milestone in the Technion’s Continued Expansion in New York City  

NEW YORK, NY (May 17, 2017): On Tuesday, the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and Cornell University honored the 2017 graduates of the Joan & Irwin Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech – including the first-ever graduating class of Health Tech students and the second graduating class of Connective Media students. This will be the last class graduating from Cornell Tech’s temporary home in the Google building in Chelsea as the new Cornell Tech campus (home of the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute) opens on Roosevelt Island in September.

The pre-graduation event in Manhattan recognized the accomplishments of the 27 graduates of this year’s class, 21 of whom will receive Technion-Cornell Dual Master’s Degrees in Connective Media for their studies in the technologies driving digital media (and the social and business forces at play). The other six graduates will receive Dual Master’s Degrees in Health Tech, where students study both health and technology, learning to create applications to promote healthier living for individuals.

“The 2017 graduates of the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute now join the ecosystem of New York – a developing ecosystem of technology, entrepreneurship and innovation,” said Prof. Peretz Lavie, President of the Technion Israel-Institute of Technology. “I have been inspired by these students’ work, and I look forward to following their journeys as they launch start-ups, develop game-changing innovations and join some of the world’s leading companies. I know their contributions to societies throughout the world will be immense.”

“The Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute was created to improve the strength of the New York tech ecosystem while also using deep science thinking to make a difference for real people and improve the common good,” said Ron Brachman, Director of the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech. “The Connective Media and Health Tech graduates of 2017 truly exemplify this mission, and we could not be more proud of what they have accomplished.”

The Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute embodies the academic partnership and shared commitment to impact between the Technion and Cornell University. The partnership also brings the Technion’s game-changing brand of science and technology education – and Israeli innovation – to New York.

The Connective Media graduate program, the first degree of its kind in the world, was designed with input from some of the world’s leading technology and media companies, including Twitter, Facebook and The New York Times. Its hands-on, two-year curriculum is centered on computer science and engineering, the human and social impacts of technology, and entrepreneurship.

“I chose to come to Cornell Tech because I wanted to learn how to create technology that makes an impact on the world, and I chose the Connective Media program in the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute because I wanted to make sure that impact is a positive one,” said Harrison Gregg, Connective Media ’17. “The Jacobs Institute, at the intersection of academia and industry, offers the best of both worlds – giving us, as students, the freedom to develop ideas for making the world a better place and the power to make them happen.”

The Health Tech graduate program, on the cutting edge of transforming how healthcare is delivered and experienced, was designed with input from leading hospitals, insurance companies, medical schools and health organizations. Its rigorous, interdisciplinary curriculum combines exceptional technical education with the industry-specific knowledge needed to develop innovative new products and services that address real healthcare needs.

“What you’re doing in the real world after you graduate, you actually practice everyday at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute,” said Sonia Sen, Health Tech ’17. “There’s no other program where you’re continuously building products and finding solutions through technology for the people that need them the most.”

The Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute was established in 2013 with a $133 million gift from Dr. Irwin Mark Jacobs, founding chairman and CEO emeritus of Qualcomm, and his wife, Joan Klein Jacobs. It has quickly become a catalyst for global entrepreneurship and a driver of New York’s emerging tech ecosystem and local economy. The Jacobs Institute combines professors, research and resources from the Technion, a leading global research university, that was a vital factor in Israel’s emergence as the “Startup Nation,” and Cornell University, a longtime leader in engineering and computer science, with a strong presence in New York City. The Jacobs Institute’s dual-degree program — accredited through the Technion in Israel and Cornell in the U.S. — provides graduates with an international advantage and greater recognition in an increasingly global workforce.

History at Technion: President Prof. Peretz Lavie Elected To Third Term

Confirmed by the Executive Committee of the academic institution

Technion’s Academic Committee, comprised of all full professors, approved the continuation of President Prof. Peretz Lavie’s term in office by a large majority. The decision, which extends his office to a third term, was unanimously approved yesterday by the Technion Executive Committee. The decision must also be ratified by the Board of Governors, which will convene next month.

Prof. Lavie will be the first President in the history of Technion to be elected to a third term and will serve for more than eight years (with the exception of Amos Horev’s third term, which lasted for one year). Prof. Lavie, who took up the post in 2009, assented to a request by the Technion Executive Committee to extend his term in office by another two years. He did so out of a desire to complete a number of strategic development projects at the Technion campus in Haifa and the need to establish Technion’s branches in New York and China.

“I see the position of Technion President as the most important mission in my academic life,” said Prof. Lavie. “I will continue to work with all my might so that the glorious institution we are all so proud of will develop and thrive.”

During Prof. Lavie’s current term in office (2009-2017), Technion recorded impressive achievements led by the recruitment of more than 200 new faculty members. “Outstanding faculty members are the most important asset of any university,” said Prof. Lavie. “The quality of Technion and its future status will be determined first and foremost by the quality of its faculty members.”

The new faculty members, whose recruitment involved the extensive recruitment of resources, are mostly young and were selected based on excellence in research. The increase in the number of faculty members was accompanied by a significant increase in the number of publications in the world’s leading scientific journals. In 2016, Technion was ranked 26th in the world in the list of Rising Stars, published by the leading scientific journal Nature, following a 40% increase in Technion’s publications in leading scientific journals. In the Shanghai ranking, the world’s leading index of academic institutions, within eight years Technion shot up from rank 101-152 worldwide to 69th place in 2016: the top of Israel’s universities. These rankings, along with a significant increase in the awarding of research grants, attest to Technion’s academic excellence and the research achievements of its faculty members.

The research world, in Prof. Lavie’s view, is changing. In the past, a scientist could carry out research and achieve breakthroughs on his own, but now significant research requires interdisciplinary cooperation. “The walls between disciplines, faculties, and fields of research are collapsing,” explains Prof. Lavie. “Future achievements in science and engineering will require cooperation between laboratories and researchers from different fields. In order to achieve significant scientific and engineering breakthroughs, enormous knowledge is now required — knowledge that an individual scientist does not possess.” For this reason, Technion has worked to establish interdisciplinary centers where researchers from different faculties work together. These centers include research institutes such as the Technion Integrated Cancer Center (TICC), the Quantum Engineering Center, the Cyber Security Research Center, and the Technion Computer Engineering Center (TCE), in addition to the Excellence Centers of the Council for Higher Education that have been established at Technion.

The number of students at Technion is growing steadily. In the past eight years, the number of students has increased from 12,665 (2009-2010) to 14,121 (2016-2017). In addition, there has been a 30% increase in the number of graduate students (master’s and doctoral).

Since taking office as President, Prof. Lavie has worked to change the atmosphere at Technion and its image as a rigid institution that is not sufficiently considerate of its students. Under his leadership, a committee was established to examine the structure of studies and academic load at Technion, headed by Prof. Yachin Cohen of the Faculty of Chemical Engineering. The committee’s recommendations, which were implemented in conjunction with the Technion Student Association (TSA), included many changes aimed at improving teaching at Technion. In addition, in 2012 Prof. Lavie instituted the Yanai Prize for Excellence in Academic Education, with the generous donation of Technion alumnus Moshe Yanai. The prize, which is awarded in recognition and appreciation of faculty members who set an example by their contributions to teaching and learning, has already become synonymous with excellence in teaching at Technion and has been awarded to 62 faculty members and three faculties.

Along with improvements in teaching, Technion is also investing heavily in developing the infrastructure that serves students on campus. The boom includes the construction of dorms, classrooms, and study halls, and spaces designated for social, cultural, and sports activities. Thanks to the enormous investment in building student dorms and renovating existing ones, Technion now the leading academic institution in Israel in terms of housing solutions (beds) offered to its students.

Another impressive achievement recorded by Technion during Prof. Lavie’s term in office was the strengthening of its global standing. This achievement is reflected in the establishment of Technion branches in New York and China and in strategic partnerships with leading universities around the world. In September 2017, the permanent campus of the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute for applied engineering-scientific research will be inaugurated in the heart of Manhattan. The Institute was established after Cornell University and Technion jointly won the City of New York’s international competition, in which more than 50 leading universities from the US and around the world participated. Technion is the first non-American university in the world to award its own academic degree on American soil.

Construction of the Technion-Guangdong Institute, which will be inaugurated in China in December 2017, is nearing completion. The Institute, located near the Shantou University campus in the province of Guangdong in southeastern China, will be a quality research university, teaching and research programs in its initial years focusing on environmental protection.

Technion is also strengthening its international reputation through cooperation with leading universities around the world. Technion’s International School accepts students from a variety of countries, and has significantly expanded its activities; the number of students has increased from 39 in 2009 to 700 in 2016.

These international projects place Technion at the forefront of global research and constitute an important milestone in its progress toward achieving the Technion vision: becoming one of the world’s ten leading scientific-technological research universities in the development of human capital, leadership, and knowledge creation, which works to advance the State of Israel and humanity.

As stated, Prof. Lavie’s next term in office is intended to enable him to complete and strengthen these processes, which will advance Technion in realizing its vision.

Japan’s Minister of Science, Technology and space Yosuke Tsuruho was at Technion on 11/5/17 as part of his first ever visit to Israel.

“Israel and Japan share a common vision of developing advanced technology for the benefit of humanity,” said Minister Yosuke Tsuruho, on meeting Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie and Vice President Prof. Boaz Golany. Accompanied by a large delegation of businessmen and academics, Tsuruho also met with Itai Levinson of ReWalk Robotics Ltd and Prof. Pini Gurfil, Director of the Asher Space Research Institute (ASRI).

“Technion graduates have always been a key factor in the technological development of the State of Israel, and the startup nation was born here,” said the Prof. Lavie. “Within just 20 years, Technion graduates were involved in establishing and managing more than 1,600 companies in Israel. These companies generated revenues of more than $30 billion and created 95,500 jobs in Israel.” Prof. Lavie highlighted Technion’s groundbreaking global initiatives in New York and China, as well as the expansion of the Technion’s network of global academic collaborations.

Prof. Boaz Golany, Technion Vice President for External Relations and Resource Development, referred to Technion’s cooperation with Japanese companies and academic institutes. “About two years ago, the Technion established an association of friends in Japan, and since then, the ties have been expanding,” he said. “This includes support for the Technion’s cyber center by the Internet Research Institute (IRI) in Tokyo; Inchia’s support for photonics and chemistry; collaboration in the field of robotics; and more. Recently, a meeting of Israeli and Japanese researchers on regenerative medicine and medical applications for stem cells took place Technion. Held at the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, this meeting will further strengthen ties between the Technion and Kyoto University.”

Minister Tsuruho thanked the Technion for its hospitality and said: “We want to understand and learn from you the secret of success and how you did it. Thank you for sharing your information and experience in order to help us achieve scientific and technological breakthroughs.”

Three teams of researchers will be the recipients of the Kavli Microbiome Ideas Challenge that supports novel, cross-cutting tools and methods in the field of microbiome research. The selected proposals include research on genetic switches to study microbial ecosystems, tools for deciphering multi-kingdom communication molecules, and a novel approach to map interactions between bacteria species.

“The Kavli Microbiome Ideas Challenge is an exciting opportunity to support high risk, interdisciplinary research that does not normally receive traditional funding,” said Tim Donohue, Chair of the Scientific Advisory board for the Kavli Challenge. “The grants selected for funding demonstrated great potential for the generation of novel tools and methods that will be broadly applicable across the many environments and move the field forward in the causal understanding of microbial and community function. The Kavli Foundation is to be commended for investing in this rapidly emerging field with this program.”

“The Kavli Foundation is delighted with the partnership of ASM, ACS, and APS in the Kavli Microbiome Ideas Challenge, to catalyze collaborations at the intersection of fields,” said Miyoung Chun, Executive Vice President of Science Programs at The Kavli Foundation. “We would like to congratulate the award recipients, whose expertise spans physics, chemistry, and biology, and we wish them all the best in their efforts to accelerate understanding of microbial function.”

A team of researchers led by Raghuveer Parthasarathy, Professor of Physics, from the University of Oregon, will use their grant to create genetic switches. The team will create DNA-based circuits that turn on and off particular genes, and simultaneously activate fluorescent beacons. These tools will enable new, experimental approaches for studying animal-associated microbial communities as ecosystems of interacting colonized hosts, and colonizing microbes.

Researchers from the University of Washington will use their Kavli grant to develop a tool for deciphering multi-kingdom communication molecules using engineer cellular traps. The team, led by Ashleigh Theberge, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, will create new analytical chemistry and engineering tools that pull out key molecules from a mix of molecular noise in order to selectively “listen” to molecular signals produced by specific fungi, bacteria, or human cells.

The third team’s grant will support research on measuring species interactions in situ using micro-droplet co-localization. The research, led by Roy Kishony, Professor of Biology and Computer Science from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, will introduce a novel approach of comprehensive mapping of interactions between bacterial species within their natural communities. Their research will uncover which species support and inhibit the growth of others, and it will serve as a basis for discovering natural mediators of species interactions.

“Three major life sciences organizations, ASM, ACS and APS, came together to provide scientists with the unique opportunity of bringing together experts from different research areas to move this very exciting field forward,” said Stefano Bertuzzi, CEO, ASM, “The Kavli Ideas Challenge allowed for the collaboration between different scientific communities that span computational biology, physics and analytical chemistry to develop important new research tools.”

In support of a National Microbiome Initiative launched by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and to accelerate discovery in the field of microbiome research, The Kavli Foundation committed $1 million to a Kavli Microbiome Ideas Challenge supporting development of next generation scientific tools for investigating life on a microbial scale. The Kavli Ideas Challenge is led by the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), and carried out in partnership with the American Chemical Society (ACS) and American Physical Society (APS).

Kavli Microbiome Ideas Challenge

Asst. Prof. Asya Rolls of the Ruth and Baruch Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at Technion has been named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)-Wellcome International Research Scholar, a prestigious award for promising researchers outside the United States poised to advance biomedical research across the globe.

 The focus of Rolls’s research is the effect of experiences in the brain on the immune system. “All emotions, all thoughts, affect specific brain regions,” she explains. “We will be able to manipulate the potential embedded in the brain to cure disease, by activating the reward system and potentially also many other systems.” Rolls adds, “Technion, one of few technological institutes with a medical school, offers the unique opportunity to harness technological capabilities along with medical developments.” Her research could reveal new ways to exploit the body’s inherent disease-fighting potential.

Five other Israeli researchers were also selected: Drs. Yosef Buganim and Idan Efroni of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; and Drs. Eran Elinav and Shalev Itzkovitz, and Prof. Ido Amit of the Weizmann Institute of Science

HHMI has teamed up with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation to develop scientific talent around the world, and will award a total of nearly $26.7 million to 41 early-career scientists from 16 countries. Each researcher will receive a total of $650,000 over five years. The award is a big boon for scientists early in their careers, and offers the freedom to pursue new research directions and creative projects that could develop into top-notch scientific programs.

“This is an outstanding group of scientists who will push biomedical research forward worldwide, and we are thrilled to support them alongside our philanthropic partners,” said David Clapham, HHMI’s Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer.

The scientists selected as International Research Scholars represent a diverse array of scientific disciplines and geographic locations. Scholars hail from research organizations and institutions from across the world, from Tanzania to Cambodia to Chile to Austria. Their research covers a broad variety of biological and medical research areas including neuroscience, genetics, biophysics, computational biology, and parasitology.

“We are excited to join with our partners in supporting these superb scientists. We look to them to bring transformative innovation to priority global health problems,” said Chris Karp, Director of Global Health Discovery & Translational Sciences at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

These researchers’ goals are innovative, wide-ranging, and forward-thinking. They seek to understand diverse topics, from how immune cells function to how pathogenic bacteria jump from the environment to humans, and are even investigating ways to watch genes switch on and off in living brains.

“We are delighted to be a partner in supporting this outstanding community of international researchers. Their expertise and thirst for knowledge will enhance our understanding of how life works and the causes and consequences of disease,” said Anne-Marie Coriat, Head of Research Careers at Wellcome Trust.

A panel of distinguished scientists reviewed more than 1,400 applications and evaluated both the impact of past work, including doctoral and postdoctoral achievements, and the promise of work to come. It’s a researcher-focused approach that emphasizes the skills and talents of the individual, rather than solely the projects proposed.

“We are proud to partner with HHMI, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Wellcome Trust to support this truly exceptional group of young biomedical scientists. Biomedical research is increasingly at the core of the work of our research institute, the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência,” said Gulbenkian Institute Director Jonathan Howard.

The 2017 International Research Scholars competition was announced in March 2016 and was open to early-career scientists who held a full-time position at a research-oriented university, medical school, or nonprofit institution, and had been running their own labs for less than seven years. Candidates also had to work in an eligible country, and have received training in the United States or the United Kingdom for at least one year.

 

Technion Congratulates Emmanuel Macron, French President-Elect

On September 6, 2015, when serving as the French Minister of Economy, Industry, and Digital Affairs, Macron visited Technion. He headed a delegation, which included the French Ambassador

to Israel, the President of the École Polytechnique, and a delegation of industry and high-tech leaders.

During the visit, Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie awarded Macron a Technion medallion. They toured laboratories; and met with researchers, graduates, and students.

In his remarks, Macron said, “I came here to be inspired and to learn how to promote cooperation between entrepreneurs, engineers, researchers, and investors.” He continued, “In France, there are outstanding researchers and excellent entrepreneurs, but the transition from scientific research to products is often lacking, and this is our bottleneck; we will be happy to learn how to make this transition more successful.”

It turns out that sometimes, the road to the Élysée Palace passes through Technion Israel.

Researchers at the Technion Faculty of Biology have detected three new groups of viruses that attack microorganisms from the archaeal group

HAIFA, ISRAEL – Marine microorganisms pose a research challenge for biologists, since many of these microorganisms cannot be grown in the laboratory. One way to study them is to collect water from the ocean and study the genetic material (DNA) the sample contains.

In their April 27 article published in Current Biology, researchers from the Technion-Israel institute of Technology present new findings obtained in this way about viruses that attack microorganisms from one of the archaeal marine groups (Euryarchaeota). This group is highly abundant in the oceans, and can produce energy from sunlight using a mechanism that is different from photosynthesis. But little is known about this group, and the team’s findings shed light, for the first time, on the interaction between key groups in the marine ecosystem.

In the study conducted by Dr. Alon Philosof, under the supervision of Prof. Oded Béjà of the Technion Faculty of Biology, samples of dozens of liters were collected from the surface water layer in the Gulf of Eilat, from which DNA segments were sequenced. The researchers used the DNA segments to identify the microorganisms living in these waters. This was done by means of metagenomics – a bioinformatics approach that combines computer science algorithms with biological knowledge.

The researchers assembled the DNA segments computationally – a method similar to putting together a jigsaw puzzle from millions of pieces without a picture to serve as a guide. In doing so, they were able to reconstruct the genomes of viruses that attack the marine archaea. This complex reconstruction was made possible through the use of the ATLAS computing system (which is also used to analyze results from the CERN particle accelerator in Switzerland).

In all, 26 viruses that were previously unknown to science were detected in the study.

“On the basis of the similarity between segments of the genetic material of the viruses and those of the marine archaea, we began a detective work and concluded that these viruses attack those microorganisms,” said Dr. Philosof. “This was accomplished without the possibility of growing the viruses or the archaea in the lab.”

Environmental microbiology, especially in the oceans, is one of the last frontiers of ecology. The methods used in this study enable researchers to explore this terra incognita. The results of this study shed new light on the evolution of an important archaeal group and its viruses.

Technion student José Flores-Uribe; Prof. Eugene V. Koonin and Dr. Natalya Yutin of the US National Institute of Health (NIH); and Dr. Itai Sharon of Tel Hai College also contributed to this research.

The study was funded by the European Union (European Commission ERC Advanced Grant), the Technion’s Lorry I. Lokey Interdisciplinary Center for Life Sciences and Engineering and the Technion’s Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute.

Click here to the paper in Current Biology

 

Some Earth Day events involve volunteer clean-ups, planting flower beds or unplugging your gadgets for a day. The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, however, challenged high school students worldwide to build an Earth Day-themed Rube Goldberg Machine—and three schools came through with flying colors (all shades of green, of course).

For the uninitiated, a Rube Goldberg Machine is a wacky contraption that is deliberately over-engineered to perform a simple task by setting off a comical chain reaction. Katz Yeshiva High School of South Florida (whose team of students ranged from 9th through 11th grades), placed first in this fun but difficult challenge, winning a one-year full scholarship to the Technion.

“When I saw our school’s name appear on the screen, I was overcome with emotions of comradery and school spirit. Tens of hours of hard work had finally paid off,” said 11th grader Tani Loskove. Teammate Ty Kay added: “As a high schooler pursuing dreams of becoming an engineer, Technion’s Rube Goldberg Earth Day Challenge was a great stepping stone for me. It was my first real engineering ‘project,’ and it taught me about teamwork, advanced preparation and the differences between theoretical and applied sciences.” Other students include: Noah and Joshua Bernten, Michal Amar and Max Davis.

Working out of a student’s garage, the winning team concocted a nearly one-minute chain reaction in which Coca Cola bottles activated a toy car, sent a ball down a winding slide worthy of a Water Park, releasing liquid gallium to complete a circuit, which eventually set off a stream of water that spun a home-built Ferris wheel, knocked down popcorn boxes that activated a fan—illustrating recycling (plastic, metal and paper) and alternative energy sources (hydro, solar and wind power).

Some 24 high school teams around the world participated in the challenge. A team of judges led by Prof. Alon Wolf, Director of the Biorobotics and Biomechanics Lab at the Technion’s Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, selected the winners based both on their creative renditions of Earth Day themes and the complexity of the energy transfers from one action to the next. Le Hong Phong High School for the Gifted in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam placed second, while the International Bilingual School at Hsinchu-Science-Park in Taiwan came in third. (Prof. Wolf is no relation to Dr. Wolf).

“It’s very exciting for us,” says Dr. Yosef Wolf, who heads up Katz Yeshiva’s STEM courses and started a robotics club at the school. “It’s the first engineering contest that we have ever entered, and we came in 1st place! We’ve been growing our engineering opportunities recently and we have plans to further expand our STEM offerings next year. This result has further helped to increase our students’ excitement of the upcoming initiatives.”

Note: the contest is not over yet! May 1st is the deadline for the Most Popular Clip Contest. Winners will be announced May 3rd.

 

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“Technology is an integral part of the medical world”

The Ophek VR team won first place in the 3DS Conference at the Technion – after 48 hours of linking entrepreneurship, research, engineering and medicine

By Keren-Or Grinberg

The corridors of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion were transformed into a miniature technological accelerator during the three days of the 3DS Conference. On the last day of the conference, students presented their developed ideas to the judges to compete for the top three places. The winning team, Ophek VR, received a ticket to the annual Entrepreneurship Conference in Boston. Teams placing 1st and 2nd automatically enter the BizTEC Entrepreneurship Contes; and all three winning teams receive USD 50,000 from the AMIT Incubator at Technion.

This is the fourth year of the conference, which is supported by the Faculty of Medicine and the Technion Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, under the auspices of the joint MED2E Center. The purpose of the conference is to foster cooperation between medical students, interns and residents, as well as students from other Technion faculties and from the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering in particular. The participants have to find a technological and business solution to significant problems in the medical world, within just 48 hours.

This year, 150 students applied to the competition, and 80 were selected. The students were mentored by experts from the medical, industrial and academic sectors. The mentors included Clinical Assistant Professor Ronen Jaffe, Director of the Catheterization Unit, Department of Cardiology, Carmel Medical Center; Lena Levin, founder and CFO of Via Surgical Ltd; Dr. Yoav Medan, technological director at Ninispeech Ltd; the organizer of Haifa Digital Health and many others.

The conference opened at the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, with the participation of the Dean of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine Prof. Shimon Marom, and the Dean of the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering Prof. Shulamit Levenberg. Prof. Yaron Har-Shai, Deputy Dean of Strategic Development at the Faculty of Medicine, and Prof. Amir Landesberg, Director of Entrepreneurship and Industrial Relations at the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, also played an active role. Edna Lazar, Business Development Manager at the MEDX Incubator, spoke during the evening and offering a variety of tips and advice on the process, from the concept stage to product development.

On the second day, once the teams had been formed and the concepts formulated, the participants visited the various departments of Rambam Healthcare Campus and Carmel and Bnei Zion hospitals. “This is an amazing experience that we do not have in our engineering studies” said Yonatan, a member of LaborLane. “You walk around the hospital and learn from the doctors about problems that can be solved by technological means.”

On the last day, the final 11 ideas were presented to the judges, including EasyVisit – a navigation compass and information system for patients in a hospital emergency room; RedFlag and Digitest – methods for relatively friendly gastrointestinal examination and colorectal cancer diagnosis; DentUS – a unique combination of ultrasound and acid for root canal treatment; TipOff – an ear examination for children with earwax buildup; Heart ‘n’ Sole – daily self-monitoring of heart failure; and MamaRoo – a sensor belt that learns the mother’s heart rate and conveys the sensation to the baby in the mother’s absence.

The winning team, Ophek VR, developed a system for eye examinations for children using virtual reality and an image analysis algorithm. The system was born from the personal experience of one of the team members, Igor Weiner, a medical student who works as an intern in Rambam’s Department of Ophthalmology. “We never imagined that we’d win,” he said, “We came for the experience.”

Second place went to Soundfit – a product that will enable a radiologist to hear in real time what patients with hearing problems hear, for optimal and fast fitting of hearing aids. The product was presented by Dalia Orbach, a hard-of-hearing graduate student at the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering.

Third place went to LaborLane – a pressure sensor belt that enables the identification of prenatal labor. The idea, which arose during a visit to the Department of Gynecology at Rambam, was designed to reduce the unnecessary use of drugs to induce labor. “I see technology as an integral part of medicine, and as a medical student it was an experience to get to know the entrepreneurial side of the competition,” said Nitzan Halamish, who participated in the team together with her husband Omer, a mechanical engineering student at the Technion.

Prof. Wayne Kaplan, Technion Executive Vice President for Research, said that judging the competition was difficult because of the high quality of the products. He said: “We saw promising ideas that aroused great enthusiasm. The Technion as a research institute believes that science is the future and without it there will be no technology 10 years from now. We must invest in human resources because the State of Israel does not have oil and water resources. Our goal is to provide researchers and students with tools for creating an industry with ideas from researchers and students, through processes such as BizTEC and accelerators such as AMIT and The Drive.”

Prof. Kaplan’s colleagues on the judging panel were Mor Research Applications Ltd CEO Pini Ben-Elazar; entrepreneur and physician Dr. Dalia Megiddo; Yael Wiesel, founder and CEO of the startup Zikit; Gsap Ltd founder Dr. Sigalit Ariely Portnoy; Dr. Orna Blondheim, Director of Haemek Medical Center in Afula; and Prof. Amir Landesberg, outgoing Dean of the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering.

This year, the conference was organized by medical students Shirel Levanon, a fourth year student at the Faculty of Medicine, and Guy Barshadsky, who participated in the conference last year. The two follow in the footsteps of Bar Rinot and Yuval Barak, who brought the competition to the Technion in 2013.

The Strage Foundation and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev are pleased to announce this year’s winner of the Strage-BGU Award for Excellence in  Environmental Sciences: Prof. Matthew Suss of the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology

The Award is given for the article: “Water desalination via capacitive deionization: what is it and what can we expect from it?”, published in the journal Energy and Environmental Science.

The winning article critically reviews and evaluates the current state-of-the-art of Capacitive Deionization (CDI) technology and provides definitions and performance metric nomenclature in an effort to unify the fast-growing CDI community. It provides an outlook on the emerging trends in CDI and proposes future research and development directions.

The Strage Foundation and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev founded the Strage-BGU Award for Excellence in Environmental Sciences.

The award, of $5,000, is granted to israeli scientists and environmental practitioners for an outstanding and influential publication (a paper in a peer-reviewed journal) in any of the diverse fields of environmental sciences (e.g., ecology, hydrology, sustainability, environmental economics, environmental engineering, environmental education, environmental epidemiology) published in the in the past year. Special emphasis is given to the paper’s potential to make a long-term impact on protecting our environment and ecosystem.

The Award committee:

Prof. Orit Ben-Zvi Assaraf, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Prof. Asher Brenner, Faculty of Engineering Sciences

Dr. Rachel Golan, Faculty of Health Sciences

Dr. Yodan Rofè, Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research

Dr. Anat Tchetchik, Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business & Management

Prof. Yaron Ziv, Faculty of Natural Sciences (Chairperson)

An Israeli – Japanese conference on regenerative medicine and medical uses of stem cells was held at the Technion on Tuesday, March 14th.  The conference took place in the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and was aimed at strengthening the relations between the Technion and Kyoto University.

The conference opened with a lecture by Professor Kenji Osafune from the CiRA Center of Kyoto University.  Professor Osafune, who completed his PhD In medicine at Kyoto University and his post-doctorate at Harvard, explained that this was his first visit to the Technion and that he hoped the conference would bring about cooperation between the Technion and Kyoto University.

More than a quarter of a million people in Japan are currently on dialysis, and the total cost of treating chronic kidney diseases in Japan amounts to 13 million dollars annually. Professor Osafune is therefore developing methods for growing tissues from pluripotent stem cells, or hiPSCs.  This approach involves the production of mature tissues from embryonic stem cells derived from available mature cells in the patient’s body such as skin cells.  In other words, cells that are taken from the patient’s body are transformed into embryonic stem cells that can potentially transdifferentiate into any type of tissue.  Professor Osafune is transforming these cells into kidney cells that can be transplanted.  Since the donor and recipient are the same person, this approach does not result in rejection of the cells.  Professor Osafune explained:  “We can currently produce a few cells, and soon we will be able to produce tissue.  My dream is to produce in the laboratory an entire kidney that can be transplanted.”   

Professor Lior Gepstein of the Technion explained that the Technion is a leader in research in the field of hiPSCs, and that this area could provide common ground for ties with Kyoto University. Professor Gepstein, a faculty member of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine in the Technion and Director of the Cardiology Department at Rambam Health Care Campus, presented before Professor Osafune and the other conference participants the latest developments from his laboratory in the field of cardiac rehabilitation. His work is also based on the hiPSCs approach in which body cells are transformed into embryonic stem cells from which heart cells are produced.

The heart is an organ in which cells do not regenerate if the heart is damaged, and an incident such as a myocardial infarction is liable to destroy a billion cells – a quarter of the heart’s total cell population.  Most of the technologies that Professor Gepstein is developing are based upon the following process: Available cells, such as skin cells, are taken from the patient. These cells are transformed in the laboratory into unique stem cells known as induced stem cells. These cells are used to produce the designated heart cells that are required (myocardial cells, pacemaker cells etc.), which are then transplanted in the patient’s heart.  Since these heart cells come from the patient, the method eliminates the problem of organ rejection that is characteristic of transplants.  Professor Gepstein has successfully demonstrated this technique in several channels, including transplanting pacemaker cells in patients suffering from cardiac arrhythmias and transplanting atrial tissue to treat patients with ventricular fibrillation. This approach, which is based on research that earned the Japanese researcher Shinya Yamanaka a Nobel Prize, holds immense potential from the standpoint of treatment as well as cardiac research.  One of the latest developments in Gepstein’s laboratory is synchronization of cardiac rhythm using light to control cardiac cells (optogenetics).  

Other researchers from the Technion, including Dr. Yuval Avni, Professor Ofer Binah, Professor Shulamit Levenberg, and Assistant-Professor Ruby Shalom- Feuerstein, also presented their research at the conference.    

Technion researchers have helped the Ministry of Environmental Protection reduce fuel leaks into the ground by tens of thousands of cubic meters. This represents a dramatic reduction of the health risk inherent in the seepage of fuel into groundwater.

Fuel is an essential resource for the existence of modern life, yet it is also a dangerous poison; its penetration into the body can be hazardous to health in various ways, including cancer and damage to the nervous system, the immune system, fertility, the liver, kidneys and red blood cells. Therefore, Israel, like other countries, has set limits on the quantity of fuel components in drinking water.

Fuel components reach drinking water as a result of leaks from damaged pipes and fuel tanks. Fuel seeping into the soil and groundwater (aquifer) is liable to reach the human body not only from drinking water but also from the inhalation of fuel vapor in the soil and from contact with contaminated soil. Benzene, one of the hazardous materials in fuel, does not decompose quickly and is liable to migrate in the soil up to a distance of a few dozen meters, thereby reaching open public spaces and even private gardens.  

Because of these risks, the Ministry of Environmental Protection promulgated the Water Regulations in 1997, which focus on the prevention of water pollution by fuel. In addition, the Ministry contacted experts from the Davidson Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management at the Technion, requesting the following services: monitoring the impermeability of the underground infrastructure (fuel tanks and pipes) at gas stations and ensuring that they are in good condition, monitoring the repair and replacement of facilities and devices found to be leaking, and monitoring and providing engineering solutions with regard to the various testing methods. Indeed, over the past 16 years, following the implementation of the Technion experts’ recommendations, there has been a dramatic reduction in the total volume of fuel leaks in Israel, mostly leaks from gas stations. The Ministry estimated that thanks to these measures, the total leakage was reduced by 3,500 cubic meters per year at the very least (over the past 12 years), thanks to the monitoring and servicing of underground tanks and underground pipes at gas stations. In other words, within 12 years, leaks were reduced by a total of more than 42,000 cubic meters.

The Technion research team, whose members include Prof. Dov Ingman (team leader), Dr. Chaim Michlin, and Ms. Yelena Leschenko, recently submitted a final report reviewing the developments over the past 16 years. According to the findings, despite the considerable improvement there are still leaks that jeopardize the soil and groundwater. Therefore, the researchers recommend expanding the activity to include the national fuel pipeline and particularly large overhead tanks.

The monitoring system developed at the Technion includes fuel leakage monitoring, data collection and analysis, monitoring the reliability and integrity of tanks and pipelines, and employing statistical means to predict future defects in the infrastructure. The ongoing study has already led to the publication of eight articles in professional journals, and the information accumulated is already being used in courses taught by Dr. Michlin (Reliability Management and Reliability Engineering) at the Technion, and in other studies conducted by the research team. Inter alia, innovative testing methods developed on the basis of the study as part of Ofer Shaham’s doctoral work have been implemented in the national standard, and an international committee is currently deliberating the implementation of the methods in the ISO (International Standard Organization) standards.

Now, in light of the above interim study and in preparation for the expansion of the study in the years ahead, the Ministry of Environmental Protection sent a letter to Prof. Wayne Kaplan, Executive Vice President for Research at the Technion. The letter, signed by Dr. Arie Pistiner, the official in charge of the prevention of water pollution from fuel, stated that: “The work done so far by the Technion team has been very helpful to our Ministry in promoting the issue of preventing leaks from fuel pipelines and tanks into soil and groundwater, and has contributed greatly to environmental protection in Israel.”

Dr. Pistiner, an alumnus of the Technion Faculty of Civil And Environmental Engineering, did his doctorate on precisely this subject: Migration of Fuel Pollutants in Groundwater.  

The study was supported in its early stages by the Chief Scientist of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, and later by the Division of Industrial Waste, Fuel and Polluted Soil at the Ministry.