An international group of researchers from the United States, the Technion, Italy and Greece presents a new explanation for the emission of energy and winds from black holes.
Nature Astronomy recently published a new model, which explains the typical phenomena surrounding black holes: plasmatic outflows (winds). The article has been submitted by researchers from the US, Israel, Italy, and Greece.
Prof. Ehud Behar
The existence of black holes as a consequence of enormous gravity that prevents light from escaping had already been sighted at the end of the 18th century by the clergyman and philosopher John Mitchell and the mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace. But it was only Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity laid an ordered foundation for the phenomenon. At the beginning of the 20th century the physicist Karl Schwarzschild discovered the solution for the black hole in Einstein’s equations, though Einstein himself refused to believe in the existence of black holes in nature. Since then, there have been dramatic developments in this area, particularly a burgeoning of observable, clear and conclusive evidence for the existence of black holes.
One of the surprising phenomena observed in black holes is the strong winds that blow in their vicinity. The nature of these winds and the power, which drives them are explained in many ways, one of which describes them as a result of strong and regulated magnetic fields. The present article shows that the model of magnetic winds explains not only winds from super-massive black holes at the centers of galaxies, but also winds deriving from small black holes, whose mass resembles that of stars.
In popular culture, black holes are described as all-consuming creatures: anything that approaches them, even light, is swallowed up and gone forever. Although that is their nature, the astrophysical truth is more complex. It turns out that black holes do not only swallow anything and everything in their path, but also emit radiation and plasmatic winds (physical plasma is hot gas whose electrons have been torn out of their atoms). Plasmatic winds, which can travel at speeds ranging from 100 km per second to a fraction of the speed of light (over 30,000 km per second), dramatically affect the surroundings of the black hole and the entire galaxy.
What are black holes?
Black holes are created when a relatively heavy star (a few solar masses) collapses into itself as a result of the loss of its nuclear fuel and the prevailing of self gravity. Remaining at the end of this collapse is a “singularity” – a tiny dot of tremendous mass. This gluttonous being feeds on gas which it pulls from neighboring stars, and since even the light it swallows cannot escape it, it is called “a black hole”.
Separating the black hole from its surroundings is a [nearly] spherical boundary called an “event horizon”. Anything that passes the event horizon towards the center of the black hole is indeed swallowed forever, yet outside the event horizon, part of the “stolen gas” taken from the neighboring stars moves inward in the shape of a disk. This “accretion disk” emits a large quantity of light, especially in the form of X-rays – which is why these systems are sometimes called X-Ray-Binaries – as well as strong plasmatic winds and jet streams. This process in giant black holes at the centers of galaxies shapes the largest structures in the universe – galaxies and galaxy clusters – and generates a significant part of the ionizing radiation in the universe.
In an article that is currently being published by Prof. Ehud Behar from the Technion’s Faculty of Physics, along with Prof. Keigo Fukumura from James Madison University and their associates, the researchers present evidence found by observation that the magnetic field created around the black hole fills a crucial role in the creation of the accretion disk and the winds it diffuses. The article attributes the magnetic-hydrodynamic model developed by the researchers to all black holes, including massive ones. The fact that the same description matches black holes of different sizes, be it one solar mass or billions of solar masses, attests to a general fundamental magnetic structure which exists around black holes.
The model described in the article has been examined in great detail by mapping the absorption spectrum of X-rays emitted by various atoms found in the plasmatic wind. Prof. Behar, who led the study’s spectroscopic analysis, explains that “absorption spectroscopy, which we map according to its kinetic features (shift to blue), provides us with extensive, in-depth physical properties regarding the composition of the wind and the energy surrounding the black hole. These allow us to quantitatively map the density of the wind, its level of ionization, its energy and its speed. The fact that a relatively simple model of magnetic wind describes the observed wind, with all its complexity, and better than any other outflow theory makes it a highly successful model.”
In summary, the article published in Nature Astronomy sheds light on the “behavior” of black holes, and particularly on the mechanisms of their influence on their surroundings. The magnetic hydrodynamic model is found to be valid for black holes in every size-scale – from 10M☉ to 109M☉ (M☉ = solar mass).
Figure 1: Illustration of wind blowing from accretion disk in GRO J1655-40 (Credit: NASA/CXC/A.HOBART) Mass moves from a neighboring star to the black hole in the accretion disk which emits X-rays. During the accretion towards the black hole some of the mass is lost in the wind. The model developed by Fukumura, Behar, and others in the past explains these processes by a magnetic model. Credit: “An artist’s impression of the “magnetically-driven disk-wind made by K. Fukumura using the BINSIM visualization code by R. Hynes (LSU)”
Researchers from the Technion Computer Science Department introduce unprecedented theoretical foundation to one of the hottest scientific fields today – deep learning
In a recent article, Prof. Elad and his PhD students, Vardan Papyan and Yaniv Romano introduce a broad theory explaining many of the important aspects of multi-layered neural networks, which are the essence of deep learning.
Initial seed ideas in the 1940s and 1950s, elementary applications in the 1960s, promising signs in the 1980s, a massive decline and stagnation in the 1990s, followed by dramatic awakening development in the past decade. This, in a nutshell, is the story of one of the hottest scientific fields in data sciences – neural networks, and more specifically, deep learning.
Deep learning fascinates major companies including Google, Facebook, Microsoft, LinkedIn, IBM and Mobileye. According to Technion Professor Michael Elad, this area came to life in the past decade following a series of impressive breakthroughs. However, “while empirical research charged full speed ahead and made surprising achievements, the required theoretical analysis trailed behind and has not, until now, managed to catch up with the rapid development in the field. Now I am happy to announce that we have highly significant results in this area that close this gap.”
In a recent article, Prof. Elad and his PhD students, Vardan Papyan and Yaniv Romano, present, for the first time, a broad theory that explains many of the important aspects of multi-layered neural networks, which are the essence of deep learning.
“One could say that up to now, we have been working with a black box called a neural network,” Elad explains. “This box has been serving us very well , but no one was able to identify the reasons and conditions for its success. In our study, we managed to open it up, analyze it and provide a theoretical explanation for the origins of its success. Now, armed with this new perspective, we can answer fundamental questions such as failure modes in this system and ways to overcome them. We believe that the proposed analysis will lead to major breakthroughs in the coming few years.”
But first a brief background explanation.
*(Multi-layered) Neural Networks
Convolutional neural networks, and more broadly, multi-layered neural networks, pose an engineering approach that provides the computer with a potential for learning that brings it close to human reasoning. Ray Kurzweil, Google’s chief futurist in this field, believes that by 2029 computerized systems will be able to demonstrate not only impressive cognitive abilities, but even genuine emotional intelligence, such as understanding a sense of humor and human emotions. Deloitte has reported that the field of deep learning is growing at a dizzying rate of 25% per year, and is expected to become a 43 billion USD industry per year by 2020.
Neural networks, mainly those with a feed-forward structure that are currently at the forefront of research in the fields of machine learning and artificial intelligence, are systems that perform rapid, efficient and accurate cataloging of data. To some extent, these artificial systems are reminiscent of the human brain and, like the brain, they are made up of layers of neurons interconnected by synapses. The first layer of the network receives the input and “filters” it for the second, deeper layer, which performs additional filtering, and so on and so forth. Thus the information is diffused through a deep and intricate artificial network, at the end of which the desired output is obtained.
If, for example, the task is to identify faces, the first layers will take the initial information and extract basic features such as the boundaries between the different areas in the face image; the next layers will identify more specific elements such as eyebrows, pupils and eyelids; while the deeper layers of the network will identify more complex parts of the face, such as the eyes; the end result will be the identification of a particular face, i.e., of a specific person. “Obviously the process is far more complex, but this is the principle: each layer is a sort of filter that transmits processed information to the next layer at an increasing level of abstraction. In this context, the term ‘deep learning’ refers to the multiple layers in the neural network, a structure that has been empirically found to be especially effective for identification tasks.
The hierarchical structure of these networks enables them to analyze complex information, identify patterns in this information, categorize it, and more. Their greatness lies in the fact that they can learn from examples, i.e. if we feed them millions of tagged images of people, cats, dogs and trees, the network can learn to identify the various categories in new images, and do so at unprecedented levels of accuracy, in comparison with previous approaches in machine learning.”
The first artificial neural network was presented by McCulloch and Pitts in 1943. In the 1960s, Frank Rosenblatt from Cornell University introduced the first learning algorithm for which convergence could be proven. In the 1980s, important empirical achievements were added to this development.
It was clear to all the scientists engaged in this field in those years that there is a great potential here, but they were utterly discouraged by the many failures and the field went into a long period of hibernation. Then, less than a decade ago, there was a great revival. Why? “Because of the dramatic surge in computing capabilities, making it possible to run more daring algorithms on far more data. Suddenly, these networks succeeded in highly complex tasks: identifying handwritten digits (with accuracy of 99% and above), identifying emotions such as sadness, humor and anger in a given text and more.” One of the key figures in this revival was Yann LeCun, a professor from NYU who insisted on studying these networks, even at times when the task seemed hopeless. Prof. LeCun, together with Prof. Geoffrey Hinton and Prof. Yoshua Bengio from Canada, are the founding fathers of this revolutionary technology.
Real Time Translation
In November 2012, Rick Rashid, director of research at Microsoft, introduced the simultaneous translation system developed by the company on the basis of deep learning. At a lecture in China, Rashid spoke in English and his words underwent a computerized process of translation, so that the Chinese audience would hear the lecture in their own language in real time. The mistakes in the process were few – one mistake per 14 words on average. This is in comparison with a rate of 1:4, which was considered acceptable and even successful several years earlier. This translation process is used today by Skype, among others, and in Microsoft’s various products.
Beating the World Champion
Google did not sit idly by. It recruited the best minds in the field, including the aforementioned Geoffrey Hinton, and has actually become one of the leading research centers in this regard. The Google Brain project was established on a system of unprecedented size and power, based on 16,000 computer cores producing around 100 trillion inter-neuronal interactions. This project, which was established for the purpose of image content analysis, quickly spread to the rest of the technologies used by Google. Google’s AlphaGo system, which is based on a convolutional neural network, managed to beat the world champion at the game of Go. The young Facebook, with the help of the aforementioned Yann LeCun, has already made significant inroads into the field of deep learning, with extremely impressive achievements such as identifying people in photos. The objective, according to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is to create computerized systems that will be superior to human beings in terms of vision, hearing, language and thinking.
Today, no one doubts that deep learning is a dramatic revolution when it comes to speed of calculation and processing huge amounts of data with a high level of accuracy. Moreover, the applications of this revolution are already being used in a huge variety of areas: encryption, intelligence, autonomous vehicles (Mobileye’s solution is based on this technology), object recognition in stills and video, speech recognition and more.
Back to the Foundations
Surprisingly enough, however, the great progress described above has not included a basic theoretical understanding that explains the source of these networks’ effectiveness. Theory, as in many other cases in the history of technology, has lagged behind practice.
This is where Prof. Elad’s group enters the picture, with a new article that presents a basic and in-depth theoretical explanation for deep learning. The people responsible for the discovery are Prof. Elad and his three doctoral students: Vardan Papyan, Jeremias Sulam and Yaniv Romano. Surprisingly, this team came to this field almost by accident, from research in a different arena: sparse representations. Sparse representations are a universal information model that describes data as molecules formed from the combination of a small number of atoms (hence the term ‘sparse’). This model has been tremendously successful over the past two decades and has led to significant breakthroughs in signal and image processing, machine learning, and other fields.
So, how does this model relates to deep neural networks? It turns out that the principle of sparseness continues to play a major role, and even more so in this case. “Simply put, in our study we propose a hierarchical mathematical model for the representation of the treated information, whereby atoms are connected to each other and form molecules, just as before, except that now the assembly process continues: molecules form cells, cells form tissues, which in turn form organs and, in the end, the complete body – a body of information – is formed. The neural network’s job is to break up the complete information into its components in order to understand the data and its origin.
Papyan and Sulam created the initial infrastructure in two articles completed in June 2016, while in the follow-up work Papyan and Romano diverted the discussion to deep learning and neural networks. The final article, as noted, puts forward the theoretical infrastructure that explains the operating principles of deep neural networks and their success in learning tasks.
“We can illustrate the significance of our discovery using an analogy to the world of physics,” says Prof. Elad. “Imagine an astrophysicist who monitors the movement of celestial objects in search of the trajectories of stars. To explain these trajectories, and even predict them, he will define a specific mathematical model. In order for the model to be in line with reality, he will find that it is necessary to add complementary elements to it – black holes and antimatter, which will be investigated later using experimental tools.
“We took the same path: We started from the real scenario of data being processed by a multi-layered neural network, and formulated a mathematical model for the data to be processed. This model enabled us to show that one possible way to decompose the data into its building blocks is the feed-forward neural network, but this could now be accompanied by an accurate prediction of its performance. Here, however, and unlike the astrophysical analogy, we can not only analyze and predict reality but also improve the studied systems, since they are under our control.”
Prof. Elad’s emphasizes that “our expertise in this context is related to handling signals and images, but the theoretical paradigm that we present in the article could be relevant to any field, from cyberspace to autonomous navigation, from deciphering emotion in a text to speech recognition. The field of deep learning has made huge advances even without us, but the theoretical infrastructure that we are providing here closes much of the enormous gap between theory and practice that existed in this field, and I have no doubt that our work will provide a huge boost to the practical aspects of deep learning.”
About the Doctoral Students
When Vardan Papyan completed his master’s degree, supervised by Prof. Elad, he didn’t intend to continue studying towards a PhD. However, during the final MSc exam, the examiners determined that his work was almost a complete doctoral thesis. After consulting with the Dean of the Computer Science Faculty and the Dean of the Technion’s Graduate School, it was decided to admit him to the direct Ph.D. track with the understanding that he would complete his doctorate within less than a year.
Yaniv Romano, a student in the direct Ph.D. track, has already won several prestigious awards. In the summer of 2015, he spent several months as an intern at Google Mountain View, USA, and left an unforgettable impression with his original solution to the single-image super-resolution problem, which is being considered for several of Google’s products.
GOVERNOR CUOMO ANNOUNCES GROUNDBREAKING PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN NEW YORK GENOME CENTER & TECHNION-ISRAEL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY TO ACCELERATE ADVANCEMENTS IN LIFE SCIENCES
Partnership Announced Following New York State-Israel Economic Development Working Lunch with Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat and Israeli business leaders
Brings Together Global Leaders to Accelerate Medical Research, Advanced Genomics, Treatments and Clinical Applications
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo
Following a New York State-Israel Economic Development working lunch with Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat and Israeli business leaders at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced a groundbreaking new partnership between the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and the New York Genome Center. Harnessing the entrepreneurial experience of Technion and the world-class research capacity of the Genome Center, this collaboration will bring together global leaders to accelerate biomedical research, advanced genomics, treatments and clinical applications, and foster the commercialization and job creation capacities of the life sciences industry.
Both the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and the New York Genome Center have significant expertise in bioinformatics and computational biology. The New York Genome Center uses this expertise to advance discovery in genomics. Through collaboration with leading scientists at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, genomics research will be accelerated in novel ways, which will benefit the broader community and provide economic benefits for New York and Israel.
“New York and Israel share an unbreakable bond and through this innovative partnership we are further strengthening our economic ties and cementing our common future,” Governor Cuomo said. “The Empire State is leading the way in groundbreaking life sciences research, and by bringing together these two industry titans, we are positioning New York at the forefront of the next generation of medical research and discovery.”
Through this collaboration, the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology will share its entrepreneurial expertise and demonstrated capacity to translate research into commercially successful life science applications. In turn, the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology will have the opportunity to advance the groundbreaking research taking place at the Genome Center. Together, the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and the Genome Center will advance the field of genomics and personalized medicine, with the goal of bringing therapeutic benefits to the world and enhancing the status of both Israel and New York as global leaders in the life sciences.
“The New York Genome Center prizes entrepreneurial spirit, innovation and discovery, and the Technion has built its significant success on these principles. We look forward to forging new paths in genomic research through this collaboration, leveraging the unique strengths of each institution to advance discovery in genomics. We are grateful to Governor Cuomo for his continued leadership in advancing the work of life sciences organizations in New York and internationally, and we thank the Partnership for New York City for its commitment to the sector,” said Cheryl A. Moore, President and COO of the New York Genome Center.
“Five years ago we partnered with Cornell University to establish the Jacobs Institute that aims to advance the technology sector in NYC. Now, we are thrilled to partner with New York Genome Center and this time our goal is even broader – to advance genomics research that will benefit people worldwide. Technion is proud to partake with the State of New York in widening the bridge that connects Israel and the US and we are grateful to Governor Cuomo for his leadership and foresight in strengthening the relations between our people,” said Professor Peretz Lavie, President of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.
The New York Genome Center serves as a state-of-the-art hub for genome sequencing, analytics, bioinformatics, high-performance computing, and research and connects, services, and collaborates with academic, research, and medical institutions, as well as pharmaceutical, biotech, and IT companies. The New York Genome Center was created by twelve of America’s leading medical research institutions with a goal of translating genomic research into development of new treatments, therapies and therapeutics against human disease.
The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology Integrated Cancer Center advances the discovery of new diagnostic tools and cancer treatments. Through the interaction of researchers in all areas of science, from engineers and clinicians to oncologists, basic scientific discoveries are translated into life saving treatments. This innovative, multidisciplinary approach, when partnered with the New York Genome Center, has the potential to dramatically advance cancer genomic research and the application of the knowledge to the betterment of humankind.
This partnership builds on New York’s position at the forefront of life sciences research. In December 2016 Governor Cuomo announced a new $650 million initiative to spur the growth of a new, world-class life science research cluster in New York, as well as expand the state’s ability to commercialize this research and grow the economy. This multi-faceted initiative includes $250 million in tax incentives for new and existing life science companies, $200 million in state capital grants to support investment in wet-lab and innovation space, $100 million in investment capital for early stage life science initiatives, with an additional match of at least $100 million for operating support from private sector partnerships.
The Life Science sector encompasses the fields of biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, biomedical technologies, life systems technologies, and includes organizations and institutions that devote the majority of their efforts to the various stages of research, development, technology transfer and commercialization. Every day, firms in this sector are developing new medical and pharmaceutical breakthroughs that have the potential to save lives, whether through new therapies or the early detection of diseases like autism and cancer. These firms are also making significant advancements in the realms of agriculture and environmental biotechnologies, helping create a cleaner and more sustainable future.
Under Governor Cuomo’s leadership, New York has made unprecedented investments in the knowledge economy. Over the past five years, New York’s Centers for Advanced Technology and Centers of Excellence programs helped create or retain more than 22,000 jobs and generate approximately $4.9 billion in economic impact. Additionally, the Governor’s Innovation Hot Spots and New York State Certified Business Incubators programs, which provide mentorship, shared facilities and product development services to early-stage companies, have generated over $177 million in economic impact in their first year. New York Manufacturing Extension Partnership, which assists small manufacturers to design and implement product and process innovation, helped create or retain over 20,000 jobs and generated nearly $3.4 billion in economic impact.
Acting through the pioneering programs of the New York State Department of Health’s Wadsworth Center Laboratory, Governor Cuomo has also invested more than $216 million to further basic, applied, translational or other research and development activities that will advance scientific discoveries in fields related to stem cell biology through the New York State Stem Cell Science program; $5.5 million to support breast cancer research studies and education projects through the Health Research and Science Board program; and $24 million in research grants to find a cure for spinal cord injuries through the Spinal Cord Injury Research Board.
Technion researchers have developed a new method for the production of hydrogen from water using solar energy. The new method will make it possible to produce the hydrogen in a centralized manner far from the solar farm, cost-effectively, safely and efficiently.
Technion-Israel Institute of Technology researchers have developed a new approach to the production of hydrogen from water using solar energy. In findings published yesterday in Nature Materials, the researchers explain that this approach will make it possible to produce hydrogen in a centralized manner at the point of sale (for example, at a gas station for electric cars fueled by hydrogen) located far from the solar farm. The new technology is expected to significantly reduce the cost of producing the hydrogen and shipping it to the customer.
The study was led by Avigail Landman, a doctoral student in the Nancy & Stephen Grand Technion Energy Program (GTEP), and Dr. Hen Dotan from the Electrochemical Materials & Devices Lab, along with Dr. Gennady Shter from the Faculty of Chemical Engineering. Ms. Landman is working on her doctorate under the guidance of Prof. Avner Rothschild from the Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering, and Prof. Gideon Grader, Dean of the Faculty of Chemical Engineering.
The study published in Nature Materials was supported by the Israeli Centers of Research Excellence (I-CORE) for Solar Fuel Research (funded by the Planning and Budgeting Committee of the Council for Higher Education of Israel), the Ministry of National Infrastructures, Energy and Water, the European Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU), the Grand Technion Energy Program (GTEP), donor Ed Satell and the Adelis Foundation.
Hydrogen is considered one of the most promising energy carriers for vehicles and various other uses because of its salient advantages:
Hydrogen can be produced from water, and therefore production does not depend on access to non-renewable natural resources.
Using hydrogen fuel would reduce the dependence on fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas, whose availability depends on geographical, political and other factors, and would increase the energy available to the earth’s population.
Unlike diesel and gasoline engines that emit considerable pollution into the air, the only byproduct of hydrogen fuel utilization is water.
Because of the advantages of hydrogen fuel, many countries – led by Japan, Germany and the United States – are investing vast sums of money in programs for the development of environmentally friendly (“green”) technologies for the production of hydrogen. Most hydrogen is currently produced from natural gas in a process that emits carbon dioxide into the air, but it is also possible to produce hydrogen from water by splitting the water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen in a process called electrolysis. However, since electricity production itself is an expensive and polluting process, researchers at the Technion and around the world are developing a photoelectrochemical (PEC) cell that utilizes solar energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen directly, without the need for external power source.
The main challenges in the development of PEC solar farms for the production of hydrogen are 1.) keeping the hydrogen and the oxygen separate from each other, 2.) collecting the hydrogen from millions of PEC cells, and 3.) transporting the hydrogen to the point of sale. The Technion team solved these challenges by developing a new method for PEC water splitting. With this method, the hydrogen and oxygen are formed in two separate cells – one that produces hydrogen, and another that produces oxygen. This is in contrast to the conventional method, in which the hydrogen and oxygen are produced within the same cell, and separated by a thin membrane that prevents them from intermixing and forming a flammable and explosive mixture.
The new process allows geographic separation between the solar farm consisting of millions of PEC cells that produce oxygen exclusively, and the site where the hydrogen is produced in a centralized, cost-effective and efficient manner. They accomplished this with a pair of auxiliary electrodes made of nickel hydroxide, an inexpensive material used in rechargeable batteries, and a metal wire connecting them.
“In the present article, we describe a new method for producing hydrogen through the physical separation of hydrogen production and oxygen production,” says Ms. Landman. “According to our cost estimate, our method could successfully compete with existing water splitting methods and serve as a cheap and safe platform for the production of hydrogen.”
The first diagram shows a conventional PEC device, with a membrane separating the two products (oxygen on the right, hydrogen on the left).
The second diagram shows the technology developed at the Technion: the oxygen and hydrogen are produced and stored in completely separate cells. According to Ms. Landman, one of the electrodes (anode) can be replaced by a light sensitive electrode (photo-anode), so that the conversion of water and solar energy into hydrogen fuel and oxygen will be carried out directly in each compartment simultaneously.
But that’s not all. As stated, the vision of the Technion researchers is geographic separation between the sites where the oxygen and hydrogen are produced: at one site, there will be a solar farm that will collect the sun’s energy and produce oxygen, while hydrogen is produced in a centralized manner at another site, miles away. Thus, instead of transporting compressed hydrogen from the production site to the sales point, it will only be necessary to swap the auxiliary electrodes between the two sites. Economic calculations performed in collaboration with research fellows from Evonik Creavis GmbH and the Institute of Solar Research at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), indicate the potential for significant savings in the setup and operating costs of hydrogen production.
In October, Ms. Landman won first place in the energy category in the Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition held in Australia. At the competition, held on the initiative of the University of Queensland, participants are required to present groundbreaking research in just three minutes. In her lecture, presented in the following link, Ms. Landman briefly presents the current study: https://player.vimeo.com/video/187919440
The method developed at the Technion for separating hydrogen production and oxygen production was the basis for the development of new two-stage electrolysis technology. This technology, which was developed by Dr. Hen Dotan, enables hydrogen production at high pressure and with unprecedented efficiency, thus significantly reducing hydrogen production costs. The new technology is now in its pre-industrial development stage.
Assistant Professor Daphne Weihs from the Technion Faculty of Biomedical Engineering has developed a method for estimating the metastatic potential of tumors. Since 90% of cancer deaths are due to metastases, their early prediction can improve the patient’s chances of survival
A research approach developed at the Technion will allow early and rapid prediction of metastasis formation. This information will enable physicians to treat these metastases in their early stages of formation, thereby improving the patient’s chances of survival.
Assistant Professor Daphne Weihs
The aforementioned approach, which was first presented in 2013 and whose development has continued in several directions since then, is presented in three papers published recently by Assistant Professor Daphne Weihs from the Technion Faculty of Biomedical Engineering. Professor Weihs, head of the Mechanobiology of Cancer and Wounds Lab, is studying the mechanical forces exerted on the body tissues by metastatic cells – cells with high metastatic potential that are highly invasiveness. The study was conducted using synthetic gel surfaces produced in Professor Weihs’s lab, which simulate the rigidity of soft tissues in the body. The goal: to quantify the metastatic potential and metastatic risk of cancer cells using the mechanical interactions of the cells with the gel to rapidly. Lab experiments test the forces that such cells exert on these synthetic surfaces to indent and penetrate them.
Contrary to the treatment of primary tumors, which is now performed very efficiently, the treatment of metastases is complex and challenging. These metastases are sent to healthy organs via the lymphatic system and blood vessels, and it is difficult to identify them in their initial stages of development. When they are identified, usually at the point where they are already large and diffuse, medical treatment is very complicated. This is why metastases are responsible for 90% of cancer deaths.
In recent decades, various methods for identifying the metastatic potential of cells have been developed, based primarily on genetic and biological markers. The disadvantage of these measures is that they are expensive, take a long time and are not applicable to cancers such as pancreatic cancer, for which identifying markers have not yet been determined. In fact, up to now, no method has been presented that is effective, precise and general enough for quantifying the metastatic potential, an essential step towards predicting the formation of metastases.
In her research, Professor Weihs found that changes in the cell’s structure and its ability to exert a mechanical force may provide this essential information in a precise and quantitative way. This method, which is independent of the specific genetics of the tumor, enables measurement that is rapid (within a hew hours) and customized to the patient.
The synthetic gel surfaces produced at Professor Weihs’s lab have stiffness that is similar to soft tissuesstiffness, and therefore they can be used to study the conditions under which cells exert force on the tissue that they attempt to penetrate. This method makes it possible to quantify the degree of force that they exert, the resulting penetration depths, and the difference in the behavior of different types of cells. “The cancer cell strives to penetrate normal tissue and take over the space inside it,” explains Assistant Professor Weihs, “so the cancer cells adapt and develop structural flexibility that enables them to soften or stiffen in order to squeeze or push through narrow areas.”
Based on the characteristics and structure of the healthy tissue, the cancer cells alter their own features, changing shape, internal structure and structural rigidity. “It is interesting to note that under certain conditions the secret of cancer cells is not hardness but rather softness – cancer cells are softer and more flexible than healthy cells, and metastatic cells are even softer and more flexible. In many cases, however, the cells need to apply force to push their way through. Cancer cells adapt to changing environments quickly, and our method is based on identifying changes in them.” Three Papers
The first of the three papers was published in the journal Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology and is based on the research thesis of master’s student Sonbula Massalha. This study focused on cells that anchor themselves to their environment, but do not try to penetrate the synthetic gels produced in the lab. Massalha and Weihs observed a difference between benign and cancerous breast cells, where the latter exert greater force on the gel even though they do not try to penetrate it. These cells, although they are not yet invasive at that stage, affect the surrounding cells and can improve their ability to penetrate and invade. The phenomenon of synergy between neighboring cells is demonstrated in another paper.
The second paper was published in the journal Tissue Engineering, together with postdoc Dr. Martha Alvarez-Elizondo. This study focuses on the connection between the cell’s migratory capability and their mechanical invasiveness, which is measured in the laboratory on the gels. Principal findings: strong and aggressive is also the fastest moving. Cells belonging to sub-populations that are more capable of rapid migration are also the ones that exert more force in an attempt to penetrate the tissue or the gel. In this study Professor Weihs’s lab found that the mechanical testing method that they had developed is far more efficient and economical than conventional methods for testing these characteristics, and provides an assessment of the cells’ characteristics within a few hours.
For the third paper, published in the journal Annals of Biomedical Engineering, Prof. Weihs and doctoral student Yulia Merkher evaluated group invasion processes, which are more similar to those occurring in the body. In this study, the researchers found that cells become stronger and more invasive when they are in spatial proximity to each other, and the explanation is simple: cells that work together exert enhanced joint pressure on the tissue or aid each other in force application, thereby increasing their chances of penetrating tissue. Professor Weihs said: “With this discovery, we intend to go further and develop a tool for rapid and quantitative prediction of metastasis based on this group forcefulness allowing increased invasiveness, measurabkle using the gels, and on movement of cells in a group.”
Cancer cells, it turns out, create a different interaction with the tissue. Not only is the vertical force that they exert on it stronger, but even the adherence preceding the penetration attempts is carried out with greater force and with increased cell motility. “The cancer cell remains round, with a small area of contact, while benign cells become elongated and increase the area of contact with the tissue. It can be said that benign cells are busy solely with adherence and normal function, while a cell with metastatic potential is focused on changes in itself and its environment that will allow it to penetrate the tissue. To do so, the metastatic cell organizes itself very differently in terms of structure, and communicates in a mechanically different way with the other cells in its vicinity and with its environment. These are the clues that may help us identify such cells earlier and faster, on the basis of their mechanical characteristics. These abilities are obviously caused by genetic changes, but with the approach that we have developed, there is no need for information about the specific genetic changes.”
Currently, based on approval by the Ethics Committee that was obtained in 2015, Professor Weihs is evaluating the approach developed at her lab on tumors (not metastases) removed from patients with breast cancer, pancreatic cancer and gastric cancer, as well as tumors from patients with Ewing’s sarcoma, which is characteristic of children and adolescents. Professor Weihs explains that the study utilizes the “remains” of tumor tissues that are not needed, not even for pathology examination. “Based on the initial findings, it seems that we really are able to identify the sub-populations of metastatic cells in different cancers according to their mechanical features. Our practical goal is to develop a system which, during a biopsy or surgery, will enable the medical team to evaluate the likelihood of the presence of tumor metastases in other organs, and to estimate which organs are involved. As stated, this is a very quick test, such that within two or three hours the doctors will be able to assess the metastatic risk of the tumor and adjust the continued treatment accordingly.”
Assistant Professor Daphne Weihs earned her three degrees at the Technion Faculty of Chemical Engineering. She then did her postdoc at the Department of Pathology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In her postdoc, which was financed by NASA because of its implications for biology and medicine in space conditions, she began to study her current subject: cell mechanics, with an emphasis on cancer cell behavior. She was on the list of Israel’s 50 most influential women in 2015, published by the newspaper Lady Globes, thanks to her discoveries in the diagnosis of tumor metastasis, which represent a “breakthrough that will save lives in the future.”
Nature Communications reports a paradigm shift in functionalizing molecules by Technion researchers
Researchers at the Technion’s Schulich Faculty of Chemistry have reported a paradigm shift by functionalizing organic molecules at a very distant position of the most reactive site. The article, published in the journal Nature Communications, is co-authored by Prof. Ilan Marek, head of The Mallat Family Laboratory of Organic Chemistry, Dr. Sukhdev Singh (a postdoctoral student from India), Jeffrey Bruffaerts (a doctoral student from Belgium) and Dr. Alexandre Vasseur (a postdoctoral student from France).
The practice of constructing molecules of carbon is called organic synthesis and it is at once an exact science and a fine art. Synthetic chemists have perfected this science to the point where not only can genes and proteins can be synthesized, but also an array of complex and fascinating molecular structures can be assembled on demand and tested for various applications. Such useful compounds range from biological tools and medicines to high-value materials, computers, sophisticated machines, and useful devices.
Prof. Ilan Marek
Organic synthesis derives its power from chemical reactions, reagents, and conditions, and synthetic strategies – a field in which several leading researchers have already won the Nobel Prizes. “You could see us are molecular architects,” explains Prof. Marek, “and as any architects that have to plan constructions, we as synthetic organic chemists, are planning the construction of important molecular framework following well-established rules”. However, continues Prof. Marek “in my research group, we are building molecules in a non-classical way and our approaches are always meant to solve the most acute synthetic problems in our field coupled with efficiency and elegance.” Classically organic chemists functionalize molecules at the most reactive sites but in the present study, the research group of Prof. Marek was interested to functionalize molecules at the less reactive position by using a transfer of chemical information along the molecular backbone of the molecule. This concept of “remote functionalization” could formally open the door to synthetic transformations that were not available before to the synthetic community.
“The idea of remote functionalization was proposed several decades ago,” explains Professor Marek, “but the field was in its complete infancy due to the major synthetic problems that it generated”. Now, as stated, the group has managed to transfer chemical information from the original location of the functional group to a very remote point in the molecule, in a single process (one-pot operation) and independently of the molecular distance between the two points. Moreover, by using a strained structure in the molecular backbone, the migration of the information releases the strain and allows the creation of several chiral carbon centers (a carbon atom with four different substituents can exist in two distinct stereochemical orientations, which are related to one another as any object is to its mirror image, is called chiral carbon center), that might have far-reaching applications in the academic world, but also for chemical industries and in particular for pharmaceutical companies.
Sukhdev Singh (Left) and Jeffrey Bruffaerts
Prof. Ilan Marek was born in Israel and moved with his family to France at the age of 18 months. In 1988 he completed his doctorate at the University Pierre and Marie Curie in Paris, and after a short postdoctoral stay in Belgium, he returned to the same university as an independent researcher. In 1997, after 34 years in France, he returned to Israel and joined the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. He now heads the Mallat Family Laboratory of Organic Chemistry and holds the Sir Michael and Lady Sobell Academic Chair. Prof. Marek has won numerous awards, including the Weizmann Prize for Exact Sciences, the Israel Chemical Society Award for Excellence, the Janssen Pharmaceutica Prize for Academic Excellence, the Royal Society Chemistry organometallic Award, the Yigal Alon Fellowship, the Michael Bruno Memorial Award, the Taub Award for Academic Excellence, the ERC advanced research grant and awards for excellence in teaching, including the Yanai Prize awarded by the Technion. He is also member of the scientific advisory boards of many journals in organic chemistry.
Around 700 excelling female high-school students from all over the country visited Technion as part of the Tech Women 2017 conference, organized to encourage young women to opt for academic studies in science and engineering.
From Kiryat Shmona all the way to Ma’ale Edomim; from Kibbutz Sasa to Ashdod: around 700 excelling female high-school students visited the Technion last Thursday, in honor of the annual Tech Women 2017 conference held by the Technion on International Women’s Day on March 8th. “Studying at the Technion means making the world a better place through science and engineering,” said Prof. Orit Hazan, Dean of Undergraduate Studies, in her opening remarks.
The conference, which took place courtesy of The Rosalyn August Foundation for the Empowerment of Young Women, was designed to encourage excelling female high-school students to choose science and engineering for their academic studies.
The participants were students majoring in 5-pt. mathematics and the fields of science and technology. They met with female researchers and staff members, Technion graduates and current graduate students. They toured labs and were exposed to the various research and study subjects in the different faculties.
“You are here because you were chosen, because we are positive that your future lies here, at the Technion,” said Orly Reiss, an alumnus of the Technion’s Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, who moderated the opening ceremony. After the opening event, each student visited two of the nine hosting faculties: Electrical Engineering; Computer Science; Mechanical Engineering; Aerospace Engineering; Civil & Environmental Engineering; Chemical Engineering; Materials Science & Engineering; Chemistry; and Physics.
“In the very first graduating class of the Technion, which opened in 1924, there were 16 men and one woman,” said Prof. Peretz Lavie, President of the Technion. “Today about 37% of our undergraduates are women, and our goal is to reach 50% in all the departments. This special day is dedicated to persuading female high-school students that they belong here at the Technion and that they are able to do so. The future of the State of Israel depends on scientific and engineering knowledge, and we look forward to seeing these students here in a few years attending the Technion’s opening ceremony at the beginning of the academic year.”
Dr. Tzipi Horowitz-Kraus of the Faculty of Education in Science and Technology, said: “It is very exciting to see the future generation of female scientists of Israel.” She urged the students to approach their studies passionately and consciously. She spoke of her own brother, who was extremely intelligent but had difficulties reading, and of her decision to specialize in the field of language acquisition. Dr. Horowitz-Kraus, who is the founder of the Technion’s Educational Neuroimaging Center, shared her discoveries regarding the connection between brain development and the development of language and reading skills in infants and children. “I examine the child’s brain as he or she listens to a story, and try to understand the processes taking place and the way listening improves future reading skills.”
Sarah Nagosa, a PhD student at the Ruth & Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, discussed the topic of her dissertation: eye diseases and their treatment. Nagosa immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia at the age of three, and grew up in Kiryat Malachi. “I only first heard of the Technion when I was 17 years old, when several American donors came to visit my high school. I decided that day that this is what I want to do – to attend the Technion. Of course, I had apprehensions – what if I’m not accepted? What if I’m not smart enough? But I applied for admission and was accepted to the Faculty of Biology. The beginning wasn’t easy – I felt so small and the campus was so huge. It was hard for me to find common ground with the rest of the students. But I slowly realized that we all had the same apprehensions, and I suddenly found the courage to ask questions. Today, working on my research and serving as a teaching assistant at the same time, I can tell you that while the Technion might be tough academically, it is “soft” and simple in every other way: the dorms, tutoring and any other form of assistance. The difficulties have not disappeared, but I’ve learned to overcome them, knowing that my ultimate goal is worth it.”
Aldana Grichener, who is now publishing her first scientific article, began studying at the Technion in the Rothschild Scholars Technion Excellence Program around 18 months ago.
Grichener, 21, was born in Argentina and immigrated to Israel with her family as a baby. She was accepted into the MOFET (mathematics, physics and community culture) program at Makif Zayin comprehensive high school in Ashdod, and at the early age of 15 she decided to attend the Technion, “because scientific research attracted me and I knew that the Technion is the best place for it.” Three days after her discharge from the IDF she began her studies at the Technion, and in her first semester she attended a course taught by Prof. Noam Soker from the Faculty of Physics. “I liked his attitude as a lecturer and as a person – he does everything for his students and is always willing to talk to them outside office hours. I read his articles and thought it would be interesting to work with him, so I approached him and asked him to be my undergraduate project advisor.” Prof. Soker assented to her request, which has led to an article that will soon be published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The topic: a new model for the formation of the “Mickey Mouse ears” that characterize many supernova remnants.
Supernova is a phenomenon typical of heavy stars at the end of their lives. This process begins with the collapse of the star into itself, an event in which the radius of the inner part known as the core shrinks, becoming a thousand times smaller. In this process, in which the inside of the star shrinks to a diameter of about 20 km, a neutron star of enormous density is created: one billion tons per cubic centimeter. The shrinking, which is the result of gravitational force, is stopped at some point and replaced by a huge explosion that expels the star’s outer shell – the parts that remained during the shrinking process – at a speed of millions of km per hour.
“When we study the morphology of supernova remnants, we find that a third of them have two ‘ears’ protruding from the main body. The usual explanation for supernova explosions fails to explain the ear phenomenon, and in this paper we propose an alternative model consistent with various simulations, observations and calculations.”
According to Grichener’s and Prof. Soker’s model, the ears are formed by the emission of jets launched during the explosion of a star or shortly afterward. These gas jets are emitted as a result of the rapid rotation of the core that precedes the collapse, and they carry an enormous quantity of kinetic energy. “On the way, these jets encounter exploding gas, and this encounter inflates the ears that we see. Therefore, we claim that a paradigm shift should be made in the explanation of the explosion of heavy stars, known as the core-collapse supernova.
The figure depicts a supernova remnant, with the ‘ears’ circled. From Dubner et al. 2013
Sharon Yavo Ayalon, a doctoral student at the Technion Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, has won first place in the President’s Scholarship
President of Israel Reuven Rivlin, Sharon Yavo Ayalon and Estates Committee Chairperson Techiya Shapiro (Photo: Mark Neiman – Government Press Office)
“The journey of a researcher is very personal and lonely. Most of the time we do and write things that we know that no one will read, and this moment of winning the President’s Scholarship is an extremely rare moment of applause, not only in the physical sense of the word but mainly in the knowledge that we have partners: that a very respectable group has read, understood and realized that what we do is important and relevant and valuable.”
These statements were made by Sharon Yavo Ayalon, a doctoral student at the Technion Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, at the President’s Scholarship award ceremony on February 13. This year, nine doctoral candidates – eight women and one man – received the President’s Scholarship awards. The title was the New Israeli Order: the Boundaries of Fraternity and Equality.
Yavo Ayalon, who received first prize in the sum of NIS 150,000, was born and raised on Kibbutz Hulata in the Hula Valley. She came to Haifa to attend the Technion and her three children were born here. Today, after completing her BSc and MSc at the Technion Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, she is working on her doctorate at the Faculty. In addition to her studies, she teaches Basic Design at the Faculty.
She began her undergraduate studies in 1996, after which she spent six years working at an architecture firm, “but my longing for academia brought me back to graduate school, during which I served as curator of the PeKA Gallery (Paul Konrad Hoenich Center for Art, Science and Technology) at the Faculty.” The subject of her MSc, under the guidance of Professor Nurit Lissovsky and Professor Michael Levin, was land art in Israel: a discussion of three local artists who strive in their work for the construction and understanding of the local Israeli identity and create art as a way to connect with the place.
In March 2015, loyal to the Technion Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, Yavo Ayalon began her doctoral studies in town planning, under the guidance of Associate Professor Tal Alon-Mozes and Dr. Meirav Aharon Guttman. Topic: Presentation of Urbanism – the Relationship between Art, Space and the Public. “I came to architecture from art – first painting and sculpting and then performance art – and my academic work has always stemmed from the desire to link these worlds.”
Her case study in her doctoral thesis is the city of Acre. “My question is whether and how theater art, which plays a central role in Acre’s cultural activity, affects the intra-urban borders. Cities today are highly segregated and fragmented – each city is a mosaic of communities, and this is clearly evident, of course, in Acre, where there are diverse populations: Jews, Arabs, immigrants from the former Soviet Union, and others. In the main, I examine the soft borders, i.e. borders that are not made of fences and walls, but rather by people’s decisions – each community chooses the geographic area where it will not only live but also consume culture, raise its children and so on. My method combines spatial architectural research with social research. Therefore, in Acre, beyond archival research and architectural analyses of space, I carry out ethnographic field work. And since the relevant art is theater, as part of my participant observation I am studying drama.”
She submitted the President’s Pcholarship forms at the last minute and without high expectations, but it was clear to her that her research work on boundaries was very relevant to the theme of the scholarships this year – the boundaries of fraternity and equality. “I would like to tell doctoral students of both sexes that it’s worth their while to apply for grants and scholarships, because there are always pleasant surprises. For me this is a significant scholarship, which will help me devote my time to my doctoral research.”
The Israel President’s Scholarships for Scientific Excellence and Innovation are intended to “encourage quality academic research, foster groundbreaking scientific endeavors and promote scientific excellence and innovation in Israel.” The scholarships are funded through a special allocation of monies from the Estates Committee at the Ministry of Justice.
Lady-Tech Conference at the Technion: Learning from the experience of female Technion graduates who hold key positions in industry and academia
Lady-Tech Conference at the Technion
“It is important to choose a direction and follow it with all your might. Believe in yourselves and your gut feelings, take the lead, ignore pangs of conscience, don’t be ashamed and don’t apologize. Career advancement is not always meteoric, so it’s important to stop every now and then; but in the end dreams do come true, so don’t stop dreaming”.
These are just a few of the tips given by Technion female graduates to their counterparts, students and graduates alike, at a panel held on the topic of “The Greatest Challenges on the Way to the Top”, which took place at the Technion as part of the 3rd Lady-Tech Conference. The panel, which was moderated by Professor Ayelet Fishman from the Department of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, consisted of Dr. Avital Schrift – Director of MABAT Missiles at Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd.; Colonel (Reserves) Adi Bershadsky who is engaged in high-tech international marketing; Iris Han – CEO of the Nature Protection Society; Prof. Hagit Attiya – Technion VP for Academic Affairs; Hanna Sarel – CEO of Medatech Information Technologies Ltd.; Karin Aibschitz Segal – Hardware and Software Operations Manager at Intel Israel; and Marie Attala Libbs – owner and CEO of Nazareth Electricity Engineering.
The conference was the initiative of the Technion Alumni Association and the ‘Supersonas’ organization, and the participants were all female. The opening remarks were given by Technion Alumni Association Chairperson Sigal Fierst, CEO and owner of CTS Israel: “I believe that 30 years from now no one will mention the percentage of Technion female graduates, and gender-focused events will no longer be held,” said Fierst, “because the significant contribution of female graduates will be something that is taken for granted.”
“Sticky-floor” Syndrome
Technion graduate Yulia Kagan, Business Development Manager at Leidos Israel, spoke about women at the beginning of their careers. “Many women do not step on the career acceleration-pedal once they decide to start a family, and long before they have their first child. Before we address breaking the glass ceiling we need to address the ‘sticky floor’, which stems primarily from the way women see the progression of their lives and their future careers”.
Tali Heruti Sober, Editor of the labor market section in “The Marker” newspaper, lectured on “Men, women and the economics separating them”. According to her, wage discrepancies of 33% still exist between men and women, and in high-tech they approach 45%. “There are several reasons for this. Firstly, women don’t like to take risks. Secondly, the enemy of the working woman is her time-clock attendance card. Thirdly, women are more loyal to their work place than men, and it’s well known that wages are not upgraded significantly without changing your work place. A similar process is happening in entrepreneurship – a woman who builds a venture treats it like her baby, nurturing and raising it over the years, while men prefer serial entrepreneurship and tend to jump from venture to venture”.
Engineers and scientists at the Technion are increasing collaborations to intensify and expand research and development in neuroscience and technology.
Prof. Jackie Schiller
In recent years, researchers from diverse Technion faculties have forged an open connection in order to expand and deepen the study of brain function, from high-order cognition to basic biological mechanisms: decision making; learning and memory; sensory perception; motor control; the relationship between the immune system and the brain; basic biological processes in neurons and supportive cells in the brain; communication between neurons and more. Beyond understanding how the brain works, several researchers are also looking for ways to repair damage to the brain and to find solutions to neurological diseases.
For example, Prof. Miriam Zacksenhouse of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering is developing technologies for operating electronic devices using brain activity. Prof. Yoram Gutfreund of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine is studying the owl’s unique auditory system and spatial orientation. Prof. Yitzhak Schiller of the Faculty of Medicine is inventing innovative methods for treating epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease. Prof. Ron Meir of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering is studying and developing artificial neural networks that are displaying unprecedented performance in the areas of learning and pattern recognition.
Prof. Ido Erev of the Faculty of Industrial Engineering & Management is a psychologist who studies basic decision-making and learning processes. “Today, after many years of behavioral research, I understand that physiological data from brain research will enable me to check whether my assumptions are correct and to gain a better understanding of mechanisms such as decision-making,” he said.
Prof. Itamar Kahn of the Faculty of Medicine is using fMRI technology to study brain activity responsible for the integration of information from the sensory and motor systems. He also studies how failures in these processes can be responsible for developmental brain disorders. “Mainly, I’m trying to understand disruptions in this system, and it is clear to me that cooperation with engineers could lead not only to a better understanding, but also to interesting robotic applications that will be run directly on the brain and will aid in activities such as walking.”
Electrical Engineer Dr. Shahar Kvatinsky is developing non-standard computer architectures inspired by the brain, concentrating primarily on neuromorphic computers that mimic the operating mechanism of the cerebral cortex. “The classic computer comprises a calculation unit (CPU) and a storage unit (memory); which is not how the brain is structured, mainly lacking the brain’s ability to constantly change its connectivity. If we design computers that are inspired by the brain and contain components that function similarly to synapses and neurons, they will perform human activities such as face recognition far more efficiently than existing computers. Hence, the need for collaboration between engineers and neuroscientists,” he says.
“In recent decades, the field of brain research has become diverse and multidisciplinary,” explains Prof. Jackie Schiller of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine. “Engineering tools are an integral part of the development of brain research and the application of brain devices as a solution for motor and cognitive impairments. Artificial systems that mimic the human brain have tremendous potential. Today, it’s clear to us that only synergy between the various biological, computational and engineering disciplines will lead to significant progress in our understanding of the brain and its functions. What we need here is extensive and multidisciplinary research activity based on coherent in-depth theoretical work and on preclinical and clinical studies.”
The new Technion-wide research group, headed by Prof. Jackie Schiller, includes researchers from many and varied faculties: Prof. Yonina Eldar (Electrical Engineering), Prof. Simone Englender (Medicine), Assistant Prof. Rakefet Ackerman (Industrial Engineering & Management), Prof. Naama Brenner ( Chemical Engineering), Assistant Prof. Omri Barak (Medicine), Prof. Yoram Gutfreund (Medicine), Assistant Prof. Dori Derdikman (Medicine), Prof. Hermann Wolosker (Medicine), Prof. Noam Ziv (Medicine), Prof. Alon Wolf (Mechanical Engineering), Prof. Miriam Zacksenhouse (Mechanical Engineering), Assistant Prof. Ronen Talmon (Electrical Engineering), Prof. Emeritus Moussa Youdim (Medicine), Prof. Eldad Yechiam (Industrial Engineering & Management), Prof. Ron Meir (Electrical Engineering), Prof. Shimon Marom (Medicine), Prof. Hillel Pratt (Medicine), Prof. Ido Erev (Industrial Engineering & Management), Assistant Prof. Itamar Kahn (Medicine), Assistant Prof. Shahar Kvatinsky (Electrical Engineering), Assistant Prof. Asya Rolls (Medicine), Prof. Yitzhak Schiller (Medicine) and other researchers.
Dendrites – the Brain’s Trees of Knowledge
An article by Prof. Jackie Schiller and doctoral student Maya Sandler sheds light on some basic questions related to the influence of the cerebral cortex on functional aspects such as emotions, thinking and psychiatric disorders. The article, published in the prestigious journal Neuron, examines brain plasticity mechanisms related to anticipation, feedback, learning and memory. The researchers anticipate that the findings may lead to the development of new approaches for treating learning and memory disorders and behavioral disorders such as autism.
The brain is composed of a complex network of interconnected neurons. The neuron, which is the basic processing unit of this network, is a complex processing unit that receives large number of input information from other neurons and processes them into an output that is transmitted to thousands of other neurons in the network.
The neuron is composed of several organelles: (1) the cell body and nucleus, which is responsible for the production of proteins and maintenance of the entire cell; (2) the axon, a branched offshoot that extends from the cell body and transmits information (output) to thousands of other neurons in the network; (3) the dendrites, the main input sites of the neuron, which enable the cell to receive and process information from the axons of thousands of neighboring cells; and (4) the synapses, the point of connection between the axon of one cell and the dendrite of another cell. All these channels of communication – axons, dendrites and synapses – are essential for brain function because they determine our motor, cognitive and other abilities.
Dendrites, which comprise most of the grey matter and occupy most of the volume of the cerebral cortex, have been the focus of Prof. Schiller’s research in recent years. They are tree-like branches, a few millimeters in length, which enable the cell to receive and process information from other neurons. In previous articles, Prof. Schiller demonstrated that dendrites are not simple structures but complex nonlinear processing machines, and in this paper she presents a mechanism explaining a specific aspect of their unique flexibility. “During the learning process, this mechanism changes the dendrite and synapse. If we understand the precise nature of this mechanism we may be able to improve processes such as memory formation and potentially develop a novel class of treatment for neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases. Now we are focusing on understanding dendritic activity at the micro level but also at the network level in-vivo, with the hope of understanding the implications of these physiological mechanisms in health and disease.”
The Technion presents: Science at the Bar, to mark International Women’s Day
Tuesday, March 7, 2017, starting at 20:00, at bars throughout the city of Haifa
In honor of International Women’s Day, which will be celebrated next week, seven Haifa bars will host leading female researchers from the Technion. “International Women’s Day is an excellent opportunity to present some of the groundbreaking research conducted by female researchers at the Technion,” said Professor Ayellet Tal, Advisor to the President of the Technion for the Advancement of Women in Science and Engineering. “The researchers will present surprising answers to questions at the forefront of current research in electrical engineering, medicine, biology, chemistry, biotechnology and architecture.” At the event, each of the seven researchers will lecture at one of Haifa’s bars, as follows:
Assistant Professor Asya Rolls Let the Brain do the Healing (Sleek Bar & Restaurant, 20:00). The placebo effect is one of the most interesting effects in medicine. Assistant Professor Rolls, faculty member at the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, is using new technological tools to study the mechanism that connects the brain to the immune system, and the effect of anticipation on physical condition.Assistant Professor Meytal Landau Drugs, Bacteria and Particle Accelerators (Barbarossa, 20:00). Assistant Professor Meytal Landau from the Technion Faculty of Biology recently decoded a fiber used by the bacterium golden staphylococcus aureus to attack the organism’s cells and immune system. The dramatic breakthrough, which was reported in the journal Science, is expected to lead to the development of a unique drug that will deal more effectively with the aggressive bacterium.Assistant Professor Lilac Amirav Light + Water = Fuel? ( Shaanan, 21:00). The development of green and renewable energy sources is a key worldwide goal in view of population growth and global energy consumption. Solar energy that reaches the earth from the sun is an ideal energy source, and Assistant Professor Amirav from the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry is developing new ways to produce hydrogen fuel from water through the use of energy.Professor Adi Salzberg What do Flies teach us about Ourselves? (Eli’s Pub, 21:00). The studies carried out by Professor Adi Salzberg from the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine focus on how different cells that develop in a specific organ acquire different characteristics that enable them to function as a single unit. One of her principal research topics is the genetic basis for the development of the peripheral nervous system in a fruit fly model.Professor Lihi Zelnik-Manor What do Cameras see? (Venya Bistro, 21:00). Security cameras and smartphones constantly take pictures of us, often without our knowledge. Professor Zelnik-Manor from the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering tells what these cameras actually “see” and what we can learn from them.Dr. Yael Allweil Homeland – Israeli Public Housing (Urban, 21:00). The great housing protest of 2011 came as a surprise to many people in Israel, when the housing issue inspired hordes of Israelis to take to the streets. Dr. Allweil from the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning will speak, through the study of the object itself – concrete residential architecture beginning in the early settlement period – about the history of Zionism as the history of civil residence and the resulting implications thereof.Professor Ayelet Fishman The Connection between Darwin and Biodiesel (Tea Pool Café, 21:00). Random mutations occur spontaneously in all organisms, but only mutations that give the organism an advantage are passed down to future generations. Professor Fishman from the Faculty of Food Engineering and Biotechnology mimics nature in her lab and develops improved enzymes through in vitro evolution.
The event is held under the auspices of Professor Ayellet Tal, Advisor to the President of the Technion for the Advancement of Women in Science and Engineering.
