Author: shelleys

Approximately 80% of drinking water in Israel is desalinated water, coming from the Mediterranean Sea. Now, scientists from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, the Wageningen University, and Wetsus (European center of excellence for sustainable water) in the Netherlands have developed a way to improve the quality of desalinated water, while reducing the costs of the process. The findings of the international team’s study were published in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America).

Desalination is the process that removes mineral particles (salts) from saltwater, making it fit for human consumption and for irrigation. The chemical properties of some particles make them more challenging to remove than others. Boron, which is naturally found in high quantities in the Mediterranean Sea, is among the hardest to remove, as change in acidity causes it to change its properties. It is toxic in high concentrations, and it harms plant growth, which is a problem in the context of irrigation. The normal process of boron removal involves dosing the water with a base in order to facilitate removing the boron, followed by removal of the base.

The most commonly used method of desalination is by means of a membrane – a sort of sieve that allows water to pass through it, while blocking other particles, based on their size or charge. This membrane, however, is expensive, and needs to be replaced periodically.

Ph.D. students Amit Shocron and Eric Guyes, under the supervision of Professor Matthew Suss of the Technion Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, together with their collaborators from Wageningen University and Wetsus, developed a new modeling technique to predict the behavior of boron during desalination by means of capacitive deionization. This is an emerging technique for water treatment and desalination using relatively cheap porous electrodes, as opposed to the expensive membrane. When an electric current is applied, charged particles (like boron under high pH conditions) are adsorbed by the electrodes and hence removed from the water.

Amit Shocron formulated the theoretical framework that allowed this breakthrough, while Eric Guyes constructed the experimental setup. Working together, they were able to develop the novel system. They found that for optimal boron removal, the positive electrode should be placed upstream of the negative electrode – counter to the accepted wisdom in their field. They also calculated the optimal applied voltage for the system, finding that higher voltage does not necessarily improve the system’s effectiveness.

This same method the group developed could be used to solve other water treatment challenges as well, for example the removal of medicine residues and herbicides, which are difficult to remove using conventional methods.

Prof. Suss is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and the Wolfson Department of Chemical Engineering at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and is affiliated with the Nancy and Stephen Grand Technion Energy Program and Stephen and Nancy Grand Water Research Institute at Technion.

For the article in PNAS click here

On Sunday, October 10, 2021, Technion President Professor Uri Sivan bestowed an honorary doctorate on German Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel after a moving speech, in which he praised her outstanding leadership and called her “arguably the most admired, influential leader of our time and a role model for all democrats around the world.”

Dr. Merkel was awarded for her continuous and steadfast support of the State of Israel; her unwavering fight against antisemitism and racism; her strong support of science and education, and particularly of scientific collaboration between Germany and Israel; and for her exemplary leadership, wisdom, and humanity.

“I am proud to receive this honorary degree from the Technion as a scientist and not just as a politician,” Dr. Merkel said at the ceremony, held at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem during the Chancellor’s official visit to Israel earlier this week.

Prof. Sivan named former Technion honorary doctorate recipients, such as Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Chaim Weizmann, David Ben-Gurion, Yitzhak Rabin, and Margaret Thatcher, and talked of how Merkel has earned her place among these luminaries.

President Sivan acknowledged that Chancellor Merkel has moved from a brilliant scientific career in quantum chemistry to an “unparalleled political career at a time of tectonic changes.” He also spoke of her great humanity toward refugees fleeing armed conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, and her compassion and social responsibility. He described her as a “steadfast friend of Israel and the Jewish people,” and commended her on her public stance against antisemitism and on her unwavering support for Israel.

He went on to talk about the scientific ties and cooperation between Israel and Germany, which under her leadership, “have grown stronger and reached unprecedented heights.”

Chancellor Merkel, who has never forgotten the true meaning of compassion and social responsibility … is constantly striving to improve the lives of millions around the world

President Sivan also spoke about the Technion’s long-standing relationship with Germany, which dates back to its inception in the early 1900s. For example, Prof. Sivan spoke of architect Alexander Baerwald from Berlin, who designed the Technion’s first building, which was inaugurated in 1912. Later, Baerwald was appointed the first Technion Professor of Architecture.

Prof. Sivan referred to the Holocaust, and said that only “a few epitomize the reconciliation” between the two peoples while “taking responsibility for the dark times, as our Laureate today, Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel.”

He concluded: “Dr. Merkel, we salute you, and wish you the best in your future endeavors. Thank you for what you have given Germany, Israel, and the world. We are forever grateful.”

Merkel responded by saying, ”I am proud to receive the honorary degree from the Technion as a scientist and not just as a politician, because science and technology are tools for advancing the economy and society. Israel was founded on a vision that was as scientific–technological as it was political, and some of the beginnings took place at the Technion. The Technion served as a cornerstone in the development of high tech and in what is now called the Startup Nation.”

Chancellor Merkel mentioned how “the Technion’s leadership is also evident in COVID-19, with 50 laboratories engaged in related research … We are amazed at the speed with which data is collected in Israel, data that serves the entire world and contributes to the fight against the virus.”

The Chancellor received the honorary doctorate from Prof. Sivan, in the presence of Mr. Gideon Frank, Chairman of the Technion Council; Prof. Oded Rabinovitch, Senior Executive Vice President and a Professor at the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering; Prof. Alon Wolf, Vice President for External Relations and Resource Development and a Professor at the Faculties of Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering; Distinguished Professor Yitzhak Apeloig, former Technion President and Professor at the Schulich Faculty Of Chemistry; former Technion President, Prof. Peretz Lavie, Chairman of Israel Friends of Technion, and Professor Emeritus in the Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine; Nobel Prize Laureate and Technion Distinguished Professor Aaron Ciechanover of the Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine; Prof. Marcelle Machluf, Dean of the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering; as well as graduate students Ms. Lina Muadlej of the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering (in a joint track with the Henry and Marilyn Taub Faculty of Computer Science), and Ms. Aseel Shomar, a Ph.D. student at the Wolfson Faculty of Chemical  Engineering.

The ceremony was also attended by: Her Excellency, Ambassador Dr. Susanne Wasum-Rainer – German Ambassador to Israel; His Excellency, Ambassador Jeremy Issacharoff – Israeli Ambassador to Germany

Born in 1954, Chancellor Merkel started her political career in 1989, following the fall of the Berlin Wall. She chaired the Christian Democratic Union Party from 2000-2018; and has served as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany since 2005. Throughout her career, Merkel emphasized international cooperation. She has been described as the de facto leader of the European Union. The New York Times has dubbed her “The Liberal West’s Last Defender.” Merkel has voiced support for Israel on many occasions, and spoken out against antisemitism. Congratulating the new Israeli government in June 2021, Merkel said that Germany and Israel are “connected by a unique friendship that we want to further strengthen.”

Researchers at the Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine have developed an innovative algorithm that detects an uninterrupted common denominator in multidimensional data gathered from tumors of different patients. The study, which was published in Cell Systems, was led by Professor Shai Shen-Orr, Dr. Yishai Ofran, and Dr. Ayelet Alpert, and conducted in collaboration between researchers at the Technion, the Rambam Health Care Campus, the Shaare Zedek Medical Center and the University of Texas.

In recent years, cancer research has undergone a series of significant revolutions, including the introduction of single-cell high-resolution characterization capabilities, or, more specifically, simultaneous high-throughput profiling of cancer samples using single-cell RNA sequencing and proteomics analysis. This has led to the generation of vast quantities of multidimensional data on a huge number of cells, allowing for the characterization of both the healthy tissue and malignant tissues. This high amount of data has revealed the great variability between tumors of different patients, where cellular characterization that is derived from the patient’s genetic background is unique to each patient.

Despite the substantial advantage that is derived from such an accurate characterization of the specific patient, this development hinders comparison of different patients: in the absence of a common denominator, the comparison, which is essential for identifying prognostic markers (e.g. mortality or severity of illness), becomes impossible.

The tuMap algorithm developed by the Technion researchers provides a solution to this complex challenge by means of a “variance-based comparison.” The innovative algorithm delivers the possibility to place numerous different tumors on a uniform scale that provides a benchmark for comparison. In this way, the tumors of different patients can be meaningfully compared, as well as tumors of the same patient over the disease course (for example, on diagnosis and after treatment). The resolution provided by the algorithm can be leveraged for clinical applications such as prediction of various clinical indices with a very high accuracy, outperforming traditional tools. Although the researchers tested the algorithm on leukemia tumors, they believe that it will also be relevant for other cancer types.

The research was sponsored by the Israel Science Foundation, the Rappaport Family Institute for Research in the Medical Sciences, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

For the article in Cell Systems click here

Researchers from the Technion and the University of North Carolina (UNC) have developed an algorithm that steers surgical needles along 3D curvilinear trajectories. The researchers – Dr. Oren Salzman of the Taub Faculty of Computer Science at the Technion and Prof. Ron Alterovitz and Mengyu Fu of UNC – announced the development at the recently held virtual 2021 Robotics: Science and Systems Conference.

Numerous medical procedures, such as biopsies and localized therapy delivery for cancer, require that a needle be steered safely through tissue, to the target. Straight needles can “get the job done” when the straight path from the point of entry to the target tissue does not pass through vulnerable tissue, but in many cases, the target tissue is “hidden” behind a bone or vulnerable tissue, and in these cases, the surgeon must avoid anatomical obstacles, a difficult, complex task, most certainly when the body parts involved are vulnerable and sensitive.

Against this backdrop, in recent years, medical needles with bevel tips were developed. These needles are controlled by rotating them at their base. The problem is that directing these needles is neither simple nor intuitive, and steering them manually involves numerous risks. This has led to the development of “motion planning algorithms” designed to accurately and safely direct the needle. These algorithms have displayed impressive capabilities, and yet, since these are invasive procedures, the degree of precision required is very high; otherwise, the systems will not be granted regulatory approval.

The development presented by the researchers at the conference illustrates the importance of computer science in solving problems related to medicine and biomedical engineering. On the basis of relevant medical images such as a computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan, the new algorithm computes the optimal trajectory that will lead the needle to the target while avoiding damage to various anatomical obstacles. As opposed to existing algorithms, the new algorithm provides a “completeness” guarantee that the needle can indeed reach the specified target while avoiding those tissues, and if no such safe motion plan exists, it will inform the user accordingly. Moreover, it computes plans faster compared to rival steerable needle motion planners and with a higher success rate. According to the researchers, the technology presented at the conference is a new algorithmic foundation that is expected to lead to additional applications based on automated steerable needles.

The research was funded by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Israeli Ministry of Science and Technology, and the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF).

Dr. Oren Salzman joined the Technion staff in the summer of 2019 following a postdoctoral fellowship in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. He is head of the Computational Robotics Lab (CRL) in the Taub Faculty of Computer Science.

The paper presented at the conference is available at: http://www.roboticsproceedings.org/rss17/p081.pdf

German Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel will receive an honorary doctorate from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in a ceremony set for Oct. 10, 2021, in Jerusalem, Israel. The ceremony will be streamed live on the Technion – Institute of Technology Facebook page starting at 5:15 (IDT).

Chancellor Merkel, who is visiting Israel (after postponing her August 2021 visit), will be awarded for her continuous and steadfast support of the State of Israel; her unwavering fight against antisemitism and racism; her strong support of science and education, and particularly of scientific collaboration between Germany and Israel; and for her exemplary leadership, wisdom, and humanity.

A scientist with a doctoral degree in natural sciences from the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin, Merkel published several papers on quantum chemistry prior to embarking on a political career. She’s set to retire from politics this month, having been in office for 16 years.

“Chancellor Merkel’s path has taken her from a brilliant scientific career in quantum chemistry to an unparalleled political legacy at a time of tectonic changes starting with the end of the Cold War, the fall of the Soviet Union, and the unification of Germany,” said Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan. “Under her leadership, Merkel navigated Europe through a global economic crisis and displayed great humanity to those who were displaced by civil wars and other armed conflicts in the Middle East and Africa.”

He went on to say that “as a true leader, constantly striving to improve the lives of millions worldwide, Chancellor Merkel never avoided publicly facing the harsh and uncomfortable realities of global and domestic challenges. She has done so while never forgetting the true meaning of compassion and social responsibility.”

Prof. Sivan thanked Chancellor Merkel: “We salute you for what you have given Germany, Israel, and the world. We are forever grateful.”

On Sunday, the Chancellor will receive the honorary doctorate from Prof. Sivan, in the presence of Mr. Gideon Frank, Chairman of the Technion Council; Prof. Oded Rabinovitch, Senior Executive Vice President and a Professor at the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering; Prof. Alon Wolf, Vice President for External Relations and Resource Development and a Professor at the Faculties of Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering; Distinguished Professor Yitzhak Apeloig, former Technion President and Professor at the Schulich Faculty Of Chemistry; former Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie, Chairman of Israel Friends of Technion; Nobel Prize Laureate and Technion Distinguished Professor Aaron Ciechanover of the Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine; Prof. Marcelle Machluf, Dean of the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering; as well as graduate students Ms. Lina Muadlej of the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering (in a joint track with the Henry and Marilyn Taub Faculty of Computer Science), and Ms. Aseel Shomar, a Ph.D. student at the Wolfson Faculty of Chemical  Engineering.

An honorary doctorate is the highest honor bestowed by the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology upon the few who distinguished themselves through their outstanding scientific work or their leadership and public service to the benefit of Israel, the Jewish people, and humanity at large. Some notable examples include Chaim Weizmann (1952), Albert Einstein (1953), Niels Bohr (1958), David Ben Gurion (1962), Yitzhak Rabin (1990), and Margaret Thatcher (1989) – who are now joined by Chancellor Merkel, arguably the most revered, influential leader of our time.

Born in 1954, Chancellor Merkel started her political career in 1989, following the fall of the Berlin Wall. She chaired the Christian Democratic Union Party from 2000-2018; and has served as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany since 2005. Throughout her career, Merkel emphasized international cooperation. She has been described as the de facto leader of the European Union. The New York Times dubbed her “The Liberal West’s Last Defender.” Merkel has voiced support for Israel on many occasions and has spoken out against antisemitism. Congratulating the new Israeli government in June 2021, Merkel said that Germany and Israel are “connected by a unique friendship that we want to further strengthen.”

This year’s Technion team is the largest ever.

This month, three universities will participate in the inaugural Israeli Formula SAE Race: The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Tel Aviv University, and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

The Technion Formula Student Team has been led by the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering since 2013. Academic guidance is provided by Prof. Leonid Tartakovsky, who replaced Prof. Reuven Katz, the project supervisor from 2013 to 2019.

Headed by Muans Omari, a master’s student in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, this year’s Technion team is its largest ever, made up of more than 60 students from various faculties. This is Omari’s third year participating in the project; he started out as a volunteer and driver, subsequently progressed to head of the engine crew, and since 2021, has served as the Technion’s project lead. As a driver, he won first place driving on the figure-8 Skidpad circuit in the Czech Republic in the summer of 2019, just before the global COVID-19 outbreak. During that race, the Technion unveiled the lightest car in the history of the competition, which weighed in at just 132 kg of advanced technology, after “Technion Formula” shed 120 kg in just three years.

“After two years in which we were prevented from participating in races in Europe because of the pandemic, we decided to bring the race to Israel,” said Omari, “and the three universities that will be competing in October – the Technion, Tel Aviv University, and Ben Gurion University – are fully on board. This is a unique, adrenaline-intensive motorsport event that combines engineering theory and technological applications. We believe it will have a direct impact on the vehicle industry in Israel and encourage investors and local firms to develop vehicles and other relevant products.”

The opening event in August 2021 was attended by experts from the Ministry of Transportation, who advised the teams on adapting the car to comply with licensing requirements in Israel.

The race will take place October 20-October 21 at the MotorCity – Motor Park Racing Circuit in Beersheba, Israel.

Formula Student is a series of international competitions in which university teams compete to design, manufacture, and race the best performing racecars.

Technion researchers are harnessing the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to tackle the world’s most-pressing challenges. Their extensive work in the field has positioned the Technion among the world’s leaders in AI research and development. CSRankings, the leading metrics-based ranking of top computer science institutions around the world, has ranked the Technion No. 1 in the field of artificial intelligence in Europe, and 15th worldwide.

In the subfield of machine learning, the Technion is ranked 11th worldwide. Over the years, the Technion has carried out outstanding research in the field of AI – much of which has developed into trailblazing commercial products. Collaborations with manufacturers, the high-tech industry, government agencies, R&D centers, healthcare providers and academic institutions, have all contributed to the Technion’s excellence in the field, and many alumni and researchers have gone on to found companies across the AI spectrum.

During the coronavirus pandemic, Technion researchers and alumni have used a host of AI technologies, from detection to diagnostics, including testing for pre-symptomatic COVID-19 carriers; predicting the spread of COVID-19 around the globe; and analyzing the data of thousands of patients to show the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine.

To learn about the Technion’s trailblazing AI research and technologies, click to read our Fall  2021 AI Brochure.

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Atrial fibrillation is an abnormal heart rhythm that is not immediately life-threatening, but significantly increases patients’ risk of stroke and death. Warning patients that they are at risk of developing it can give them time to change their lifestyle and avoid or postpone the onset of the condition. It may also encourage regular follow-ups with the patient’s cardiologist, ensuring that if and when the condition develops, it will be identified quickly, and treatment will be started without delay. Known risk factors for atrial fibrillation include sedentary lifestyle, obesity, smoking, genetic predisposition, and more.

Ms. Biton and Ms. Gendelman used more than one million 12-lead ECG recordings from more than 400,000 patients to train a deep neural network to recognize patients at risk of developing atrial fibrillation within 5 years. Then, they combined the deep neural network with clinical information about the patient, including some of the known risk factors. Both the ECG recordings and the patients’ electronic health record were provided by the Telehealth Network of Minas Gerais (TNMG), a public telehealth system assisting 811 of the 853 municipalities in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The resulting machine learning model was able to correctly predict the development of atrial fibrillation risk in 60% of cases, while preserving a high specificity of 95%, meaning that only 5% of persons identified as being potentially at risk did not develop the condition.

“We do not seek to replace the human doctor – we don’t think that would be desirable,” said Prof. Behar of the results, “but we wish to put better decision support tools into the doctors’ hands. Computers are better equipped to process some forms of data. For example, examining an ECG recording today, a cardiologist would be looking for specific features which are known to be associated with a particular disease. Our model, on the other hand, can look for and identify patterns on its own, including patterns that might not be intelligible to the human eye.”

Doctors have progressed from taking a patient’s pulse manually, to using a statoscope, and then the ECG. Using machine learning to assist the analysis of ECG recordings could be the next step on that road.

Since ECG is a low-cost routine test, the machine learning model could easily be incorporated into clinical practice and improve healthcare management for many individuals. Access to more patients’ datasets would let the algorithm get progressively better as a risk prediction tool. The model could also be adapted to predict other cardiovascular conditions.

The study was conducted in collaboration with Antônio Ribeiro from the Uppsala University, Sweden and Gabriela Miana, Carla Moreira, Antonio Luiz Ribeiro from the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil.

The study was published in the European Heart Journal – Digital Health

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Israeli and German researchers have developed a way to force an array of vertical cavity lasers to act together as a single laser – a highly effective laser network the size of a grain of sand. The findings are presented in a new joint research paper that was published online by Science on Friday, September 24.

Cell phones, car sensors, or data transmission in fiber optic networks all use so called Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers (VCSELs) – semiconductor lasers that are firmly anchored in our everyday technology. Though widely used, the VCSEL device has miniscule size of only a few microns, which sets a stringent limit on the output power it can generate. For years, scientists have sought to enhance the power emitted by such devices through combining many tiny VCSELs and forcing them to act as a single coherent laser, but with limited success. The current breakthrough uses a different scheme: it employs a unique geometrical arrangement of VCSELs on the chip that forces the flight to flow in a specific path – a photonic topological insulator platform.

From topological insulators to topological lasers

Topological insulators are revolutionary quantum materials that insulate on the inside but conduct electricity on their surface, without loss. Several years ago, the Technion group led by Distinguished Professor Mordechai (Moti) Segev introduced these innovative ideas into photonics, and demonstrated the first Photonic Topological Insulator, where light travels around the edges of a two-dimensional array of waveguides without being affected by defects or disorder. This opened a new field, now known as “Topological Photonics,” where hundreds of groups currently have active research. In 2018, the Technion group also found a way to use the properties of photonic topological insulators to force many micro-ring lasers to lock together and act as a single laser. But that system still had a major bottleneck: the light was circulating in the photonic chip confined to the same plane used for extracting the light. That meant that the whole system was again subject to a power limit, imposed by the device used to get the light out, similar to having a single socket for a whole power plant. The current breakthrough uses a different scheme: the lasers are forced to lock within the planar chip, but the light is now emitted through the surface of the chip from each tiny laser and can be easily collected.

Circumstances and participants

This German-Israeli research project originated primarily during the Corona pandemic. Without the enormous commitment of the researchers involved, this scientific milestone would not have been possible. The research was conducted by PhD student Alex Dikopoltsev from the team of Distinguished Professor Mordechai (Moti) Segev of Technion’s Physics and Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculties, the Solid State Institute and the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, and Ph.D. student Tristan H. Harder from the team of Professor Sebastian Klembt and Professor Sven Höfling at the Chair of Applied Physics at the University of Würzburg, and the Cluster of Excellence ct.qmat – Complexity and Topology in Quantum Materials, in collaboration with researchers from Jena and Oldenburg. The device fabrication took advantage of the excellent clean room facilities at the University of Würzburg.

The long road to new topological lasers

“It is fascinating to see how science evolves,” said Distinguished Professor Moti Segev, the Dr. Robert J. Shillman Distinguished Professor of Physics and Electrical & Computer Engineering at the Technion. “We went from fundamental physics concepts to foundational changes therein, and now to real technology that is now being pursued by companies. Back in 2015, when we started to work on topological insulator lasers, nobody believed it was possible, because the topological concepts known at that time were limited to systems that do not, in fact, cannot, have gain. But all lasers require gain. So topological insulator lasers stood against everything known at that time. We were like a bunch of lunatics searching for something that was considered impossible. And now we have made a large step towards real technology that has many applications.”

The Israeli and German team utilized the concepts of topological photonics with VCSELs that emit the light vertically, while the topological process responsible for the mutual coherence and locking of the VCSELs occurs in the plane of the chip. The end result is a powerful but very compact and efficient laser, not limited by a number of VCSEL emitters, and undisturbed by defects or altering temperatures.

“The topological principle of this laser can generally work for all wavelengths and thus a range of materials,” explains German project leader Prof. Sebastian Klembt of the University of Würzburg, who is working on light-matter interaction and topological photonics within the ct.qmat cluster of excellence. “Exactly how many micro-lasers need to be arranged and connected would always depend entirely on the application. We can expand the size of the laser network to a very large size, and in principle it will remain coherent also for large numbers. It is great to see that topology, originally a branch of mathematics, has emerged as a revolutionary new toolbox for controlling, steering and improving laser properties.”

The groundbreaking research has demonstrated that it is in fact theoretically and experimentally possible to combine VCSELs to achieve a more robust and highly efficient laser. As such, the results of the study pave the way towards applications of numerous future technologies such as medical devices, communications, and a variety of real-world applications.

Click here for the paper in Science.

Researchers led by Technion Professor Shulamit Levenberg, who specializes in tissue engineering, have succeeded in creating a hierarchical blood vessel network, necessary for supplying blood to implanted tissue. In the study, recently published in Advanced Materials, Dr. Ariel Alejandro Szklanny used 3D printing for creating big and small blood vessels to form for the first time a system that contained a functional combination of both. The breakthrough took place in Prof. Levenberg’s Stem Cell and Tissue Engineering Laboratory in the Technion’s Faculty of Biomedical Engineering.

In the human body, the heart pumps blood into the aorta, which then branches out into progressively smaller blood vessels, transporting oxygen and nutrients to all the tissues and organs. Transplanted tissues need similar support of blood vessels, and consequently so do tissues engineered for transplantation. Until now, experiments with engineered tissue containing hierarchical vessel networks have involved an intermediary step of transplanting first into a healthy limb, allowing the tissue to be permeated by the host’s blood vessels, and then transplanting the structure into the affected area. (e.g. this study by Idan Redenski about engineered bone grafts, published earlier this year.) With Dr. Szklanny’s new achievement, the intermediary step might become unnecessary.

An important step towards personalized medicine

To create in the lab a tissue flap with all the vessels necessary for blood supply, Dr. Szklanny combined and expanded on two separate techniques. First, he created a fenestrated polymeric scaffold that mimics the large blood vessel, using 3D printing technologies. The fenestration served to create not just a hollow tube, but a tube with side openings that allowed the connection of smaller vessels to the engineered larger vessel. Using a collagen bio-ink, tissue was then printed and assembled around that scaffold, and a network of tiny blood vessels formed within. Finally, the large vessel scaffold was covered with endothelial cells, which are the type of cells that constitute the inner layer of all blood vessels in the body. After a week of incubation, the artificial endothelium created a functional connection with the smaller 3D bio-printed vessels, mimicking the hierarchical structure of the human blood vessel tree.

The resulting structure was then implanted in a rat, attached to its femoral artery. Blood flowing through it did what we would want blood to do: it spread through the vessel network, reaching to the ends of the structure, and supplied blood to the tissue without leaking from the blood vessels.

One interesting point to note is that while previous studies used collagen from animals to form the scaffolds, here, tobacco plants were engineered by Israeli company CollPlant to produce human collagen, which was successfully used for 3D bioprinting the vascularized tissue constructs.

This study constitutes an important step towards personalized medicine. Large blood vessels of the exact shape necessary can be printed and implanted together with the tissue that needs to be implanted. This tissue can be formed using the patient’s own cells, eliminating rejection risk.

The study received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme.

For the full article in Advanced Materials, click here.

Video demonstrating the research:

Forty-five years after the family’s first contribution to the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, and now as part of a multigenerational initiative, the Carasso Family and Carasso Motors are contributing toward a new initiative, promoting cutting-edge food technologies, teaching and R&D in the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering. The building that until now has housed the Food Industries Center will be renamed the Carasso FoodTech Innovation Center. The donation will be used to renovate the building, as well as expand and upgrade the Center’s research infrastructure. Alongside this activity, a scholarship fund will be established for advanced research.

The gift, which will enhance Israel’s research presence in the global food industry, is part of the family’s legacy – which emphasizes Zionism, excellence in science education, closing gaps in the Israeli society, and investment in infrastructure.

The expanded and upgraded building will be one of its kind in Israel and one of the most advanced in the world; it will feature an R&D center for industrial production, a packaging laboratory, an industrial kitchen, as well as tasting and evaluation units that will be used for teaching and research in the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering. The Carasso FoodTech Innovation Center will be housed in an existing, dedicated structure alongside the faculty, and will include a visitor area that will expose high-school students to the world of FoodTech, and serve as a hub for startups, where they can benefit from R&D services.

“Eradicating world hunger and improving food security are among the main challenges facing humanity in the 21^st century, as defined by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals,” said Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan. “The Technion has the only faculty in Israel for research in food engineering, a faculty that leads the Israeli FoodTech industry. We are grateful to the Carasso Family for their generous contribution, which will establish the Carasso FoodTech Innovation Center, and will help us promote groundbreaking scientific research in the field, train the next generation of the Israeli FoodTech industry, and maintain the faculty’s position at the global forefront of research and development.”

Yoel Carasso, Chairman of Carasso Motors, said: “In 1924, our Grandfather Moshe immigrated with his family to Israel from Thessaloniki, where he was one of the leaders of the Jewish community. In Israel, he cofounded Discount Bank, Ophir Cinema (one of the first movie theaters in Tel Aviv), and of course Carasso Motors Company. For me and for my uncle Shlomo and my cousins – Ioni, Orli, Sarah, Tzipa and Arik – this is coming full circle from a century ago. We chose to support the Carasso FoodTech Innovation Center since the Technion is synonymous with excellence. The Technion is an engine for combining basic and applied science in the Galilee and in Israel as a whole. We believe the Carasso FoodTech Innovation Center will contribute to the industry, and to collaborative work in this field, and thus strengthen the Israeli economy and society. Our family has a history of supporting the Technion, and when the opportunity to establish this center sprang, we knew it was our calling to lead.”

Prof. Marcelle Machluf, Dean of the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering at the Technion, said “the faculty is one of the only ones in the world that combines the disciplines of bioengineering, technology, food sciences and life sciences. Coping with the COVID-19 pandemic has only emphasized the importance of food and biotechnology in maintaining our existence and meeting future existential challenges. To address the many challenges in this field, including access to healthy, affordable food and innovative medical treatments, we need advanced infrastructure that will enable the integration of new engineering and scientific tools; these will enable us to develop the necessary technologies, as well as the infrastructure and equipment that will support the development and assimilation of the knowledge required to tackle tomorrow’s food challenges. I would like to thank the Carasso Family for their generous contribution, which will allow the faculty to upgrade the infrastructure and equipment needed for the development and integration of the knowledge required to tackle future food challenges.”

Izaac Weitz, CEO of Carasso Motors: “Carasso Motors, with its various brands – Renault, Nissan, Infinity, and Dacia – is committed to innovation and connection with our diverse customer base in Israel. Food technology is an evolving field that brings value in many ways to our stakeholders. Food research tackles environmental and global warming challenges, providing food security and a balanced diet, accelerating paramedical developments that combine medicine and food, and of course contributing to the development of innovative solutions that will put Israel at the forefront of science globally. At Carasso Motors, we jumped at the opportunity to make such a significant contribution to the establishment of this advanced research center, which will also improve and advance Israel’s education and society.”

One Hundred Sunrises a Day is a public art exhibition showcasing the work of 12 Israeli artists of Ethiopian descent who deal with social issues through a variety of artistic techniques. The artists originate from the Jewish community of Ethiopians who have made Aliyah over the years. It is currently on display in the new gallery at the entrance to the Ullman Building, on the main campus of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, and will be open, free of charge, through the end of November 2021.

The exhibition was originally shown in Haifa this past spring, across 100 municipal billboards as part of the “Cultural Touches” program – a series of events produced by the Haifa-Boston Connection. In August 2021, the exhibition opened at the Technion in partnership with Tikva Israelit as a way of bringing art into the public space and making it accessible.

“Israeli Hope” is an initiative of Israel’s President; the program aims to establish partnerships among the four main sectors that comprise Israeli society: secular, religious, ultra-Orthodox, and Arab-Israeli. “100 Sunrises a Day” is part of “Israeli Hope in Academia“, an initiative to increase diversity and representation of different populations, while creating a common space for all of them and preserving each group’s unique identity.

“Promoting multicultural activity on campus and increasing awareness of diversity”

According to Efi Barkai Goral, who heads Tikva Israelit at the Technion, “the program is intended to promote multicultural activity on campus and increase awareness of diversity and cultural competence. The exhibition itself invites us to look at life through the lens of the other. With this in mind, and as part of staff training on cultural competence, meetings are held between artists and faculty members to stimulate thinking and to create dialogue about the place of others within us, as an organization and as individuals.”

Valeria Geselev, curator of the exhibition, said: “In March 2021, my city, Haifa, changed not only because art appeared in spaces dedicated for advertisements. The city changed because it gave room and attention to faces and voices that do not take up space in the public sphere… This is an exhibition that was born on the street, and which expresses the influence of art in the public space. It is not obvious that an academic institution chooses to put on such an exhibition. In doing so, a platform is given to narratives that have not yet been heard.”

Eden Yilma, one of the featured artists, presented her work during a recent Technion tour and spoke of the importance for her of showing art in public spaces, and specifically exhibiting her work at the Technion – a space where academia meets dialogue; she also spoke of the opportunity to interact with the future generation. She presents her compelling story and trajectory as a third-generation Ethiopian in Israel, and her identity search through art.

Story by Deborah Dwek