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Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and Pfizer, one of the world’s premier biopharmaceutical companies, recently signed a collaboration framework agreement to identify opportunities to collaborate and bring forward scientific breakthroughs at the interface between artificial intelligence and drug development.

The framework agreement was finalized during the visit of a delegation from Pfizer to the Technion. The delegation was led by Pfizer Chairman and CEO, Dr. Albert Bourla, and included Dr. Mikael Dolsten, Chief Scientific Officer and President, Worldwide Research, Development and Medical; Lidia Fonseca, Executive Vice President and Chief Digital and Technology Officer; and other senior executives. Pfizer leaders met with the Technion President Professor Uri Sivan, members of the Technion’s senior management and Technion faculty members from the fields of life sciences and engineering.

Pfizer, a biopharmaceutical company with 170 years of experience developing innovative medicines and vaccines, has made an enormous impact on global health in recent years through its development, with BioNTech, of vaccines that help protect against the COVID-19 virus. In addition to its internal drug discovery efforts, Pfizer regularly collaborates with the biotech industry and academia to identify research and technologies that could lead to scientific breakthroughs. The framework agreement with the Technion is consistent with the Institute’s ambition to advance technological and medical developments by identifying new technologies and various digital tools with potential industrial application.

“Human health is one of the grand challenges facing humanity in the 21st century,” said Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan. “Like other global challenges, today’s scientific and technological breakthroughs require multidisciplinary research and close cooperation between academia and industry. We recently launched Tech.AI, Technion’s Artificial Intelligence Hub, to serve as the main Technion platform providing faculty & students from all Technion units with the best possible access to the forefront of AI research and application. Cooperation with industry, where the great challenges lie, is vital to an undertaking of this kind, and I am therefore looking forward to Pfizer’s potential contributions to this mission.”

During their visit, the guests met leading Technion researchers working in the field of AI in the context of human health: Associate Professor Shai Shen-Orr from the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine; Professor Tomer Shlomi from the Henry and Marilyn Taub Faculty of Computer Science; Assistant Professor Dvir Aran from the Faculty of Biology and the Taub Faculty of Computer Science; Assistant Professor Noga Ron-Harel from the Faculty of Biology; and Assistant Professor Uri Shalit from the Faculty of Data and Decision Sciences.

According to Prof. Shai Shen-Orr, “the Technion is a leading institution in the field of AI, ranked first in Europe in this field by CS ranking. Our Tech.AI center brings together the Technion’s activity in this field. We are extremely thrilled with the agreement with Pfizer, which will offer Technion researchers close encounters with real-world challenges in drug development, help identify potential applications of AI to drug research and development and expand the Technion’s capabilities in translational research.”

Lord (Tariq) Ahmad of Wimbledon, Minister of State for the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, and United Nations at the FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office of the United Kingdom) and H.M.A. Mr. Neil Wigan, the UK’s Ambassador to Israel, along with other members of the FCDO and the Embassy, recently visited the Technion’s David and Janet Polak Visitors Center and met with Technion President Professor Uri Sivan and other senior members of the Technion’s management.

The meeting focused on diversity and inclusiveness in the academia, and on the expansion of research collaborations with universities in the UK.

 

Lord Ahmad also met Professor Hossam Haick from the Wolfson Department of Chemical Engineering and expressed excitement about his research. Prof. Haick is a recipient of the BIRAX (Britain Israel Research and Academic Exchange Partnership) grant for his study into the development of a breath test for Parkinson’s disease.

President Sivan spoke of the important role of the Technion in Israel’s innovation scene and of diversity on campus. He also conveyed his wishes to expand the scope of Technion collaborations with British academic institutions.

Lord Ahmad expressed the UK’s commitment to strengthening and expanding the collaborations with Israel.

 

Researchers from the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology have presented the first experimental observation of Cherenkov radiation confined in two dimensions. The results surprised the researchers when a new record in electron-radiation coupling strength was achieved, and the quantum properties of the radiation were revealed.

Cherenkov radiation is a unique physical phenomenon, which for many years has been used in medical imaging, and in particle detection applications, as well as in laser-driven electron accelerators. The breakthrough achieved by the Technion researchers links this phenomenon to future photonic quantum computing applications and free-electron quantum light sources. The study, which was published in Physical Review X, was headed by PhD students Yuval Adiv and Shai Tsesses from the Technion, together with Hao Hu from the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore (today professor at Nanjing university in China). It was supervised by Prof. Ido Kaminer and Prof. Guy Bartal of the Technion, in collaboration with colleagues from China: Prof. Hongsheng Chen, and Prof. Xiao Lin from Zhejiang University.

The interaction of free electrons with light underlies a plethora of known radiation phenomena and has led to numerous applications in science and industry. One of the most important of these interaction effects is the Cherenkov radiation – electromagnetic radiation emitted when a charged particle, such as an electron, travels through a medium at a speed greater than the phase velocity of light in that specific medium. It is the optical equivalent of a supersonic boom, which occurs, for example, when a jet travels faster than the speed of sound. Consequently, Cherenkov radiation is sometimes called an “optical shock wave”. The phenomenon was discovered in 1934. In 1958, the scientists who discovered it were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Since then, during more than 80 years of research, the investigation of Cherenkov radiation led to the development of a wealth of applications, most of them for particle identification detectors and medical imaging. However, despite the intense preoccupation with the phenomenon, the bulk of theoretical research and all experimental demonstrations concerned Cherenkov radiation in the three-dimensional space and based its description on classical electromagnetism. Now, the Technion researchers present the first experimental observation of 2D Cherenkov radiation, demonstrating that in the two-dimensional space, radiation behaves in a completely different manner – for the first time, the quantum description of light is essential to explain the experiment results.

The researchers engineered a special multilayer structure enabling interaction between free electrons and light waves traveling along a surface. The smart engineering of the structure allowed for a first measurement of 2D Cherenkov radiation. The low dimensionality of the effect permitted a glimpse into the quantum nature of the process of radiation emission from free electrons: a count of the number of photons (quantum particles of light) emitted from a single electron and indirect evidence of the entanglement of the electrons with the light waves they emit. In this context, “entanglement” means “correlation” between the properties of the electron and those of the light emitted, such that measuring one provides information about the other. It is worth noting that the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for the performance of a series of experiments demonstrating the effects of quantum entanglement (in systems different to those demonstrated in the present research).

 

According to Yuval Adiv: “The result of the study which surprised us the most concerns the efficiency of electron radiation emission in the experiment: whereas the most advanced experiments that preceded the present one achieved a regime in which approximately only one electron out of one hundred emitted radiation, here, we succeeded in achieving an interaction regime in which every electron emitted radiation. In other words, we were able to demonstrate an improvement of over two orders of magnitude in the interaction efficiency (also called the “coupling strength”). This result helps advance modern developments of efficient electron-driven radiation sources.”

Prof. Kaminer commented: “Radiation emitted from electrons is an “old” phenomenon that has been researched for over a hundred years and was assimilated into technology a long time ago, an example being the home microwave oven. For many years, it seemed that we had already discovered everything there was to know about electron radiation, and thus, the idea that this kind of radiation had already been fully described by classical physics became entrenched. In striking contrast to this concept, the experimental apparatus we built allows the quantum nature of electron radiation to be revealed. The new experiment that was now published explores the quantum-photonic nature of electron radiation. The experiment is part of a paradigm shift in the way we understand this radiation, and more broadly, the relationship between electrons and the radiation they emit. For example, we now understand that free electrons can become entangled with the photons they emit. It is both surprising and exciting to see signs of this phenomenon in the experiment.”

According to Shai Tsesses, “In Yuval Adiv’s new experiment we forced the electrons to travel in proximity to a photonic-plasmonic surface that I planned based on a technique developed in the lab of Prof. Guy Bartal. The electron velocity was accurately set to obtain a large coupling strength, greater than that obtained in normal situations, where coupling is to radiation in three-dimensions. At the heart of the process, we observe the spontaneous quantum nature of radiation emission, obtained in discrete packets of energy called photons. In this way, the experiment sheds new light on the quantum nature of photons.”

Click here for the paper in Physical Review X

Technion President Professor Uri Sivan recently inaugurated the Cyprus Dormitory Towers, two new buildings offering spacious, modern, well-appointed apartments. The first 400 tenants are students studying in diverse faculties for various degrees at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.

The inauguration of the student housing complex increases the number of students living in the Technion dorms to 4,600 – the largest number of students living on campus among Israel’s universities. The prices at Broshim Towers are extremely inexpensive compared to prices in the private market. All apartments in the two modern towers are spacious and well-furnished. Their modular planning allows for their use as apartments for groups of roommates or for young families. The buildings have large laundry rooms, an underground car park, study rooms, and common rooms. The buildings were planned by TOLEDANO AVI ARCHITECTS LTD.

“I was delighted to inaugurate the Broshim Towers, the Technion’s new student housing apartments,” said Technion President, Prof. Uri Sivan. “The two towers are modern, roomy, and well-fitted, providing accommodation for 400 students. They have family apartments and apartments for singles, allowing people to concentrate on their studies with peace of mind. I believe that it is our responsibility to provide every student who meets the Technion’s admission criteria with the opportunity to study for advanced tech degrees without being hindered by economic constraints. This is a vision that, as Technion President, is genuinely close to my heart. Technion management is determined to continue to increase the number of student dorms and perpetually improve their quality as part of the ongoing enlargement of the supportive cocoon we provide to our students. It’s enough to simply see the smiles on their faces to recognize that we are really doing good. The opening of Broshim Towers has raised the number of tenants living on campus to 4,600 – the highest number among all universities in Israel. Congratulations and welcome!”

The Technion’s Deputy Director General of Operations, Zehava Laniado, said that the idea for two new student housing towers was originally conceived twenty years ago, but various constraints delayed the start of planning and construction until three years ago. The project was initiated under the leadership of the outgoing Technion Director General, Prof. Boaz Golany, and Head of the Technion Construction & Maintenance Division, Amnon Leibowitz. Ms. Laniado thanked the various units at the Technion that brought the project to completion.

Dean of Students, Prof. Ayelet Fishman, said, “The new buildings are at the forefront of architecture and construction. They were staffed at the beginning of the semester, and the first tenants have expressed great satisfaction. Naturally, there are a few problems and hitches here and there, but our dedicated people, headed by Elad Marom and Itamar Scheinman, are working hard to solve every one of them. Student housing is an inseparable part of our efforts to give students a sense of belonging, a feeling that the campus is home, on their journey to realizing their potential and becoming outstanding engineers, doctors, scientists, and architects.”

The Technion Students Association (TSA) Chairperson, Liby Manash, commented: “It’s really important to us that students feel that the Technion is their home, and one of the prerequisites is the availability of high-quality, affordable apartments. The Technion invests a lot in its students, and it’s very exciting to now see the outcome of great collaboration between the Technion management, Student Housing management, the Student Deanship, and TSA.”

The Technion is seeking donations to support the construction costs of the new towers.

(Text by the American Chemical Society.)

Though plants can serve as a source of food, oxygen and décor, they’re not often considered to be a good source of electricity. But by collecting electrons naturally transported within plant cells, scientists can generate electricity as part of a “green,” biological solar cell. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces have, for the first time, used a succulent plant to create a living “bio-solar cell” that runs on photosynthesis.

In all living cells, from bacteria and fungi to plants and animals, electrons are shuttled around as part of natural, biochemical processes. But if electrodes are present, the cells can actually generate electricity that can be used externally. Previous researchers have created fuel cells in this way with bacteria, but the microbes had to be constantly fed. Instead, scientists, including Noam Adir’s team, have turned to photosynthesis to generate current. During this process, light drives a flow of electrons from water that ultimately results in the generation of oxygen and sugar. This means that living photosynthetic cells are constantly producing a flow of electrons that can be pulled away as a “photocurrent” and used to power an external circuit, just like a solar cell.

Certain plants — like the succulents found in arid environments — have thick cuticles to keep water and nutrients within their leaves. Yaniv Shlosberg, Gadi Schuster and Adir wanted to test, for the first time, whether photosynthesis in succulents could create power for living solar cells using their internal water and nutrients as the electrolyte solution of an electrochemical cell.

The researchers created a living solar cell using the succulent Corpuscularia lehmannii, also called the “ice plant.” They inserted an iron anode and platinum cathode into one of the plant’s leaves and found that its voltage was 0.28V. When connected into a circuit, it produced up to 20 µA/cm² of photocurrent density, when exposed to light and could continue producing current for over a day. Though these numbers are less than that of a traditional alkaline battery, they are representative of just a single leaf. Previous studies on similar organic devices suggest that connecting multiple leaves in series could increase the voltage. The team specifically designed the living solar cell so that protons within the internal leaf solution could be combined to form hydrogen gas at the cathode, and this hydrogen could be collected and used in other applications. The researchers say that their method could enable the development of future sustainable, multifunctional green energy technologies.

The authors acknowledge funding from a “Nevet” grant from the Grand Technion Energy Program (GTEP) and a Technion VPR Berman Grant for Energy Research and support from the Technion’s Hydrogen Technologies Research Laboratory (HTRL).

The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS’ mission is to advance the broader chemistry enterprise and its practitioners for the benefit of Earth and all its people. The Society is a global leader in promoting excellence in science education and providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple research solutions, peer-reviewed journals, scientific conferences, eBooks and weekly news periodical Chemical & Engineering News. ACS journals are among the most cited, most trusted and most read within the scientific literature; however, ACS itself does not conduct chemical research. As a leader in scientific information solutions, its CAS division partners with global innovators to accelerate breakthroughs by curating, connecting and analyzing the world’s scientific knowledge. ACS’ main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

To read the full article in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, click here

Bar-Ilan University and the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology have won a call published by the Ministry of Energy for the establishment of a national research institute in the field of energy storage. The aim of the institute is to encourage Israel’s energy sector to take a leap forward in response to national strategic challenges, with an eye toward global applications, as well as to train cadres of future experts in the field and facilitate the transfer of innovative technologies from the academic environment to industry.

The institute will be led by a joint steering committee of the Ministry of Energy, the research institutions, and outside parties. The steering committee will be headed by Ministry of Energy Chief Scientist Dr. Gideon Friedman. Prof. Doron Aurbach, Scientific Director of Bar-Ilan University’s Energy and Sustainability Center, and Prof. Yoed Tsur, Director of the Grand Technion Energy Program (GTEP), will head the new national energy institute.

The institute will be established with a budget of approximately NIS 130 million for 5 years, of which the Ministry of Energy will invest NIS 100 million and the winning institutions have pledged to invest an additional NIS 30 million. The Ministry’s investment will enable the purchase of expensive research infrastructure and the establishment of new laboratories.

With conventional technologies, growing energy consumption causes greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. The goal set by the State of Israel for 2050 is a national energy economy free of greenhouse gas emissions. The way to reach this goal is through a transition to renewable energy sources, such as the sun and wind. Energy production from these sources isn’t steady, but fluctuates through the day. Therefore, development of novel technologies for storing energy in large quantities is required. This will be one of the main tasks of the new institute.

The institute will engage in research in the following areas, among others: sodium-ion batteries that can be less expensive and more available than lithium-ion batteries; improving fuel cell performance; producing green hydrogen efficiently and storing it safely and conveniently; solid state batteries free of liquid and safer; metal-air based batteries such as iron and zinc that have a very high energy density; novel cables with increased ability to convey electrical energy and very high power density; and flow batteries that have a large storage capacity.

The field of energy storage is of great importance for the transition of the economy to clean energy. Energy storage will allow an increasing integration of renewable energy, which is only available during part of the day.

Dr. Gideon Friedman, Chief Scientist of the Ministry of Energy: “The field of large-scale energy storage is one of the most important challenges for the strong integration of renewable energies. The new energy Institute will enable Israel to become a leader in the field, in continuation of the Ministry’s additional efforts in the field of storage. For the first time, an institute is being established that will be led by a steering committee comprised of a combination of members of academia, industry and government.”

Bar-Ilan University President Prof. Arie Zaban, an expert in renewable energy, said that the climate crisis is no longer just about articles in the professional literature, but a matter that’s affecting our daily lives. “The transition to the use of renewable energy with significant storage capacity is a key component in dealing with the climate crisis. At the same time, it will bring the State of Israel energy independence and security. I thank the Ministry of Energy for its significant trust in the research teams and in this special cooperation between the Technion and Bar-Ilan University.”

Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan welcomed the Ministry of Energy’s initiative and its support and said that “dealing with the climate crisis, one of the key challenges of the 21st century, requires multidisciplinary collaborations that cross disciplinary and institutional boundaries. The climate crisis is to a large extent an energy crisis. Dealing with it requires broad academic cooperation and partnerships with industry and government offices. Within the institute, innovative research infrastructures will be established that will serve all researchers in Israel. This is very significant news and I have no doubt that this move, initiated by the Ministry of Energy, will lead us to a better, cleaner and healthier future.”

The establishment of the research institute represents a significant achievement for the Grand Technion Energy Program (GTEP), which was founded 15 years ago,” says Prof. Yoed Tsur, head of GTEP. “The crucial shift to clean energy is not possible without developing new means of storing and converting energy on a large scale. The institute will contribute to the training of future engineers, who will develop solutions in the field. It will also contribute to the generation and testing of novel ideas that could change the national and international energy markets.

The Faculty of Data and Decision Sciences is the new name of the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management at the Technion, effective from January 1, 2023. According to Faculty Dean, Prof. Rann Smorodinsky, “In the past two decades, the faculty has changed its research focus and curriculum, and as a result, the former name no longer reflects most of the staff, students, and alumni. The new name accurately represents the change that has occurred in the faculty’s DNA and will help us attract outstanding students and young academic staff, as well as in building collaborations with relevant industries.”

There are at present 51 staff members and more than one thousand students in the faculty, studying in three undergraduate engineering programs – Data and Information Engineering, Industrial Engineering and Management, and IT Engineering. The faculty offers several excellence programs, including Alonim and Bareket in the IDF Academic Reserve track.

Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan commented: “One of the technological challenges that Israel must prepare for is the data revolution – a revolution that is transforming work processes and decision-making processes in every sphere: industry, finance, the military and security, and many others. The Technion, spearheaded by the newly named Faculty of Data and Decision Sciences, is preparing to address this challenge.”

The faculty was established as a separate academic unit in 1958, and in the initial years, its activity focused on industrial engineering, operations research, economics, statistics, psychology and sociology. Since then, the faculty underwent numerous changes as new staff members, who were active in other fields, joined and introduced new disciplines such as probability, information systems, game theory, marketing and finance, databases and AI, computational learning, and, most recently, cognition. In 1984, the Information Systems Engineering program was initiated in collaboration with the Taub Faculty of Computer Science, and seven years ago, the Data Science and Engineering program was launched – the first of its kind in the Israeli academic landscape.

In those decades, the Israeli economy also underwent extensive changes: the agricultural arcadia was replaced by the start-up nation, and the service sector also grew dramatically. All over the world, two major revolutions erupted – the information systems revolution and the fourth industrial revolution – connecting management and data, computing, and industry. These developments, taken together, form the backdrop for the change of the faculty’s name. Dean Prof. Smorodinsky emphasized that the names and contents of the study tracks will remain unchanged, and that the faculty will continue to support its historical field of study, Industrial Engineering and Management.

The Michigan – Israel Partnership ‘Frontiers in Biomedical Research’ Conference, hosted by the Technion, recently took place at the Elma Arts Complex Hotel in Zikhron Yaacov. The conference was part of the D. Dan and Betty Kahn Scientific Symposium – a joint initiative of the Technion, the Weizmann Institute of Science and the University of Michigan. The conference focused on new advances in biology and technology, aimed at improving human health.

The event was sponsored by the D. Dan and Betty Kahn Foundation, a major Technion donor, and was attended by the Kahns’ daughter, Andi Wolfe, and her husband Larry Wolfe, who serves as the Kahn Foundation’s president. Andi is a member of the Technion Board of Governors and the National Board of the American Technion Society (ATS). Besides this partnership, Andi and Larry are involved in supporting the Michigan-Israel Partnership for Research and Education, in which the Technion plays a central role.

“My father was in love with the Technion,” says Andi Wolfe, who, last month, together with her husband, received the Albert Einstein Award – the highest honor awarded by ATS. “He later also became involved with the University of Michigan, and that’s how he came up with the idea of connecting the two universities. His dream became a reality with the help of Prof. Michael Aviram of the Technion and Prof. David Pinsky of the University of Michigan. The collaboration sponsors joint research projects by researchers from both universities and, today, also from the Weizmann Institute of Science. Meaningful progress is possible only through collaboration, and this initiative encourages a scientific, technological, and medical exchange between researchers from different institutions, different fields, and different countries. I come to all these conferences, and I am especially moved to see the young, brilliant researchers who are driving the worlds of science and medicine toward a better future.”

Conference Chair, Prof. Peleg Hasson of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion, commented: “In most cases, breakthroughs do not come when two people doing similar work and speaking the same scientific language collaborate. Synergism and key advances are made when different disciplines are united. One of the main objectives of this program, apart from creating a bridge between universities, is to ignite ideas, disseminate the seeds that will enable synergistic science to take place. We heard in the last three days talks from various fields, ranging from environment to molecular cellular machineries. While I am sure not every detail was understood by everybody, we do know now what the topics are, what the challenges are, and what capabilities the researchers have. I am sure it will resonate in our minds for some time, and even without knowing it we will think about it using the language and tools we have in our labs. I would thus like to thank all the speakers, chairs and poster presenters for doing an excellent job.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The three keynote speakers at the conference were Prof. Charles Burant of the University of Michigan, Prof. Asaph Aharoni of the Weizmann Institute of Science, and Prof. Lior Gepstein of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion. The conference was also attended by Prof. Ada Yonath of the Weizmann Institute, 2009 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, who talked about the origins of life and the antibiotics of the future.

The event included a poster competition for students of the three institutions, with participation reaching a record high, unprecedented in the conference’s history. Eleven students won the contest, nine of them from the Technion. Technion winners are Nadav Ben Assa, Lama Awwad, Yassen Gharam, Yara Ghnamah, Janan Abd Elkhalik, Anna Kaganovsky, Tahani Kadah, Eman Knaane and Eva Zanditenas. The winner from the University of Michigan is Meera Krishnamoorthy, and from the Weizmann Institute of Science – Aliza Fedorenko

 

Do energy bars and ready meals have to be unhealthy? We’re told processed food is “junk food” that is bad for us. But does it always have to be? Processed foods fill certain needs in our lives: we might not have the time to cook on a particularly busy day, wish to pack a pick-me-up after a day of running around, or long for some comfort food. Can we have all of that, while also being confident that we are eating healthily?

In an international event funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), students from Turin, Helsinki, Madrid, and the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology worked to design and develop new shelf-stable processed food products that are healthy. The groups were part of the Food Solutions project and chose to look at processed foods as a fact of life, recognizing an opportunity to offer foods that are both healthy and environmentally friendly. The two Technion teams won gold and silver medals respectively for their innovative ideas.

“We think of ‘fresh’ and ‘natural’ as the healthy and ‘green’ choices,” Associate Professor Maya Davidovich-Pinhas, one of the teams’ guides, explained. “But that’s not quite true. Modern processing methods, based on scientific knowledge, can preserve, and even enhance the food’s digestibility and nutritional values. When you think about it, food processing has been a part of human history for millennia; it’s what enabled people to preserve food for winter, make it safe for prolonged periods, and carry it on long journeys. Even cooking is a form of processing food, which makes nutrients easier to digest, renders the food safer, and removes toxins and pathogens. Health-consciousness, a scientific approach, and new technology enable us to do the same things in smarter ways, and to get novel healthy food solutions.”

Speaking of products’ environmental footprint, the teams said fresh products require cold storage and cold transportation, which have a high energy cost that shelf-stable products do not incur. Fresh products also spoil quickly, and often go to waste. “One needs to look no further than the local greengrocer’s, at the fruit or vegetables that are imported from across the globe, but will be thrown away at the end of the day if they’re not sold,” the teams commented. “We wanted to create a product that harnesses the benefits of modern processing methods and changes negative connotations about processed food.”

 

 

The first team, “OmeleTofu,” won the gold medal for an instant vegan omelette that is ready to eat after just adding water. This tofu-based product is offered in two flavors: mushroom or shakshuka. The product is produced using freeze-drying, a process first developed for medical applications and space travel that, unlike heat-based drying methods, better preserves the food’s nutritional values. The team included graduate students from two faculties: Yael Friedler from the Faculty of Data & Decision Sciences and Neta Shimony, Eden Freundlich, Noa Ben David-Zinn, Rauf Nasyer, and Caroline Hali from the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering. The idea for the omelette, they say, came from Neta’s vegan boyfriend, who was struggling to find healthy food options that wouldn’t require much time to prepare and would match his dietary needs. The prototype development was supported by Garuda Labs, which helped the team with culinary aspects and implementation of the technology.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The second Technion team, which won silver, is comprised of undergraduate students Ari Yolles, Michal Halfon, and Shaked Katzelnik from the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, joined by chef Adam Kleinberg from “Bishulim” culinary school. Calling themselves “Proteinchick,” the team developed a vegan, gluten-free, low-sugar, savory protein snack. This snack is made from chickpeas and lentils with a cashew-based filling. Its manufacturing process utilizes its own side-stream – the water in which the chickpeas are cooked, to bring the ingredients together in a process of coextrusion that gives it a fluffy and crunchy texture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Both groups were guided by Professors Maya Davidovich-Pinhas, Avi Shpigelman, and Uri Lesmes from the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering. “This competition offers students a unique learning experience,” explained Prof. Lesmes. “They get a taste of the challenges the food sector faces these days. They develop a product, lay down a business plan, scheme its manufacturing, and present their ‘company’ to a team of experienced judges, so the whole process is very similar to founding a real start-up.”

The victories of “OmeleTofu” and “Proteinchick” join a line of trophies Technion students have won in Food Solutions competitions since the initiative was launched in 2017. Winning projects from previous years include vegan oat-based labneh, soy-based yogurt, low-sugar chocolate cake, spirulina-enriched falafel, and a solution to help prevent spoilage of natural juices.

The Technion teams’ success, year after year, is owed to experienced faculty, excellent students, and first-rate infrastructure. As part of their studies in the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, the students gain experience in developing food products and in practical work on semi-industrial machinery in the faculty’s Food Innovation Center, in addition to extensive studies of science and engineering. This year, the Technion has set out to upgrade the existing infrastructure, founding the Carasso FoodTech Innovation Center – a research and development center that will be one of its kind in Israel and one of the most advanced in the world, connecting the students to the flourishing foodtech ecosystem.

The Food Solutions competition is part of a larger EIT Food Education program aimed at strengthening the food sector in the European Union through training professionals for innovation, health awareness, and sustainability. The recent competition took place in Brussels, Belgium, in November, and was hosted by Puratos Corporation.

Jim Heppleman, president of the global software company PTC, made a special visit to the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology this week to launch the company’s new offices on the Technion campus in Haifa. He met with Technion President Professor Uri Sivan and with the University’s senior management team, toured the laboratories, and met with faculty members. A formal cooperation between the company and the Technion includes an investment of 15 million NIS to establish a unique research and development center within the Technion, that will employ approximately 100 employees and that is expected to expand in the future. In addition, PTC will participate together with the Technion in joint research in strategic areas, including 3D printing, the Internet of Things, augmented reality, simulations, and more, and will assist in the development of curricula that match industry requirements.

“Today we made history in terms of cooperation and tightening of ties between academia and industry,” said Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan. “We thank you very much for fulfilling this vision with us. Scientific and technological breakthroughs today require close cooperation between academia and industry. In the past three years, Technion has worked to build a new ecosystem with industry and promoted examining commonalities on campus. The technological world around us is advancing and changing rapidly. Cooperation with PTC anchors a long-standing relationship between the Technion and the company and is important to us in all aspects, both in terms of the contribution to the education and training of our students and to the creation of joint research on campus.”

“All over the world, the importance of cooperation between academia and industry is recognized. As a company whose clients include giant companies such as Toyota, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Audi, Caterpillar, General Electric, Samsung, Dell, Toshiba, Motorola, and more, we see how they are constantly looking for ways to improve their production and development,” said PTC President Jim Heppelman. “I have no doubt that research conducted at the Technion will help us improve our products, which help companies improve processes. At the same time, the Technion will benefit from helping us train the engineers of the future.”

PTC is an American company headquartered in Boston and traded on Nasdaq. Its technology helps companies all over the world manage their product life cycle including planning, manufacturing, operation, and maintenance by experts in a connected world. In Israel, the company employs hundreds of people in two branches in Herzliya and Haifa. The Israeli center is PTC’s second largest R&D center  outside the U.S. and is responsible for the development of the company’s leading products.

 

Since they became part of our lives some 80 years ago, computers have become faster and smaller, but their basic architecture hasn’t changed. There’s still one part that stores information – that’s the memory (e.g., RAM, hard drive), and another part that processes information – that’s the CPU or processor. Now Associate Professor Shahar Kvatinsky presents an architectural alternative. Bringing the “thinking” and the “remembering” functionalities together into one unit, he has built a neural network right into the hardware of a chip, and as a proof of concept – taught it to recognize handwritten letters. The results of his study were recently been published in Nature Electronics.

“We like to describe a computer as a ‘brain’, but entirely separate hardware for storing information and for using it is not how an organic brain works,” explains Prof. Kvatinsky, who is a member of the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. Prof. Kvatinsky develops neuromorphic hardware – electronic circuits inspired by neuro-biological architectures present in the nervous system. The idea of such computers was first developed in the 1980s at the California Institute of Technology, but it is modern technological developments that enabled considerable advances in that field.

One might think modern computers are already surpassing the human brain – has not a computer already defeated the best human chess and Go players? Although the answer is “yes,” AlphaGo, the program that defeated multiple Go masters, relied on 1500 processors, and accrued a $3000 electricity bill per game. The human players’ energy consumption for the same game amounted to a sandwich, more or less, and that same player is also capable of talking, driving, and performing countless other functionalities. Computers still have a long way to go.

In collaboration with Tower Semiconductor, Prof. Kvatinsky and his team designed and built a computer chip that, like an organic brain, does everything: stores the information and processes it. This chip is also hardware-only, meaning its programming isn’t separate; it is integrated into the chip. What this chip does is learn; specifically, learning handwriting recognition, a feat achieved through deep-belief algorithms. Unlike most of the neuromorphic chips investigated these days, that use emerging unconventional technologies, this chip is based on commercial technology available in Tower Semiconductor foundries. Presented with multiple handwritten examples of each letter, the chip learnt which one is which, and achieved 97% accuracy in recognition with extremely low energy consumption.

Artificial neural networks learn in a way similar to living brains: they are presented with examples (examples of handwritten letters, in this particular study), and “figure out” on their own the elements that make one letter different from others, but similar to the same letter in different handwriting. When the neural network is implemented as hardware, the learning process strengthens the conductivity of some nodes. This is very similar to how, when we learn, the connections between neurons in our brains are strengthened.

There are countless potential uses for chips that do everything. For example, Prof. Kvatinsky says, such a chip could be incorporated into the camera sensor of smartphones and similar devices, eliminating the conversion of analogue data into digital – a step that all such devices perform before any form of enhancement applied to the image. Instead, all processing could be performed directly on the raw image, before it is stored in a compressed digital form.

“Commercial companies are in a constant race to improve their product,” Prof. Kvatinsky explains, “they cannot afford to go back to the drawing board and reimagine the product from scratch. That’s an advantage the academia has – we can develop a new concept that we believe could be better and, release it when it can compete with what’s already on the market.”

This study was led by two researchers in Prof. Kvatinsky’s lab: postdoctoral fellow Dr. Wei Wang, who now heads his own research group in Shenzhen, China, conceived the theoretical concepts of the hardware-based deep-belief network and performed the experimental measurements, while Phd student Loai Danial, who has since completed his doctoral studies, and is working in Mobileye, designed the physical chip and led the steps involved in its fabrication. The work was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) and the EU Horizon 2020 Future and Emerging Technologies (FET)-OPEN program.

 

The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology announced that American philanthropists Lynda and Stewart Resnick, co-owners of California-based The Wonderful Company, have pledged, through their foundation, a $50 million gift to transform the university’s research and development of sustainability and catalysis.

The $50 million gift will establish the Stewart and Lynda Resnick Sustainability Center for Catalysis, designed to empower faculty and students to uncover new ways to maintain global growth while protecting the planet for future generations. The pledge is the latest in a series of gifts by the Resnicks’ foundation to improve the quality of life of future generations by protecting the ecosystem and preserve natural resources. The Center’s activity will strengthen the State of Israel and its economy and bolster the Technion’s position as a global center of innovation. It will facilitate the recruitment of young scientists and promote research collaborations with academia and industry.

“The daily impact of environmental change is seen through every aspect of our world. We need great minds across the globe working to preserve the planet to prepare for the needs of future generations. It’s now or never,” said Stewart Resnick, chairman, and president of The Wonderful Company. “Through the resources, dedication, and efforts that will emerge from this sustainability and catalysis center, we will confront the climate crisis rather than hide from it. Lynda and I and the Wonderful Company are proud to call the Technion partners.”

The inspiration to create the Stewart and Lynda Resnick Sustainability Center for Catalysis stems from the university’s initiative to reform the approach to the rapidly growing population and longer life expectancies that will result in more than 10 billion people living on Earth in the year 2050. Innovative solutions to produce food, medicines, and other products are critical due to the accelerated depletion of essential natural resources. Technologies developed in the Stewart and Lynda Resnick Sustainability Center for Catalysis will enable humankind to meet its needs efficiently and speedily while lessening humans’ negative impact on nature and its resources.

Catalysis is a chemical process that dramatically speeds up a reaction between molecules; it also occurs in our bodies. In industry, catalysis is involved in 90% of the production processes. A catalyst is the molecule responsible for this acceleration, and it drives many processes that are not otherwise possible. The constant improvement of catalysis processes makes industrial methods more efficient and reduces their environmental damage, hence the connection between catalysis and sustainability.

“We understand today that continuing to produce more and more with the current methods is not a sustainable solution,” added Distinguished Professor Ilan Marek, of the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry, who will head the Center. “Instead, we must refine the production processes and reduce their impact on the environment. The key is improving the many catalytic processes currently being used in thousands of production processes in all branches of industry. By using new catalysts, we can, for example, not only reduce pollution in the process of plastic production but also make plastics that can be degraded and recycled.”

Distinguished Prof. Marek’s leadership will be especially important as projects emerge that address how to reinvent global production in more sustainable, cost-effective, and efficient ways to reduce environmental harm. The 65,000 ft² building with large, open-space laboratories will incorporate a modular infrastructure that meets current needs and can be adapted to accommodate future developments in scientific technology equipment. The facility’s unique architectural design aims to foster collaboration and interaction among researchers.

“We thank Lynda and Stewart Resnick for their partnership and transformative gift. The climate crisis is one of humanity’s greatest challenges in the 21st century,” said Technion President Professor Uri Sivan. “Coping with this challenge demands many different scientific capabilities. The Technion has recently created a revolution in dealing with major global challenges based on the understanding that bold research achievements require interdisciplinary efforts that link researchers and students from varied scientific and technological fields. The Stewart and Lynda Resnick Sustainability Center for Catalysis will encompass a wide range of scientific expertise and enable us to meet the climate crisis and sustainable development challenges.”

Michael Waxman-Lenz, CEO of the American Technion Society, said, “The Resnicks’ philanthropic vision demands forward-thinking actions to preserve and protect our planet. Their prescient gift to the Technion will enable some of the world’s brightest minds to tackle sustainability challenges through multidisciplinary research. We are deeply honored by Lynda and Stewart’s exceptional generosity and their trust in the Technion.”

The Wonderful Company, co-run by the Resnicks, is one of the largest privately held companies in the United States, whose iconic brands include FIJI Water, POM Wonderful, Wonderful Pistachios, Wonderful Halos, Wonderful Seedless Lemons, Teleflora, JUSTIN, JNSQ, and Landmark wines. Every year, the Resnicks invest in education, community development, and health and wellness initiatives across the Central Valley and beyond, a place-based giving approach centered on investing in, listening to, and collaborating with the communities where their employees live and work.

To date, the Resnicks through their foundation, and The Wonderful Company have invested more than $2.3 billion in philanthropy, with more than $1.3 billion invested in environmental sustainability, to help combat climate change and preserve the planet for future generations. Earlier this year, the Resnicks pledged the largest gift in the California Institute of Technology’s history and among the largest ever for environmental sustainability research with plans to open the Resnick Sustainability Center as a hub for research and education endeavors to advance innovative sustainability solutions. They also pledged a historic gift to fund a new agricultural innovation and research center at The University of California, Davis. As longtime supporters of research and development, the Resnicks aim to create long-term global value through their gifts and open new figurative portals to sustainability in research, education, and society.