Category: Uncategorized

Intel’s Rising Star Faculty Award program selected 10 university faculty members who show great promise in developing future computing technologies. From projects such as a novel cloud system stack, to ultra-low power computing and memory platforms, to artificially intelligent (AI) systems that learn on the fly, these researchers are building advanced technologies today.

The program promotes the careers of faculty members who are early in their academic research careers and who show great promise as future academic leaders in disruptive computing technologies. The program also fosters long-term collaborative relationships with senior technical leaders at Intel.

The awards were given based on progressive research in computer science, engineering and social science in support of the global digital transition in the following areas: software, security, interconnect, memory, architecture, and process.

Faculty members who work at the following universities received Rising Star awards: Cornell University, Georgia Tech, Stanford University, Technion, University of California at San Diego, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, University of Texas at Austin, and University of Washington.

Ten assistant professors received Intel’s Rising Star Faculty Awards: (from top row, left): Asif Khan of Georgia Tech, Chelsea Finn of Stanford University, Hannaneh Hajishirzi of University of Washington, Baris Kasikci of University of Michigan, Daniel Soudry of Technion, Nadia Polikarpova of UC San Diego, Jaydeep Kulkarni of UT Austin, Bo Li of UI Urbana-Champaign, Hamed Hassani of University of Pennsylvania, and Christina Delimitrou of Cornell University.

Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering Daniel Soudry’s contributions address the core challenge of making deep learning more efficient in terms of computational resources. Despite the impressive progress made using artificial neural nets, they are still far behind the capabilities of biological neural nets in most areas — even the simplest fly is far more resourceful than the most advanced robots. Soudry’s novel approach relies on accurate models with low numerical precision. Decreasing the numerical precision of the neural network model is a simple and effective way to improve their resource efficiency. Nearly all recent deep learning related hardware relies heavily on lower precision math. The benefits are a reduction in the memory required to store the neural network, reduction in chip area, and a drastic improvement in energy efficiency.

H2PRO is a startup company that produces hydrogen using green energy based on an innovative technology invented at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The company is one of just five chosen as finalists in a prestigious competition organized by Royal Dutch Shell. It is the youngest company on the list, and the only one from Israel. There were several elimination rounds during the competition, called New Energy Challenge, and organizers recently announced the five finalists have all been designated for investment and scale-up.

H2PRO’s innovative technology heralds a new era of green hydrogen production by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using electrical power. Traditional electrolysis produces hydrogen and oxygen simultaneously, which requires a membrane to separate them. The use of a membrane makes the system and the process significantly more expensive. Green hydrogen is an alternative fuel that can replace oil and natural gas in the long term. It plays a critical role in the reduction of polluting vehicle emissions, as well as in clean production of materials and chemicals, heating and storing renewable energy. 

The new technology renders the membrane unnecessary, since the two gases are produced at different stages. Furthermore, this technology increases energy efficiency by 20-25% compared to the alternatives, significantly improves the safety of the production process, reduces the cost of building the system to approximately one half, and increases the pressure of the produced hydrogen, thereby reducing the cost of downstream hydrogen compression.

H2PRO was founded in 2019 by Technion researchers Prof. Gideon Grader (Chemical Engineering), Prof. Avner Rothschild and Dr. Hen Dotan (Materials Science and Engineering), in collaboration with the founders of Viber, headed by entrepreneur Talmon Marco. The company received an exclusive license to commercialize the technology from T3, Technion’s technology transfer unit. To date, it has raised capital from Hyundai, Sumitomo and Bazan, and from private investors and funds. The research that led to the establishment of H2PRO was supported by the Nancy and Stephen Grand Technion Energy Program (GTEP), a donation by Ed Satell, the Adelis Foundation, Israel’s Ministry of Energy and the European Commission (the EU’s 2020 program). The research was conducted together with Dr. Avigail Landman, who was a PhD student of both Prof. Rothschild and Prof. Grader.

 

Technion-Israel Institute of Technology Students have developed a lifesaving application that detects strokes at early stages; they won 2nd place in an international medical technology competition

A team of students from the Technion and the University of Missouri won 2nd place at MedHacks – a hackathon for developing medical technologies hosted by Johns Hopkins University. They were awarded for developing the Scan&Sound application, which detects strokes at early stages and alerts the victims. MedHacks is the largest hackathon in the U.S. for developing medical technologies. This year, more than 1,000 people participated, including students, doctors, engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs from all over the world. The event was a collaboration between Johns Hopkins University and MLH – Major League Hacking, which organizes hundreds of student hackathons every year, and was funded by various entities, including Google Cloud.

The Scan&Sound team is comprised of four Technion students and alumni: Hadas Braude, a 6th-year student in the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine; Sean Heilbronn-Doron, a 4th year student in the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine; Shunit Polinsky, a Master’s student in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering; and Ron Liraz, an alumnus who received a Master’s degree from the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering. The fifth student on the team was Leeore Levinstein, a 3rd year medical student at the University of Missouri. 

One in four people in the United States experiences the clinical phenomenon known as a stroke at one point in their lives. There are many different levels of severity, ranging from a stroke that one is not even aware of experiencing to an event that results in serious cognitive and motor impairments, and even death. In addition to personal harm, strokes also incur enormous financial expenses for the individual, the health system, and the country. As a result, there is a great deal of motivation to develop methods to identify strokes at the early stages when treatment is more effective. 

Scan&Sound won second place in the “Personalized Medicine Using Data-Driven Healthcare” Category. The application detects early, subtle stages of stroke by studying voices and facial expressions and analyzing the data using artificial intelligence. If there is a significant change, the application alerts the user that they are suffering from symptoms that may indicate a stroke and suggests they call predetermined contacts or an emergency call center. 

Hadas Braude, who headed the group, proposed the idea after someone close to her suffered a stroke. On the day it happened, the person met with friends and family, who immediately noticed that something was wrong. They did no=t, however, suspect a stroke.

“As a result,” said Ms. Braude, “the man arrived at the hospital late and missed the ‘treatment window.’ Since then, I haven’t stopped thinking about how to prevent the next incident, and have asked myself how it can be possible that the telephone that is always with us gathers information about us, but cannot detect and warn that something is wrong with us.”

Ms. Braude and Sean Heilbronn-Doron met before this round of competition, when they competed together in the T2Med hackathon hosted by the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion. Following their win at T2Med, the two registered for MedHacks and invited Ron Liraz, a talented and experienced electrical engineer they met at T2Med, to join them. In classic Israeli fashion, the two other members of the unique and diverse trans-Atlantic Scan&Sound team arrived through personal and family contacts.

The hackathon itself was very challenging. Besides the physical distance, the members of the team had to contend with the time difference between Israel and the U.S., as well as navigating classes and other prior commitments. They were able to achieve their goal through effective communication, planning, determination, division of labor and, most importantly, through each member’s personal commitment to the project.

The judges at the competition were extremely impressed with their project and asked the team members – in jest mixed with wonder – not to forget them after they become rich and famous. But Ms. Braude and her friends stress the project’s true goal is to enable people to receive treatment in time and to safeguard brains, identities, and lives. This is, in fact, the motivation that inspired them to establish a technological team and to create partnerships with neurological departments and rehabilitation centers in Israel and the U.S.

A team led by Technion’s Professor Jackie Schiller has uncovered surprising ways the brain learns and adapts skilled movement. The findings hold promise for future treatments of brain disease and disorders.

Survival depends on our ability to move. Whether it be to acquire food, eat, take care of our offspring, or protect ourselves, the coordinated movements we make daily require subconscious adjustments and adaptation to changes in the environment or our bodies. The brain must learn from previous movements and use that information to correct current and future movements. However, little is known about how neurons in the motor cortex – the part of the brain that directs skilled movement – process and apply experience to achieve coordinated and essential skilled movement. 

A study, published recently in the journal Neuron, addresses research questions that include whether the neurons (nerve cells) register the reward (food), the movement, or both, and how the neurons track positive or negative task outcomes irrespective of actual reward or movement. The study also uncovers new information on the cell-type-specific organization in this part of the brain, and its use for motor control and learning skilled movements.

The researchers used a dexterity task in mice – reaching and grasping for food – and monitored what was happening in the mouse primary motor cortex (M1) where motor plans are being learned and controlled. 

The experimental techniques used were versatile and encompassed biological and computational methods that included imaging, genetic, behavioral, and advanced computational tools. The study was made possible through the collaboration of a multidisciplinary team of Technion researchers led by Professors Jackie Schiller and Omri Barak of the Technion Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and lead students Shahar Levy and Maria Lavzin, together with Professors Ronen Talmon and Ron Meir and postdoc Hadas Benisty from the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Technion. The Technion team also collaborated with Dr. Adam W. Hantman of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, where Prof. Schiller and her student Maria Lavzin spent a sabbatical year and conceived the project to delve into the unknown brain mechanisms that allow a mouse to learn complex movements. 

The team discovered two different neuron populations that reported successful or failed behavior attempts. This indicated a global assessment of motor performance rather than specific kinematic parameters or reward. They also discovered that the task outcome (in this case whether the mouse achieved food) is “remembered” by the neurons and affects the initial state activity of the neurons for the next trial, and that activity in this area of the brain is necessary after the task in order for movement adaptation to occur. 

Prof. Schiller postulates that the use of performance outcome signals task success or failure, rather than specific kinematic parameters or reward, may be a key reason for why the M1 is essential for skilled dexterous behaviors. The researchers also observed that outcome evaluation (carried out by neurons in M1 layer 2–3) is distinct from movement generation (carried out by neurons in M1 layer 5). They theorize that this separation may be beneficial in some way, as it can allow different plasticity rules to operate in different networks. According to Prof. Schiller, just as artificial deep neural networks use layer separation to increase computational efficacy, the evaluation and movement separation in the motor cortex may serve a similar purpose.

The researchers’ discoveries have furthered medicine’s insight into what happens in the cerebral M1 cortex when learning skilled movement. They plan to continue the research with the hope that the findings will lead to the development of new treatments for brain diseases.

“In the future we would like to find out, for example, which brain pathways are involved in activating these cells and how these signals can be used, in combination with machine-brain interfaces, to improve movement in patients, such as those suffering from Parkinson’s disease,” said Prof. Schiller.

The study was partially supported by the Janelia Visiting Scientific Program, the Collaborative Research Computational Neuroscience (CRCNS) (BSF – NSF / NIH Foundation), Israel Science Foundation (ISF MORASHA, Biomedical Research Program), Adelis Foundation, and Allen and Jewel Prince Center for Neurodegenerative Disorders of the Brain.

Click here for the paper in Neuron

 

Researchers at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology have developed precise radiation sources that may replace the expensive and cumbersome facilities currently used for such tasks. The suggested apparatus produces controlled radiation with a narrow spectrum that can be tuned with high resolution, at a relatively low energy investment. The findings are likely to lead to breakthroughs in a variety of fields, including the analysis of chemicals and biological materials, medical imaging, X-ray equipment for security screening, and other uses of accurate X-ray sources.

Published in the journal Nature Photonics, the study was led by Professor Ido Kaminer and his master’s student Michael Shentcis as part of a collaboration with several research institutes at the Technion: the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering, the Solid State Institute, the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute (RBNI), and the Helen Diller Center for Quantum Science, Matter and Engineering.

The researchers’ paper shows an experimental observation that provides the first proof-of-concept for theoretical models developed over the last decade in a series of constitutive articles. The first article on the subject also appeared in Nature Photonics. Written by Prof. Kaminer during his postdoc at MIT, under the supervision of Prof. Marin Soljacic and Prof. John Joannopoulos, that paper presented theoretically how two-dimensional materials can create X-rays. According to Prof. Kaminer, “that article marked the beginning of a journey towards radiation sources based on the unique physics of two-dimensional materials and their various combinations — heterostructures. We have built on the theoretical breakthrough from that article to develop a series of follow-up articles, and now, we are excited to announce the first experimental observation on the creation of X-ray radiation from such materials, while precisely controlling the radiation parameters.”

Two-dimensional materials are unique artificial structures that took the scientific community by storm around the year 2004 with the development of graphene by physicists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, who later won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010. Graphene is an artificial structure of a single atomic thickness made from carbon atoms. The first graphene structures were created by the two Nobel laureates by peeling off thin layers of graphite, the “writing material” of the pencil, using duct tape. The two scientists and subsequent researchers discovered that graphene has unique and surprising properties that are different from graphite properties: immense strength, almost complete transparency, electrical conductivity, and light-transmitting capability that allows radiation emission an aspect related to the present article. These unique features make graphene and other two-dimensional materials promising for future generations of chemical and biological sensors, solar cells, semiconductors, monitors, and more.

Another Nobel laureate that should be mentioned before returning to the present study is Johannes Diderik van der Waals, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics exactly one hundred years earlier, in 1910. The materials now named after him – vdW materials – are the focus of Prof. Kaminer’s research. Graphene is also an example of a vdW material, but the new study now finds that other advanced vdW materials are more useful for the purpose of producing X-rays. The Technion researchers have produced different vdW materials and sent electron beams through them at specific angles that led to X-ray emission in a controlled and accurate manner. Furthermore, the researchers demonstrated precise tunability of the radiation spectrum at unprecedented resolution, utilizing the flexibility in designing families of vdW materials.

The new article by the research group contains experimental results and new theory that together provide a proof-of-concept for an innovative application of two-dimensional materials as a compact system that produce controlled and accurate radiation.

“The experiment and the theory we developed to explain it make a significant contribution to the study of light-matter interactions and pave the way for varied applications in X-ray imaging (medical X-ray, for example), X-ray spectroscopy used to characterize materials, and future quantum light sources in the X-ray regime,” said Prof. Kaminer.

Prof. Ido Kaminer joined the Technion faculty in 2018 and is the head of the AdQuanta Research Group and the Robert and Ruth Magid Electronic Beam Dynamics Laboratory, a faculty member at the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering, the Solid State Institute, the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute (RBNI), and the Helen Diller Center for Quantum Science, Matter and Engineering.

The current study was conducted in collaboration with various units at the Technion, including researchers from the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry, the Faculty of Material Science and Engineering, and the following international institutions: The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (ICFO), ​​Arizona State University, Technical University of Denmark, and Nanyang Technological University of Singapore.

All the experiments were performed in electron microscopes at the MIKA center for electron microscopy in the Faculty of Material Science and Engineering.

The study was supported by the European Union (ERC grant and H2020 grants), the Israel National Science Foundation (ISF), and the Azrieli Foundation.

Click here for the paper in Nature Photonics

Physical Review X recently reported on a new optical resonator from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology that is unprecedented in resonance enhancement. Developed by graduate student Jacob Kher-Alden under the supervision of Professor Tal Carmon, the Technion–born resonator has record-breaking capabilities in resonance enhancement.

A resonator is a device that traps waves and enhances or echoes them by reflecting them from wall to wall in a process called resonant enhancement. Today, there are complex and sophisticated resonators of various kinds throughout the world, as well as simple resonators familiar to all of us. Examples of this include the resonator box of a guitar, which enhances the sound produced by the strings, or the body of a flute, which enhances the sound created in the mouthpiece of the instrument. 

The guitar and flute are acoustic resonators in which the sound reverberates between the walls of the resonator. In physics, there are also optical resonators, such as in laser devices. A resonator is, in fact, one of the most important devices in optics: “It’s the transistor of optics,” said Prof. Carmon.

Generally speaking, resonators need at least two mirrors to multiply reflected light (just like at the hairdressing salon). But they can also hold more than two mirrors. For example, three mirrors can be used to reflect the light in a triangular shape, four in a square, and so on. It is also possible to arrange a lot of mirrors in an almost circular shape so that the light circulates. The more mirrors in the ring, the closer the structure becomes that of a perfect circle. 

But this is not the end of the story, as the ring restricts the movement of light to a single plane. The solution is a spherical structure, which allows light to rotate on all planes passing through the center of the circle, regardless of their tilt. In other words, in three-dimensional space.

In the movement from physics to engineering, the question arises of how to produce a resonator as close as possible to a sphere that is clean, smooth, and gives the maximal number of rotations for optimal resonance. It is a challenge that has engaged many research groups and has yielded, among others, a tiny glass resonator in the shape of either a sphere or ring, which is held next to a narrow optical fiber. An example of this was presented by Prof. Carmon two years ago in Nature.

Here, there was still room for improvement, as even the stem that is holding the sphere creates a distortion in its spherical shape. Hence, the desire was born to produce a floating resonator – a resonator not held by any material object.

The world’s first micro-resonator was demonstrated in the 1970s by Arthur Ashkin, winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics, who presented a floating resonator. Despite the achievement, the research direction was soon abandoned. Now, inspired by Ashkin’s pioneering work, the new floating resonator exhibits a resonant enhancement by 10,000,000 circulations of light, compared to about 300 circulations in Ashkin’s resonator.

The Levitating Resonator

In a resonator made of mirror that reflects 99.9999% of light, and in which the light will rotate about a million revolutions or “round trips.” According to Prof. Carmon, “If we take light that has a power of one watt, similar to the light of the flash on a cell phone, and we allow it to rotate back and forth between these mirrors, the light power will be amplified to about a million watts – the power is equal to the electricity consumption of a large neighborhood in Haifa, Israel. We can use the high light output, for example, to stimulate various light-matter interactions at the region between the mirrors.”

In fact, a million watts are made up of the same single particle of light that travels back and forth through matter, but the matter does not “know” that it is the same particle of light that moves repeatedly through the matter,  since photons are indistinguishable. It only “feels” the great power. In a device of this type it is also important that the million watts pass through a small cross-sectional area. Indeed, the device developed by Kher-Alden conducts light in 10 million circular trips, in which the light is focused on a beam area 10,000 times smaller than the cross-sectional area of a hair. In doing this, Kher-Alden has achieved a world record in the resonant enhancement of light.

The resonator developed by Technion researchers is made of a tiny drop of highly-transparent oil of about 20 microns in diameter – a quarter of the thickness of a strand of hair. Using a technique called ‘optical forceps,’ the drop is held in the air using light. This technique is used to hold the drop in the air without material support – which may damage its spherical shape or soil the drop. According to Prof. Carmon, “This ingenious optical invention, the optical forceps, is used a lot in life sciences, chemistry, micro-flow devices and more, and it is precisely the optical researchers who hardly use it – a bit like the cobbler walking barefoot. In the present study, we show that optical forceps have enormous potential in the field of optical engineering. It is possible, for example, to build an optical circuit using multiple optical forceps that hold many resonators and control the position of the resonators and their shape as needed.”

The tiny dimensions of the drop also improve spherical integrity, because gravity hardly distorts it, since it is marginal in these dimensions relative to the surface-tension forces at the liquid interface which give it a spherical shape. In the unique system developed by Technion researchers, the drop of oil is held by a laser beam and receives the light from another fiber, which also receives the light back after it has passed through the resonator. 

Based on the properties of the light returning to the fiber, researchers can know what happened inside the drop. For example, they can turn off the light entering the resonator and examine how long a photon will survive in the resonator before it fades. Based on this data and the speed of light, they can calculate the number of rotations the photon makes (on average) in a drop. The results show a world record in light amplification: 10,000,000 rotations that pass through a cross-sectional area of about a micron squared, increasing the light 10 million times.

Additional participants in the study include Shai Maayani, Mark Douvidzon, Leopoldo Martin from the Technion, and Lev Deych from the Physics Department at Queens College, City University of New York.  The study was conducted as part of the “Circle of Light” Center for Excellence (ICORE) of the National Science Foundation and the Planning and Budgeting Committee; the US-Israel Science Binational Foundation (BSF); the American National Science Foundation (NSF); and Israel Science Foundation (ISF).

Click here for the paper in Physical Review X 

A team of researchers from the Technion Faculty of Chemistry (Prof. Y. Eichen and Dr. G. Parvari) and the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (Prof. D. Rittel and Dr. Y. Rotbaum) have developed and patented the use of a liquid hydrogel in shock protection systems that significantly mitigates the energy transferred to a body or a structure (e.g. explosion, bullet impact), thereby reducing the risks of traumatic internal organ (e.g. brain) injury.

One of the most damaging consequences of traumatic impact is the damage inflicted to the brain and other internal organs. Such trauma (traumatic brain injury) occurs without any significant damage (penetration) to the external structure (such as skull or helmet), and yet the violent elastic accelerations resulting from the shock can be extremely damageable and sometimes lethal.

As of today, the classical protection systems are geared towards defeating the incoming threat by means of strong materials. However, those are the very same materials that conduct the damaging elastic shock energy without mitigating it significantly.

During the past 5 years, a team of Technion researchers (Prof. Y. Eichen and Dr. G. Parvari, Dept. of Chemistry, and Dr. Y. Rotbaum and Prof. D. Rittel, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering) developed and characterized a simple and innocuous hydrogel, basically a mixture of methylcellulose and water of the kind used in the food industry. Call it “magic water”.

It so happens that this family of (so-called inverse freezing) of dilute solutions of hydrogels, in the liquid state, have a tremendous capacity to absorb shock energy, thereby providing the missing link of an efficient protective system. Different kinds of experiments were carried out over the years, some of which quite “realistic” like firing 7.62 mm bullets, or experimenting with explosive charges, and looking for the reduction of damage experienced by the target. The results were both clear and absolutely novel. A thin layer of “magic water” of the kind developed at Technion is a highly potent shock mitigating agent!!! Such a property has never been thought of previously.

This invention has been patented and the field of potential applications is very wide, ranging from bodily armor protection (helmets, boots, flak jackets), components packaging, aeronautical vibrations mitigation, car industry and ….the sky is the limit.

The concept is under accelerated development those days ready for adoption by industry in order to turn the concept into a marketable product.

A first-of-its-kind study examining the assumption that cancer patients are an at-risk group for COVID-19 finds that these patients do not get infected any more than the general population and do not suffer from more severe disease symptoms. In fact, based on their findings, the researchers hypothesize that cancer treatments may affect the patients’ response to COVID19-induced “cytokine storm.”

From the moment the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, medical teams around the world operated under the assumption that cancer patients were an at-risk group in terms of contracting the virus. Defining cancer patients as an at-risk group had far-reaching implications for their treatment – this without any prior scientific basis. Patients were afraid to seek treatment for fear of contracting the coronavirus in hospitals, and in some countries, guidelines were issued for postponing oncology treatments in certain situations.

A new study conducted by researchers at Rambam Medical Center and the Technion reveals surprising findings, namely that cancer patients may not be associated with the broad range of at-risk groups of people suffering from morbidities. The research was led by Professor Yuval Shaked, head of the Rappaport  -Technion Integrated Cancer Center (R-TICC) and Professor Irit Ben Aharon, director of the Division of Oncology at Rambam and principal investigator at the R-TICC, in collaboration with Dr. Tal Goshen-Lago, head of the Translational Research Division of Oncology at Rambam. The findings were published in Cancers, in a special edition dealing with the impact of the coronavirus on cancer patients.

The study included 271 participants, including 164 cancer patients, who came to the Rambam Medical Center to receive ongoing treatment for their disease, and a control group of 107 healthy employees among the medical staff. In the study, which was conducted between March and June 2020, all participants underwent blood tests, at three different times, to examine changes in the profile of the immune system. The test monitored three antibodies – IgG, IgM and IgA – that represent antibody formation at different times of virus exposure.

“We were surprised to find that cancer patients and health subjects developed antibodies at similar rates,” said Prof. Ben Aharon. “2.4% of cancer patients who participated in the study and 1.9% of participants in the healthy control group developed antibodies for the coronavirus and all were asymptomatic. Moreover, throughout the entire study period, no symptomatic coronavirus patients were detected in the study population and among the general population of our oncology patients.” According to Prof. Ben Aharon, the CyTOF technology was used to map immune system cells, and a significant difference was found between the immune profile of cancer patients who were positive for coronavirus antibodies and the immune profile of the positive staff members.

“Our hypothesis is that the different response of cancer patients to the disease is related to the fact that anti-cancer treatment changes the profile of the immune system,” said Prof. Shaked. “The myeloid cells, which are vital cells in the immune system, are severely damaged by the coronavirus. In the general population and in the medical staff that participated in the study, the virus reduces the rate of myeloid cells by about 90%; in cancer patients, however, it reduces them by only 50%. This fact gives cancer patients relative protection.”

Prof. Ben Aharon added that the hypothesis is that anti-cancer treatments may change the profile of the immune system and its function which may limit the ability of the coronavirus to induce severe inflammation in patients receiving these treatments. The researchers estimate that this is why the proportion of cancer patients with non-hematological malignancies who develop severe disease is relatively low compared to that of the general population according to the literature, and that severity may be affected by other comorbidities. The mechanism for this observation is being further explored nowadays. 

The research was supported by the Israel Cancer Research Fund (ICRF) and the European Research Council (ERC grant).

Prof. Irit Ben Aharon is a doctor and researcher and head of the Oncology Department at the Rambam Health Care Campus.

Prof. Yuval Shaked is head of the Technion Integrated Cancer Center in the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine (R-TICC). The center, established in 2016, promotes research that combines basic, clinical and engineering science in favor of developing new tools for cancer diagnosis, treatment and follow-up.

Click here for the paper in Cancers 

Fourth-year students were displaying their work at the annual project exhibition held at the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering last week, which took place this year online.

Student exhibits included systems for predicting epileptic seizures, mood tracking in cancer patients, and systems for the prevention of sudden death in athletes. The first prize was awarded to Lidan Fridman, who developed an innovative technology for an accurate physiological diagnosis of hearing loss.

“The display of the projects is the peak event of the year at the Faculty, and reflects our pursuit of close, continuous collaboration with the industry.” said Faculty Dean Prof. Shulamit Levenberg. “The projects on display are the epitome of many months of tackling practical challenges, complex technical difficulties and our requirement that students present meaningful solutions to real-world problems.”

The project course is led by Prof. Nati Korin. Projects were ranked by thirty judges, including Technion faculty members and researchers, entrepreneurs and senior executives in the biomed industry. As has been the custom each year, the prizes were contributed by entrepreneurs Doron and Liat Adler of Sanolla.

The Winners

Awards included five prizes for excellence, an entrepreneurship prize, and a people’s choice prize. As mentioned, the first prize was won by Lidan Fridman, who, under the supervision of Prof. Dvir Yelin and Ph.D. student Matan Hamara, developed a system for the diagnosis of early-stage hearing loss. According to Lidan, “Today, the diagnosis is to a great extent reached on the basis of information provided by the patient, a fact that introduces a subjective element to the process. Here, we have developed a compact system that creates high-resolution images of vibrations of the tympanic membrane, and is likely to be of help in the future in detecting hearing problems and more accurately diagnosing their causes”. The two major components of the system are the device’s housing and the software required for an analysis of the results, and Fridman hopes that within the next few years, the development will progress to clinical trials followed by subsequent widespread use.

The second prize went to Yael Zaffrani, who, under the supervision of Prof. Moti Freiman, developed a technology for the early diagnosis of Crohn’s Disease. She says, “The doctor diagnoses the current condition of the diseased bowel on the basis of numerous MRI images, but because the bowel is a convoluted organ it is hard to monitor its anatomy and reach an accurate, data-based decision”. Based on the MRI images, the system developed by Zaffrani provides the doctor with a single image that displays the bowel in the form of a straight and taut organ, free of convolutions, allowing for the detection of symptoms of severe inflammation with relative ease.

The third prize was won by Maya Hershko, who, under the supervision of Prof. Avi Schroeder of the Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering, developed a technology designed to inhibit the uncontrollable proliferation of cancerous cells using nanoparticles.

The fourth prize went to Niv Rebhun and Sofia Rozenberg, who, under the supervision of Dr. Yoav Madan, developed a prosthetic hand for transhumeral amputations. The product is tailored to meet patient-specific needs, is relatively simple and easy, and does not require a lengthy learning curve. The project was executed with the assistance of the Haifa 3D nonprofit organization.

The fifth prize for excellence went to Worud Abu Alasal and Elia Khamesy, who executed their project under the guidance of Prof. Tzipi Kraus of the Faculty of Education in Science and Technology. The two studied the mother-child brain to brain synchrony during joint storytelling by measuring brain activity in ten pairs of mothers and children in Arab society and demonstrated that storytelling creates a stronger synchrony compared to other shared activities.

The people’s choice prize was won by Ayelet Lotan and Opal Nimni, who, under the supervision of Prof. Yael Yaniv, developed a wearable (non-invasive) digital technology for early diagnosis of heart disease.

In addition to the above prizes, the Faculty also awarded the entrepreneurship prize. This prize seeks to invite students into the world of entrepreneurship and encourage them to devote thought to business development and the realization of their developments through commercialization. The prize was won by Marina Tulchinsky, Roni Keshet and Ori Shahar for their Vocal Vibes – a remote speech therapy technology. The group was supervised by Dr. Oscar Lichtenstein and Shaked Ron, winner of the first prize in last year’s project contest. Vocal Vibes is a system that streamlines the work of the speech therapist through remote diagnosis and treatment – goals that have acquired special importance during the current COVID-19 crisis. The information originates in sensors embedded in a special collar worn by the user, and in recordings and photographs taken by a mobile phone. The new technology demonstrated its ability to diagnose dysphonia, a voice disorder in which the vocal cords do not function properly, resulting in an impaired voice, with 88% accuracy.

The development of entrepreneurship in the Faculty is being spearheaded by Dr. Yael Rozen, a consultant on applied research in the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering at the Technion. The students’ investor presentations were judged by Dr. Amir Toren, CTO and Business Development Director at New Generation Technology’s (NGT) incubator; Dr. Gideon Meiri, CEO of NanoMedTech, and Dr. Judith Zilberstein, CEO of the Alon Med-Tech incubator.

Technion – Israel Institute of Technology was the only Israeli institution among the top 30 leading institutions on the ranking of the ICML International Conference on Machine Learning this year. The ICML is the most important conference in the world in the field of computational learning. Competing digitally this summer, universities and companies were ranked according to the number of articles accepted at the conference.

The prestigious list of 30 is led by Google, followed by a significant margin by MIT. The Technion is ranked in the middle of the list – at 15th place, ahead of hi-tech giants such as Amazon and IBM, and ahead of universities such as Cornell and Georgia Tech.

An additional  ranking of the leading countries was also published, according to the number of articles contributed out of 1,088 articles received at the conference. The list is led by the United States; followed by a significant margin by Britain and China, with Israel ranked 8th – ahead of Japan, Singapore, India and others. Israel contributed 42 articles, with the majority (23) coming from the Technion.  

According to Prof. Irad Yavneh, former Dean of the Faculty of Computer Science and Director General of the Samuel Neaman Institute (SNI) at the Technion, “Israel plays an important role in machine learning, and ICML conference data provide quantitative evidence of this fact. At the Technion, it is very important for us to continue to develop knowledge in this vital field, and to that end, we encourage interdisciplinary and inter-departmental research.”

The Technion articles accepted for the conference were written by multidisciplinary researchers from the Center for Machine Learning and Intelligent Systems. The Technion has been consistently ranked as one of the best universities in the world in the field of machine learning, as reflected through other platforms such as the csrankings.

Due to the Coronavirus Pandemic, and to ensure the safety of all, this year’s doctoral award ceremony at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology took place virtually.

The main ceremony of doctoral awards took place on Wednesday, September 16, at 6:30 PM.

Asst. Prof. Yehonadav Bekenstein of the Technion Department of Materials Science and Engineering has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant – a prestigious European grant for young academic faculty. With a total value of 677 million euros this year, the ERC grants are awarded as part of Horizon 2020, which is an innovation program within the European Union. The grants support brilliant young scientists in building winning research teams to conduct pioneering research. 

Dr. Bekenstein received the grant for the development of halide perovskites materials. These special materials are characterized by high efficiency in energy conversion and are expected to revolutionize optoelectronic applications such as advanced detectors, solar energy, and even quantum communication. Unlike widely-used semiconductors (such as silicon and germanium), halide perovskites are only slightly affected by the presence of defects in the material, so they are effective in devices that require high efficiency. In a joint study with colleagues from Berkeley and Harvard, Dr. Bekenstein has already created perovskite nano-crystals in the form of dots, wires and plates. The control over the shape and dimensions of these materials determines the physical properties and enables their incorporation into devices for the benefit of man. The ERC funded study will focus on combinations of two-dimensional perovskites with other materials such as oxides and semiconductors to discover new functional properties.

Dr. Bekenstein completed his degrees in physics and chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley, before joining the Technion faculty in 2018. Over the years, he has won numerous awards including the Käte and Franz Wiener Prize for excellence in a doctoral thesis, the prestigious Rothschild Scholarship for postdoctoral fellows, and the Alon Fellowship for supporting young scientists.