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Global Ranking of AI Research: Technion, the only Israeli representative on the list, is ranked in 25th place

According to AI Research Rankings, published at the beginning of December, Technion is ranked in 25th place on the list of the world’s academic institutions leading the field of artificial intelligence research.

Technion was ranked #29 on a more comprehensive list that included large corporations in addition to universities. On that list, which includes Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and IBM, Technion is ranked before Amazon, University of Pennsylvania, University of Seoul and Johns Hopkins University. Furthermore, Technion is the only Israeli institution (including both academic and non-academic institutions) ranked in the top 40 leading institutions in AI research worldwide. 

Israel also earned a place of honor in the new rankings: it is ranked in 2nd place in the per capita publication index, with the U.S. being the only country surpassing Israel in the number of AI research publications per capita.

In recent years, Technion has increased its investment in the field of artificial intelligence – in terms of both funding and human capital. In October 2018, an AI Center was established on campus in partnership with Intel, headed by Prof. Shie Mannor of the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering. 

The AI Research Rankings are based on 2,200 publications at the two most prestigious AI research conferences held in 2019: Neural Information Processing Systems and International Conference on Machine Learning.

EMET Prize awarded to Dist. Prof. Moti Segev from the Technion

The 2019 EMET Prize was awarded this week at the Jerusalem Theater by Social Equality Minister Gila Gamliel to 11 researchers, among them Distinguished Professor Moti Segev of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, winner of the EMET Prize in Physics and Space.

The EMET Prize is awarded by the A.M.N. Foundation with the sponsorship of the Prime Minister for academic or professional excellence and achievements with far-reaching impact and for a special contribution to society. Its aim is “to acknowledge those who view excellence as a way of life and the fulfillment of human potential as essential to creating a better world for future generations.”

Dist. Prof. Segev, 60, is the Robert Shillman Chair of the Faculty of Physics, and one of the founders of the Helen Diller Center for Quantum Science, Matter and Engineering. After a B.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering he went onto a post-doctorate at Caltech, followed by an appointment as a professor at Princeton University. In 1998 he returned to Israel and to the Technion as a faculty member of the physics department. In 2008, he became a distinguished professor, awarded for outstanding research excellence and reserved for a select few researchers at the Technion.

Dist. Prof. Segev is a groundbreaking physicist in the field of optics and lasers and his scientific work is cited in tens of thousands of scientific articles. Among his awards are the prestigious Quantum Electronics Prize (the most important European award in the field of optics and lasers), which he won in 2007, the Max Born Award from the American Optical Society (2009) and the Arthur L. Schawlow Prize in Laser Science in 2014. He is a Foreign Member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) of the United States of America, a member of the Israeli Academy of Sciences and Humanities and a recipient of the Israel Prize in Physics in 2014.

Dist. Prof. Segev spoke at the ceremony on behalf of the EMET laureates and said that: “The small number of faculty members in Israeli academia means that on every faculty member there are about 25 students (undergrads and graduate students).  This is the worst numerical ratio in Western society. By comparison, at MIT, Stanford, and Princeton the ratio is 1:12. Therefore, it is important that we increase the faculty members by at least 30%, perhaps by 50%. The question asked is therefore whether we have the human brain pool to select excellent faculty members. The answer is positive: today there are some 1,500 Israelis in academia in the United States. Most of them stayed there after their post-doctorates because they did not have the opportunity to return to Israel. Therefore, we must add positions to allow more researchers to find work at universities in Israel after the postdoctoral studies abroad, and give a chance to more young people, at least 30% more than what we are doing today.”

The research group, headed by Dist. Prof. Segev focuses on experimental and theoretical projects in many fields including photonics, lasers, and quantum electronics. The group is engaged in research of basic scientific aspects that influence other areas of science (beyond photonics) and in the development of applications affecting the world of technology.

This past year (March 2018-Feb 2019), Dist. Prof. Segev reported on seven different works, each of which is groundbreaking, published in two of the world’s leading scientific journals, Nature and Science.

Beyond his personal achievements, Segev is most proud of the success of his doctoral and postdoctoral students, 21 of whom are university professors in Israel and abroad, and many others who hold senior R&D positions in industry. His candidacy for this year’s EMET Prize was submitted by his former students, who are now university professors in Israel.

To young researchers, Dist. Prof. Segev said at the ceremony: “Think beyond the horizon about things that weren’t thought about before you. Have a mind to distinguish between the principal and the subordinate. Have the courage to fight for yours.”

Inspired by the Brain: Researchers at the Technion and TowerJazz have developed technology for adapting commercial transistors to the artificial intelligence era

Researchers at the Technion and TowerJazz have developed a revolutionary technology that can turn TowerJazz’s commercial flash memory components into memristors—devices that contain both memory and computing power. The technology, which was inspired by the operation of the human brain, significantly accelerates the operation of artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms. 

Published in the Nature Electronics journal, the research was led by doctoral student Loai Danial and Professor Shahar Kvatinsky of the Andrew & Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Technion, in collaboration with Prof. Yakov Roizin and Dr. Evgeny Pikhay from TowerJazz and Prof. Ramez Daniel of the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering at the Technion.

From the outset, the ability of computers to solve computational problems has been superior to that of humans. Yet for decades, when it came to identifying images, classifying image attributes and making decisions, computers lagged behind humans. In recent years, artificial intelligence has begun to narrow this gap and has managed to carry out complex operations by means of training based on examples. For the past few decades, vast resources have been devoted to developing artificial intelligence on the software level. This investment has generated a quantum leap in AI effectiveness in many and varied fields, among them medicine, intelligent transportation, robotics and agriculture.

Artificial intelligence is fueled by data, and specifically by extremely large data sets known as big data. For this reason, the major breakthrough in the field of artificial intelligence had to “wait” for dramatic improvements in computing power. Yet hardware lagged behind these rapid developments in software performance, such that the development of hardware that would meet the demands of AI software was delayed for years. Such hardware must work well in terms of speed, low power demand, accuracy, area, and cost. These requirements are very difficult to satisfy with the traditional hardware model based on digital computation.

The digital model limits hardware performance in two main contexts: 1) Digital hardware has difficulty performing many operations in parallel, for it was originally intended to perform a relatively small number of operations. 2) This type of hardware can provide great accuracy only at the cost of extremely high energy and time consumption. As a result, the researchers say innovative hardware is needed that will meet the needs of the artificial intelligence era.

According to Prof. Kvatinsky: “One of the major challenges that AI poses to hardware engineers is how to implement complex algorithms that require a) storage of massive amounts of data in the computer memory, b) rapid retrieval from memory, c) performing many computations in parallel, and d) high accuracy. Standard digital platforms hardware (processors) is not suited for this for the reasons mentioned above.”

This is the background for the new technology described in the article published in Nature Electronics. “Our technology transforms hardware that is digital in nature into a neuromorphic platform—an analog infrastructure of sorts that resembles the human brain,” said Prof. Kvatinsky. “Just as the brain can perform millions of operations in parallel, our hardware is also capable of performing many operations in parallel, thus accelerating all associated operations.”

Doctoral student Loai Danial goes on to explain: “I am personally interested in neuromorphic computations, both as a computer engineering student and as someone who lost his father to a rare neurological disease. The brain has always served as an inspiration for computational systems, and my challenge is to use engineering tools to understand the computational mechanism of brain operations. In the current research, we showed that an electrical chip based on standard commercial technology has two critical abilities: associative memory that, like the brain, operates based on features rather than index searching, and the ability to learn.”

Associative memory, which is familiar to us from human thought, means, for example, that when we see eyes we do not search some clause in an index of items to find a match for an eye but rather identify the eye associatively. This mechanism is rapid, efficient and energy-saving. Moreover, as with the brain, the system’s ability to learn improves as the links between the synapses and the nerve cells change and are updated.

According to Prof. Roizin of TowerJazz: “The new technology is easy to implement and transforms TowerJazz’s transistors, originally designed to store data only, into memristors—units that contain not only memory but also computing ability. Because the memristors are situated on existing TowerJazz transistors, they immediately interface with all the devices the transistors work with. The new technology has been tested under real conditions, demonstrating that it can be implemented in building neural hardware networks, thus significantly improving the performance of commercial artificial intelligence systems. Like the brain, the improved system excels in its ability to store data over the long term and in its very low energy consumption.”

According to Prof. Ramez Daniel, formerly an electrical engineer at TowerJazz and now a member of the Technion Faculty of Biomedical Engineering: “The computing power of the improved device stems from its ability to function in the sub-conduction area, or to put it more simply, in a way that resembles natural biological mechanisms. As a result, we have achieved high efficiency with low output, similar to mechanisms that developed in nature over billions of years of evolution.”

Technion researchers Eric Herbelin, Nicolas Wainstein, Vasu Gupta and Nimrod Wald from Prof. Kvatinsky’s research group participated in the research. 

This research was supported by the Planning and Budgeting Committee (PBC), the KAMIN grant from the Israel Innovation Authority, the Andrew Viterbi and Erna Finci Viterbi Scholarship for Graduate Students and the European Research Council (ERC) starting grant. Recently, Loai Danial presented this research at the Nature Conference in China and was awarded the prize for the best paper award at the conference.

About the research participants:

Prof. Shahar Kvatinsky completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his doctorate at the Technion and worked at Intel in circuit design. After completing a post-doctorate at Stanford University, he returned to the Technion as a member of the Andrew & Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering. Over the years he has won many prizes, among them the Wolf Foundation’s Krill Prize for Excellence in Scientific Research, the Viterbi Fellowship, the Jacobs Fellowship, and the ERC starting grant, as well as seven awards for excellence in teaching.

Loai Danial completed his bachelor’s degree at the Technion and worked at the IBM research laboratories in Haifa from 2013-2016. Today he is working on his doctorate (direct Ph.D. track) under the supervision of Prof. Kvatinsky. He was awarded the Herschel Rich Prize for technological innovation, the Andrew Viterbi and Erna Finci Viterbi scholarship for graduate students and the Planning and Budgeting Committee (PBC) scholarship for doctoral students from the Arab sector.

Prof. Yakov Roizin is the TowerJazz Fellow and Director of Emerging Technologies, and a visiting professor at both the Technion and Tel Aviv University. He has 40 years of semiconductor device and technology development experience, and has, for the past 23 years, been with TowerJazz developing specialty CMOS technologies and novel semiconductor devices. Prof. Roizin is the author of more than 200 research papers and holds more than 50 USA patents in the field of semiconductor devices and technologies.

Dr. Evgeny Pikhay received his B.Sc. from the Technion, M.Sc. from Tel Aviv University and Ph.D. from the Technion.  He is the Principal Device Engineer at TowerJazz, and has 15 years of experience in developing CMOS devices, including embedded NVM, solar cells, sensors of ionizing radiation. Dr. Pikhay is the author of more than 40 papers and patents.

Prof. Ramez Daniel completed a bachelor’s degree in the Andrew & Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Technion and a master’s degree in electronics and electrical engineering at Tel-Aviv. He then began working in industry. After eight years of working at TowerJazz, he left to pursue his doctorate and subsequently a post-doctorate at MIT, where he built the first biological computer inside a bacterium. Today he heads the Laboratory for Synthetic Biology in the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering at the Technion.

For the full article in Nature Electronics click here

Photo Credits: Rami Shlush, Technion Spokesperson Department

 

 

Distinguished Professor Moti Segev from the Faculty of Physics at the Technion will receive the 2019 EMET Prize in the field of Physics and Space, tomorrow, December 9th. The prize is sponsored by the Prime Minister for academic or professional excellence and achievements with far-reaching impact and for a special contribution to society.

 

Dist. Prof. Segev, 60, is the Robert Shillman Chair of the Faculty of Physics, and a founder of the Helen Diller Center for Quantum Science, Matter and Engineering at Technion. He was born in Romania and immigrated to Israel aged three.  He grew up in Haifa before serving in the IDF as an infantry officer and later as a reserve commander of a reconnaissance unit for many years. After his army service, Segev completed his bachelor’s and direct-track doctoral degree at Technion in the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering. Following a post-doctorate at the California Institute of Technology, he was appointed assistant professor at Princeton University in 1994, went up the ranks to associate professor and full professor within 4.5 years. In 1998 he returned to Israel and to Technion as a faculty member. In 2009, he was made a Technion distinguished professor.

Prof. Segev is a trailblazing physicist in the field of optics and lasers and his work is cited in tens of thousands of scientific publications. Among his honors are the prestigious Quantum Electronics Prize of the European Physics Society (2007), the Max Born Award of the American Optical Society (2009), the Arthur L. Schawlow Prize in Laser Science of the American Physical Society (2014), and the Israel Prize in Physics (2014). He is a foreign member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) of the USA and a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

His group focuses on experimental and theoretical research projects in numerous fields including photonics, lasers and quantum electronics. The group is engaged in basic research that influences other areas of science beyond photonics, and in the development of applications that impact the world of technology.

This past year (March 2018-Feb 2019), Segev published articles on seven groundbreaking research breakthroughs in the world’s leading scientific journals, Nature and Science.

Beyond his personal achievements, Segev is most proud of the success of his doctoral and postdoctoral students, 21 of whom are university professors in Israel and abroad, and many others who hold senior R&D positions in industry. His candidacy for this year’s EMET Prize was submitted by his former students, who are now university professors in Israel.

The EMET Prize is awarded annually by the A.M.N. Foundation for the Advancement of Science, Art and Culture in Israel, “for excellence in academic and professional achievements that have far-reaching influence on and significant contribution to society.” The Foundation was created in 1999 by Alberto Moscona Nisim in order “to acknowledge those who view excellence as a way of life and the fulfillment of human potential as essential to creating a better world for future generations.” This year’s prize committee included Prof. Hagit Messer-Yaron, Prof. Jacob Klein and Prof. Nir Shaviv.

https://webcasting.co.il/player/zoog/emet2019/emet_2019.html

 

 

Assistant Professor Yaron Fuchs selected as a Young Investigator of the European Molecular Biology Organization

Assistant Professor Fuchs, a member of the Technion Faculty of Biology, researches the role of programmed cell death in physiological processes. His research paves new ways in regenerative medicine and tumor therapy.

Assistant Professor Yaron Fuchs of the Technion Faculty of Biology is one of 27 scientists from all over the world selected as Young Investigators by EMBO – the European Molecular Biology Organization. Prof. Fuchs, the only Israeli in the current cycle, was accepted to the prestigious list for his achievements in “harnessing stem cell apoptosis for driving tissue regeneration.”

 “Each of the new Young Investigators has demonstrated their ability to carry out research at the highest level, and it is a pleasure to welcome them to the EMBO community,” says EMBO Director Maria Leptin. “The first years as an independent researcher can be a particularly challenging time in a scientist’s career, and we look forward to supporting these twenty-seven researchers in establishing their independent careers.”

Prof. Fuchs deals with planned suicide (apoptosis) in stem cells – unique and relatively rare cells that produce different types of cells and therefore renew different tissues in the body. Over the years, many studies have focused on stem cell self-renewal and differentiation, however the apoptotic mechanism in these cells has barely been explored.

Prof. Fuchs’s research group discovered the role of different apoptotic proteins in different skin and intestinal stem cell populations and demonstrated that the apoptotic process can be harnessed to accelerate tissue healing after injury and reduce scar formation. The group also managed to create mini organs (organoids) in a dish, which can be used for transplantation and drug screening platforms. These discoveries pave the way for more effective treatment of various diseases and improved healing.

EMBO includes the leading researchers who promote excellence in the life sciences in Europe and abroad. The organization’s main goals are to support talented researchers at all stages of their careers, stimulate the exchange of scientific information, and help build a research environment where scientists can achieve their best work. The selected Young Investigators join a four-year program, during which the organization provides them with financial support, important professional relationships, mentorship by veteran researchers from the EMBO community, leadership training and access to the research infrastructure of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany.

The research of Prof. Fuchs paves new ways in regenerative medicine and in treating wounds and cancerous tumors. For his various studies, he received this year’s Krill Prize from the Wolf Foundation, the Daniel Shiran Memorial Prize, and the Science & Sartorius Grand Prize for Regenerative Medicine & Cell Therapy for 2019. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) awarded him the prize for his list of achievements which he described in an article in Science: “The therapeutic promise of apoptosis.”

The Technion mourns the passing of Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Lapidot, 10th Commander of the Israeli Air Force and President of Technion from 1998-2001.

Maj. Gen. (res.) Lapidot, a native of Kfar Saba, graduated from the Isaeli Air Force pilot’s course with honors in 1954. He later participated as a pilot in Operation Kadesh, as a squadron commander in the Six Day War and as the Hatzor Airbase commander during the Yom Kippur War. From 1987-1982 he was Commander of the Israeli Air Force.

During his tenure as president, he took Technion to new heights: centers of excellence at the university flourished, breakthroughs were made in the discovery of stem cells (Prof. Joseph Itskovitz-Eldor) and in the development of electronic biological devices (Profs. Erez Braun, Yoav Eichen, and Uri Sivan); the magnificent Henry and Marilyn Taub and Family Science and Technology Center was inaugurated; Distinguished Profs. Avram Hershko and Aaron Ciechanover – later Nobel Laureates – won the prestigious Lasker Award; and the Atidim program at Technion was launched, encouraging outstanding high school graduates from the periphery to study for an academic degree.

Maj. Gen. (res.) Lapidot, who held a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Tel Aviv University and a master’s degree from Stanford University, died yesterday at the age of 85.

Israeli researchers have developed new technology for transporting drugs within silicon nanostructures to the brain. These nanostructures release an essential protein, which can inhibit the development of Alzheimer’s disease, and can provide targeted delivery in the brain with the use of a “gene gun”.

Researchers at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology and their partners at Bar Ilan University have developed new technology to inhibit the development of Alzheimer’s disease. The work was recently published in the journal Small and also appears on the magazine cover. The research was led by Professor Ester Segal and Ph.D. student Michal Rosenberg from the Technion Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering and their partners, Professor Orit Shefi and Ph.D. student Neta Zilony-Hanin from the Bar Ilan University Faculty of Engineering.

Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia, is characterized by symptoms that include memory loss, speech impairments, orientation problems, and significant impairment of motor functions. The disease primarily strikes the elderly population, and after the age of 85 reaches a prevalence of some 30%. Due to the increase in life expectancy and the increase in the elderly population, the overall incidence of the disease has grown and is today referred to as the “gray epidemic” or the “21st century plague.”

Alzheimer’s is a neurodegenerative disease, meaning that it originates in the brain cells. The major cause of the disease is the accumulation of a protein called amyloid beta (Aβ) in brain tissues. The protein blocks kill the nerve cells, also called neurons, in different regions of the brain. This leads, in part, to damage to the cholinergic mechanisms essential for brain function. 

Administering a specific protein, neural growth factor, inhibits the damage to the cholinergic mechanisms and the exacerbation of the disease. But delivering the protein into the target area of the brain is not a simple task because the brain rests beneath the blood-brain barrier (BBB), which protects the central nervous system (the brain) from being infiltrated by bacteria and harmful substances from the blood. This barrier also restricts the passage, from the bloodstream to the brain, of drugs intended to treat brain diseases.

The Technion and Bar Ilan University researchers have presented an innovative solution to this challenge: Nanoscale silicon chips for direct insertion of the protein into the brain and its release into the target tissue. The dedicated silicon chips, developed in Prof. Segal’s lab, have a nanoscale porous structure that allows them to be loaded with large amounts of protein. Through precise control of chip properties –- pore dimensions, surface chemical properties and more – the researchers were able to reach an optimal configuration that retains the protein in its active form and then releases it gradually, over a period of about a month. Afterwards, the chips safely degrade in the brain and dissolve. 

In this way, as mentioned, the protein is not required to cross the blood-brain barrier since it is inserted directly into the brain in one of two ways: by implanting it into the brain (as a chip) or sending it to its target as microparticles with the use of a dedicated gene gun. Upon reaching the target location in the brain, the protein is released from the chip and the chip breaks down into non-toxic components. 

“In a series of experiments, we showed in mice that the two ways of delivering the platform into the brain led to the desired result,” said Technion doctoral student Michal Rosenberg. “Furthermore, our technology has also been tested in a cellular model of Alzheimer’s disease and indeed, the protein release has led to rescuing the nerve cells.”

The research was conducted with the support of the Russel Berrie Nanotechnology Institute at the Technion.

For the full article in the journal Small click here

 

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Researchers from the Technion have Developed and Tested a New Technology for Transporting Live Seafood 

Researchers from the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology have developed an innovative technology for live seafood transportation storage. The technology, which is based on a physiochemical approach for water treatment, is based on the research of Professor Ori Lahav’s research group. Its advanced R&D phase is being supported by funding from the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT). 

Seafood is considered a premium product with a high trade value almost all over the world. The revenue from live shellfish, for example, maybe up to 20 times higher than the revenue that can be obtained from the frozen product. Still, most shellfish are not sold alive because of the challenges posed by their transportation to consumers. For the same reasons live fish are most often sold alive close to the area in which they are caught, most live shipments are operated under conditions that are effective only for short-distance transportations. This is because the water quality tends to deteriorate rapidly during these shipments due to the accumulation of toxic metabolites (ammonia, phosphorus, and carbon dioxide) and microorganisms that are sustained by them, affecting the fish prosperity and increasing mortality.

This is where Prof. Lahav, Prof. Youri Gendel and Dr. Raz Ben-Asher, the team that conceived and developed the technology, enter the picture. The new technology is based on a physicochemical approach for water treatment. The treatment unit removes toxic ammonia via electrolysis, i.e. by applying direct electrical current on the water, which converts chloride ions naturally existing in the water, into chlorine that attacks the ammonia. The ammonia oxidizes to benign gaseous N2, which is the major component of the atmosphere. In parallel to the ammonia removal, the system also disinfects the water, an action that contributes to the welfare of the fish and minimizes microbial presence.

One of the main advantages of using such electrochemical processes for livestock holding is that the ammonia removal rate is not affected by temperature. During the shipment, the water temperature is reduced to a minimal value, commonly 2-5 oC, in order to reduce the livestock’s metabolism rate and minimize the excretion of metabolites. Bio-treatment options, which are often used for water treatment inland aquaculture facilities, are ineffective in low temperatures, so they are not relevant for transportation applications.

Prof. Lahav’s research group is currently finishing a series of experiments with a pilot system, based on the new technology, that was designed for prolonged live seafood transportation in closed facilities. Within the examined products are European brown crab, green sea urchin, and arctic char. The experiments are being conducted by the group in the Netherlands and in Iceland, in order to demonstrate the technological abilities under the observation of potential customers.

EIT Food is a foundation under the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) that aims to lead and direct European food production in the coming decades. EIT Food has provided a grant for the project to assist in the development and commercialization of the new technology.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0144860916300656

 

An experiment designed by the Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering at the Technion will examine the behavior of anti-bacterial substances in space and their effect on bacteria under conditions of zero gravity.

How does micro-gravity (zero gravity) affect our living world? Technion researchers and their partners in Italy will soon be launching two experiments into outer space to shed light on this fascinating field of inquiry. 

The experiments, which examine different effects of micro-gravity, will be launched from French Guinea on a European Space Agency launch. The project is part of a collaboration between the Israeli Space Agency at the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Italian Space Agency, which includes four experiments conducted by the company “Space Pharma.” Each experiment includes one Israeli and one Italian researcher.

The first experiment examines the behavior of anti-microbial molecules and their effect on bacteria and was designed by Prof. Boaz Pokroy of the Technion’s Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering and his partner Prof. Giuseppe Falini of the University of Bologna. The second experiment examines the speed at which blood proteins bind to chemical materials, and was designed by researchers from the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion and Tre University in Rome.

The experiment of Prof. Pokroy and Prof. Falini is called SpaceLysis and will examine the effect of micro-gravity on the kinetics of anti-microbial materials and their action on bacteria. On Earth, the interaction between bacteria and these substances depends on diffusion and convection, whereas in space, there will be zero convection, and so the interaction is expected to change significantly, explains Prof. Pokroy. The researchers, who have already conducted the experiment on Earth, seek to study the effect of microgravity on these interactions through the innovative space experiment.

“Your future is here”: 700 outstanding high school students take part in Tech Women at Technion this month. 

“Your future is here,” announced computer science student Karen Yitzhak to the group of excellent female high school students attending this year’s Tech Women, which she hosted.

Arriving at Technion City from Israel’s four corners, the 700 female students are presently excelling in math and science at school. During the Tech Women even at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology the students met with researchers, faculty, and graduates, touring laboratories and encountering a range of research fields.  

Tech Women events are held at the initiation of the Rosalyn August Women Girls Empowerment Mission (GEM) and are designed to inspire female students with the field of possibility and opportunity at Technion and to encourage them to pursue undergraduate studies in science and engineering.

“Already in the Technion’s first class in 1924, the 17 students studied included one female. This was at a time when, in many countries, academia was closed to women. Since its first day, the Technion has received male and female students based on their abilities alone and regardless of religion, race and gender,” said Prof. Alon Wolf, Vice President for External Relations and Resource Development who opened the event. “You also came here to the Technion today because of your abilities. If you want to influence the future of the world and determine what it will look like in fifty years’ time, come study at the Technion.”

The opening event was hosted by student Keren Yitzhak, who began her studies at the Technion Preparatory Program some five years ago and will soon complete here bachelor’s degree in computer science. “You were selected to attend this event because you are brilliant, and we have no doubt that your future is here,” said Yitzhak, who in parallel to her studies works at Melanox. “Even if you aren’t sure what you want to do when you grow up, the Technion is a great starting point for you.”

Dr. Rotem Vishinkin, who received her PhD from the Technion this year, spoke about her path at Technion and about the studies she conducted under the guidance of Prof. Hossam Haick of the Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering. In recent years, Dr. Vishinkin innovated a sticker to diagnose tuberculosis. The development, supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

and the European Union, is expected to save the lives of millions of people in developing countries through early diagnosis and compatible care. “As a young girl, I dreamed of becoming a doctor,” she told the students. “But in the end, I chose chemical engineering studies, where I combine engineering and life sciences. As the director of the Apatch group, where research partners from academia, hospitals and various companies are developing a sticker to diagnose tuberculosis, I feel that I’m making a unique and significant contribution to humanity.”

 

Israeli and American scientists have discovered that administering probiotics in hospital intensive care units may lead to blood infections, and in some cases, the adverse effects could outweigh the potential benefits

Scientists from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and Boston Children’s Hospital have discovered that probiotic consumption may lead to blood infections. Published in Nature Medicine, the study is based on a collaboration between Technion scientists Professor Roy Kishony and Dr. Idan Yelin and research groups led by Professors Gregory Priebe and Thomas Sandora from Boston Children’s Hospital. According to the results of the study, in certain cases, the risk of taking probiotics may outweigh the benefits. 

Administering probiotics is a common protocol during medical treatments, and its use in hospitals is constantly expanding as a means for preventing diarrhea and intestinal diseases, and sometimes against pneumonia, pancreatitis, and sepsis. 

It now appears consuming probiotic bacteria may result in serious side effects. The study by the research team explored the possibility that these same bacteria find their way to the bloodstream and cause an infection. The hypothesis that probiotics may have harmful effects was raised in the past, but until now no decisive evidence had been presented that proved a causal link. But by using advanced whole-genome mapping technology, the Technion and Boston Children’s Hospital scientists showed that in some cases, infection-causing bacteria do originate in the probiotics administered to the patient.

The research is based on data collected over a 5 1/2 -year period from patients being treated at Boston Children’s Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit. During this period, the ICU treated 22,174 patients, of whom 552 received probiotic capsules as part of their treatment. These consisted of Lactobacillus rhamnosus bacteria containing LGG.

During the study, six patients were diagnosed with Lactobacillus rhamnosus blood infections; all were part of the group who received probiotic treatments. Among the thousands of patients who did not receive probiotics, none was diagnosed with this type of blood infection. 

In their article in Nature Medicine, the scientists provide evidence that the source of the blood infection was indeed the probiotic bacteria. They used innovative genomic tools to prove the infection-causing bacteria originated in the probiotic. The DNA sequences of the bacteria from the infections were fully extracted at the Technion Genome Center, along with the DNA of bacteria from the probiotic capsules. This showed that the bacteria in the blood also contained LGG.

Further analysis of the data revealed that the bacteria in the capsules and in the blood can not be genetically separated. Furthermore, the limited genetic variety found in the capsules was also found in blood isolates. Some of these bacteria found in the bloodstream were new mutations that were not identified among the capsule bacteria, including a mutation that imparts resistance to antibiotics that was found in an isolate from one of the patients. In other words, in addition to the risk of infection, probiotic consumption may also trigger the growth of bacteria resilient to antibiotics – one of the processes that harm the effectiveness of medical treatments and endangers the patient. 

Technion’s share of the research was supported by an ERC grant from the European Union, NIH, and the Beutler Foundation. 

Click here for the paper in Nature Medicine