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In 1969 the Faculty of Computer Science was established, making it an important year in Technion’s history. Three years later, in 1972, the first class of 10 students, including four women graduated. This year 300 graduates completed their studies in the faculty (2018-19 academic year).

In the fifty years of the faculty’s existence, research has expanded and faculty members have made pioneering research discoveries. Some of these include: the Lempel-Ziv algorithm, published in 1977 by Profs. Jacob Ziv and Abraham Lempel which served as the basis for essential ZIP compression technologies; a system to improve 3D cameras developed by Prof. Ron Kimmel and sold to Intel; and the hacking into the GSM cellular network led by Prof. Eli Biham.

On Oct. 30th thousands of students, faculty, staff and alumni and their families joined the 50th-anniversary celebration of the faculty. The celebratory science and technology event included workshops and sessions for children and adults and informal scientific lectures in the format of the popular “Science at the Bar.”

Faculty alumni in attendance included Dr. Yoelle Maarek, Vice President of Amazon worldwide; Dr. Eran Eden, co-founder and CEO of MeMed; Karin Eibschitz Segal, CEO of Intel Israel’s development center; Dr. Kira Radinsky, co-founder and chairwoman of Diagnostic Robotics; and Oded Cohen, director of the IBM research center.

“We have built an amazing place here during the past 50 years,” said Faculty Dean Prof. Dan Geiger. “This faculty is the backbone of the Israeli hi-tech industry and its graduates serve in key positions in the Israeli economy. Computer science is an area that is increasingly concerned with all aspects of life. It is a science that provides challenges and delivers successes at a dizzying pace in: Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, cyber, constant improvement in the ability to organize data, use it in creative ways, and protect it. In the past four years, there has been a 50% increase in the number of undergraduate degrees in computer science and a 90% increase in graduates in advanced degrees.  This year, we were also honored and proud that the faculty received the Yanai Award for Teaching Excellence.

“Technion’s Computer Science Faculty has a wonderful history,” said Technion
President Prof. Uri Sivan, “We all proudly follow its ascent. I wish the students, faculty and staff a Happy Jubilee. I am sure they will continue to prosper and succeed.”

 

For the sixth time: Technion wins a gold medal at the iGEM competition in Boston. Additionally, the team ranked in the top five in the category of community contribution. The group has developed a technology for the creation of bee-free honey.

The Technion team for the iGEM international competition returned from Boston with a gold medal – the sixth gold medal given to the Technion in this competition over the years.

The Technion team has been working on the development of bee-free honey for the past year. The synthetic honey is produced by the bacterium Bacillus subtilis, which “learns” to produce the honey following reprogramming in the lab. The innovation gains importance within the context of the decline in bee populations in many parts of the world. Moreover, in the artificial production of honey, the manufacturer can determine the properties of the honey, including its taste.

iGEM is a prestigious competition established in 2004 by MIT – The Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The competition gives students the opportunity to study and experiment with all aspects of scientific and applied research in synthetic biology. Some 300 teams from universities all over the world took part in the competition.

This year, with the support of the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Technion, a delegation left for the US comprised of 12 students from six different faculties at the Technion: Biomedical Engineering; Medicine; Biotechnology and Food Engineering; Industrial Management and Engineering; Chemical Engineering; and Aerospace Engineering. The students are: Asaf Licht; Lior Haim; Zeinat Awwad; Nir Litver; Mai Dror; Ofri Warsha; Ilan Brajzblat; Oriyet Tibi; Yehonatan Zur; Dor Ben Meir; Shira Levi; and Lidya Tannenzapf.

Student groups from the Technion have been participating in the iGEM competition since 2012 under the initiative of Prof. Roee Amit, head of the Synthetic Biology Laboratory for the Decipherment of Genomic Codes in the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, and Lab Director Dr. Orna Atar. This year the group was also guided by mentors Noa Eden, Tzila Davidov, and Liron Abrahami-Patchuk. 

The competition is structured so that groups are required to both develop a scientific-technological idea, and to present themselves as real business enterprises. In addition to the development of new technology, group members are required to raise research funding; meet with relevant experts from academia and industry; and perform experiments to improve the product. Over the years, dozens of startups have been born through the international competition.

“The winnings in the competition are definitely exciting, but equally important is the intellectual property created around the project,” said Prof. Roee Amit. “Just this year, we’ve shortlisted two rare achievements with developments from previous student competitions: a scientific article published January 2, 2019; and a patent approved in the United States on March 26, 2019.” 

The article, which was published in the ACS Biomaterials Science and Engineering journal, describes the use of engineered bacteria to detect and measure harmful substances in food and water. Patent No. 10240132, which Prof. Amit and Dr. Attar are signed onto together with students Alexei Tomsov and Maayan Lufton who participated in the 2015 delegation, is a device for preventing baldness based on body bacteria activity.

One parameter for participation in the competition is social contribution. Within this framework, the Technion group held a unique Hackathon on environmental issues and sustainability. At the Hackathon, 44 outstanding students from 10th-12th grade in Haifa participated, with “The Green Choice” group winning first place, developing a solution to reduce the amount of food waste in the world. This was achieved through an application that allows supermarkets to offer lower prices on products that are about to expire. The Hackathon organization put the Technion team among the top five in the iGEM Community Engagement category.

Technion Awards Harvey Prize to Developers of the CRISPR-Cas9 Genetic Editing Technology, and to Father of Algorithmic Game Theory

The prestigious Harvey Prize for science and technology was awarded on Sunday at Technion to Prof. Emmanuelle Charpentier, Prof. Jennifer Doudna, and Prof. Feng Zhang, who developed the groundbreaking genetic editing technology CRISPR-Cas9, and to Prof. Christos H. Papadimitriou, one of the founding fathers of algorithmic game theory. The ceremony was attended by Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan, Executive V.P. for Research Prof. Koby Rubinstein, Executive V.P. for Academic Affairs Prof. Shimon Marom, Senior Executive V.P. Prof. Oded Rabinovitch, V.P. for External Relations and Resource Development Prof. Alon Wolf, deans, and faculty members. The master of ceremonies was Prof. Adi Salzberg of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine. 

“The four individuals who received the prize are proof that curiosity, creativity and determination can indeed change the world.”

“The Harvey Prize epitomizes the institution that I have the honor of heading,” Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan said at the ceremony. “It represents excellence on a global scale, celebrates human ingenuity and accomplishments, and showcases the power of science to improve humanity. The four individuals who received the prize are proof that curiosity, creativity and determination can indeed change the world.”

Prof. Emmanuelle Charpentier from the Max Planck Institute and Prof. Jennifer Doudna from UC Berkeley published their historic article in 2012 in the prestigious journal Science, describing how the bacterial protein CRISPR-Cas9 can identify targets in the DNA. The article demonstrated how Cas9 can be easily programmed to edit a broad range of DNA targets. Prof. Charpentier and Prof. Doudna were awarded the Harvey Prize for their extraordinary contribution to understanding central aspects of the CRISPR-Cas9 bacterial defense system and its use as a genome-editing tool to program eukaryotic cells, as well as for clarifying structural biology and the biochemistry of the CRISPR-Cas9 system and its translation to applied science. These dramatic discoveries generated a revolution in life sciences and make it possible to edit, modify and repair DNA. In the future, these breakthroughs are expected to spark the development of innovative treatments for diseases and aging.

“Basic science did not lose its importance, and it is still crucial for developing important applications,” said Prof. Charpentier, who is head of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Pathogens, at the ceremony. “A deep understanding of biological processes is necessary for developing medical applications and innovative treatments for serious diseases, and I am extremely grateful for the academic freedom we are given and for the financial support for our work.

“It is a great honor for me to receive this prize, and I thank the Technion for acknowledging the importance of our research. I would not have been able to embark by myself on the long journey that led to the development of the CRISPR-Cas9 technology as a genetic editing tool, and I would like to thank all the young students and brilliant colleagues who worked with me over the years, and especially my partner Prof. Jennifer Doudna.”

Prof. Doudna, who was unable to attend the ceremony, expressed gratitude for the prize in a video clip. “It’s a wonderful honor to be receiving the Harvey Prize for the development of the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology. I congratulate my co-recipients and in particular, I acknowledge the wonderful collaboration with the lab of Prof. Emmanuelle Charpentier. Our teams worked together to understand the fundamental biology of a bacterial immune system known as CRISPR. When we figured out how Cas9 works as a programmable enzyme, we recognized it could be harnessed as a powerful technology to change the DNA sequences cells and of organisms – in ways that scientists around the world are now using towards curing genetic diseases and coming up with agricultural solutions to the problems of climate change and pestilence.”

Prof. Feng Zhang received the prize for a landmark article published in Science in 2013 on CRISPR-Cas9 technology for genomic editing in developed organisms and on using the CRISPR-Cas9 system as an RNA-programmable system for use in eukaryotic cells. “Working with scientists from all over the world creates close research and personal relationships, and I’m glad that I have wonderful friends and colleagues also from Israel,” Prof. Feng Zhang said at the ceremony. Prof. Zhang, who is 38, is the youngest person to ever win a Harvey Prize. “The Harvey Prize is a huge honor for me, and I have no doubt that it will motivate me to return to the lab and continue working hard.”

The winner in the field of Computer Science, Prof. Christos H. Papadimitriou, is considered the father of algorithmic game theory. He taught at Harvard, the National Technical University of Athens, Stanford, UC San Diego and UC Berkeley, and is currently a professor of Computer Science at Columbia University. He is one of the leading scientists in the theory of computer science, and is best known for his work on computational complexity. Prof. Papadimitriou won a Gödel Prize in 2012.

Prof. Papadimitriou said at the ceremony that, “Twenty-five years ago, Computer Science’s center of gravity shifted from the computer itself to the Internet. This process led to studies that were crucial for the development of Science, for improving humanity and for understanding the universe. I’m happy that I was able to participate in these developments and to work with outstanding researchers from the Technion, especially the late Prof. Shimon Even. It is a big honor for me not just to receive the prize, but also to receive it together with the developers of CRISPR-Cas9, who are responsible for a revolution in life sciences.”

The Harvey Prize, which was established in 1971 by Leo M. Harvey of Los Angeles, is awarded annually at Technion for exceptional achievements in science, technology, and human health, and for outstanding contributions to peace in the Middle East, to society and to the economy. Over the years, more than a quarter of Harvey laureates have subsequently won the Nobel Prize and therefore the Harvey Prize is considered a “Nobel predictor.”

Technion Academic Year Opens: More than 2,000 new students start their studies at Technion. More than 16,500 students will be at Technion in the 2019/20 academic year 

Some 2,060 new students began their studies at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology this morning. During the 2019/20 academic year, some 16,520 students will study at Technion – approximately 12,250 undergraduates and some 4,270 graduate students (master’s and doctorate). Additionally, 294 international graduate students will study at the Technion this year.*

This year, 172 students will study at the Technion International School. Technion International initially held courses in civil and environmental engineering, this year the school has added courses in mechanical engineering, chemical engineering and biotechnology and food engineering. Of the students who completed their bachelor’s degrees at Technion International last year – 22 out of 42 will continue on to pursue a master’s degree at Technion. The Joan and Irwin Jacobs Technion- Cornell Institute in New York will have 144 students enrolled and 727 students will study at the Guangdong-Technion-Israel Institute of Technology (GTIIT) in China.

In his remarks to the new students, Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan said: “Nearly a century has passed since studies began at Technion with a class of 17 students, 16 males, and one female. Since that humble beginning and with constant adherence to the vision of its founders, the Technion has provided over eighty thousand engineers, researchers, and doctors, whose tremendous contributions to the state and society can be found everywhere. Technion fosters co-existence within Israeli society, and the education our students receive enables them to improve society and the quality of life worldwide for present and future generations.”

The Technion is actively continuing on-campus development – with the building of new classrooms, additional dorms, sports facilities and other infrastructure for student welfare. At the same time, Technion is expanding its international research collaborations with more than 200 universities around the world. The Technion continues to lead in the annual survey on teaching quality by the National Student Association, placing it at the top of Israeli research universities.

This year, for the first time in Israel, the Technion will introduce a compulsory course on construction safety. The “Introduction to Management and Safety in Construction” course will be taught by Dr. Avi Griffel, one of the leading experts in the field of work safety.

* Data as per the date of this publication.

 

 

The Harvey Prize, the most prestigious award bestowed by Technion, will be given this year in two fields: to three scientists who led the development of CRISPR-Cas9 technology, a breakthrough in genetic modification: Profs. Emmanuelle Charpentier, Jennifer Doudna, and Feng Zhang; and to Prof. Christos H. Papadimitriou for his contribution to computer science.

PROF. EMMANUELLE CHARPENTIER is an expert in regulatory mechanisms that direct pathogenesis and defense of bacteria causing diseases in humans. Following a research career in France, the United States, Austria and Sweden, Charpentier was recruited in 2013 by the Helmholz Association in Germany. In 2015, she was appointed Director at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin and in 2018, she founded an independent research institute, the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens. Since 2016, she has been an honorary professor at Humboldt University in Berlin.

PROF. JENNIFER DOUDNA is a professor in the Departments of Chemistry and Molecular and Cell Biology at UC Berkeley and is the Li Ka Shing Chancellor’s Chair. Doudna is also the Executive Director of the Innovative Genomics Institute, an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1997, and a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institutes since 2018.

is a molecular biologist and bioengineer. Prof. Zhang is a core institute member at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, an investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, as well as the James and Patricia Poitras Professor of Neuroscience at MIT. He is also an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Long before the breakthrough of CRISPR gene-editing, Profs. Charpentier and Doudna studied bacterial defense systems, each in her own lab. Prof.

Charpentier and Prof. Doudna met for the first time in March 2011, and shortly after they published their landmark article in Science, describing how the bacterial protein Cas9 can identify targets in the DNA, and demonstrating how it can be easily programmed to edit a broad range of DNA targets (Jinek et al., Science, 2012). Independently and in parallel, Prof. Zhang first learned about the CRISPR-Cas9 system as an RNA-guided DNA scissors in bacteria in February, 2011. In January 2013, Prof. Zhang and his team published a landmark paper in Science (Cong et al., Science 2013) describing the successful engineering of CRISPR-Cas9 as a genome editing technology in higher organisms and for harnessing the CRISPR-Cas9 system as an RNA-programmable system for use in eukaryotic cells.

These groundbreaking findings revolutionized the field of life sciences, allowing us to edit, correct and rewrite DNA. In the future, the CRISPR breakthrough is expected to lead to the development of innovative treatments for disease and aging.

For their roles in the discovery and the development of CRISPR-Cas9 as a “molecular scissors”, Drs. Charpentier, Doudna, and Zhang have shared a number of awards including the prestigious Canada Gairdner International Award (2016), the Tang Prize (2016), and the Albany Medical Center Prize (2017). In addition, Drs. Charpentier and Doudna were awarded the prestigious Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences (2015).

PROF. CHRISTOS H. PAPADIMITRIOU is considered the father of algorithmic game theory. He has taught at Harvard, MIT, the National Technical University of Athens, Stanford, UC San Diego, UC Berkeley and is currently the Donovan Family Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University. He is one of the leading scientists in the

theory of computer science, and is best known for his work in computational complexity. In this context he defined levels of complexity that characterize important computational phenomena and paradigmatic problems in a variety of fields.

He has also contributed significantly to what he calls an “algorithmic lens” that is relevant to many fields, including biology and evolution, economics and game theory, artificial intelligence, robotics, networks and the Internet. Prof. Papadimitriou is a Gödel Prize winner (2012).

 

*****

The Harvey Prize, established in 1971 by Leo M. Harvey of Los Angeles, is awarded annually at Technion for exceptional achievements in science, technology, and human health, and for outstanding contributions to peace in the Middle East, to society and to the economy.

Leo M. Harvey (1887-1973) was an industrialist and inventor. He was an ardent friend and supporter of Technion and the State of Israel.

Over the years, more than a quarter of Harvey laureates have subsequently won the Nobel Prize.

The award ceremony will take place in November 2019 at Technion.

****

[su_youtube_advanced url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ5ogh6MeHs” width=”700″ height=”200″ controls=”no” autohide=”yes” autoplay=”yes” rel=”no” fs=”no” theme=”light” https=”yes”]Transcript

My parents immigrated to Palestine from Poland in 1936. They were both 18 and met on the train to Constanta where they took a boat to Haifa. A few years earlier, the Nazis had come to power in Germany, winds of war blew through the continent and universities all over Europe were closing their gates to Jews. Coming from Zionist families, they chose Technion, a young technical school that opened its gates right here with 16 students only 12 years earlier.

Led by a handful of visionaries at the turn of the 20th century, the Technion has turned into a world-class research university. Few institutions, if any, have played such a pivotal role in the fate of a nation. From building roads and bridges, aircrafts and satellites to new technologies for healthcare, computers, security, and energy; wherever you look you can find a Technion fingerprint.

Today, the Technion is uniquely positioned to face the tremendous challenges lying ahead. The grand challenges of the 21st century – human health, energy, sustainability, advanced manufacturing and education require a multifaceted approach. We will restructure the Technion and expand our network of multidisciplinary research centers, to address these global challenges.

Education is undergoing a revolution and the Technion is reinventing itself in a world where there is an exponential growth of data and free access to knowledge. We will develop new teaching methodologies to train the scientific and technological leaders of the 21st century, and we will provide them with life-long education for a dynamic world. We will equip our students with leadership skills in entrepreneurship, ethics, and multi-culturalism.

Global industry is changing rapidly as it increasingly invests in its own advanced research programs. Universities are losing their traditional monopoly over basic research and simultaneously, society expects them to address real-life challenges. We will recruit many more affiliated faculty and mentors from industry, while streamlining technology transfer from Technion to society. We will create a new academia-industry eco-system.

These are all substantial challenges, but the role of academia goes beyond that. Technion will continue to serve as a beacon for pluralism, freedom of speech, integrity, social justice, and environmental consciousness – values that are constantly challenged across the globe. These values and the pursuit of truth are the breath of academic life and must be safeguarded.

I am deeply honored to serve today as the Technion’s 17th President. I humbly acknowledge the gravity of the mission lying ahead. I promise to do the utmost to lead this remarkable institution and take it to even greater heights as we approach the centennial since it opened its gates. As you may imagine, this is the closure of a personal journey for me; a journey that started 83 years ago with a girl and a boy aboard a ship approaching the port of Haifa.

Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan, who took office today: “Universities will have to reinvent themselves.”

Yesterday evening (26/09), the presidential inauguration ceremony took place at Technion. Prof. Uri Sivan took office as 17th president of Technion. He succeeds Prof. Peretz Lavie, who is ending a 10-year term in office.

The ceremony was held in the presence of Education Minister Rabbi Rafi Peretz; Haifa Mayor Dr. Einat Kalisch-Rotem; Nobel Prize Laureate in Chemistry, Distinguished Prof. Aaron Ciechanover; Board of Governors Chair Scott Leemaster; Technion Council Chair Gideon Frank; former Technion presidents; management; and faculty members.

In his remarks, Prof. Sivan spoke about his parents, who immigrated to Israel from Poland in 1936 to study at Technion after universities all over Europe closed their doors to Jews. He said that his appointment as president closes a personal circle for him. He continued, “The Technion today is stronger than ever, and we must leverage this to implement far-reaching reforms in our research structure, curricula, teaching methodologies, and collaboration with industry. The great challenges of the 21st century – human health, energy, environment, sustainability, advanced manufacturing, and education – require a multifaceted approach. Our success will be measured by our ability to create the necessary synergy to meet the challenges facing humanity. Education will change dramatically. All knowledge is at our fingertips, and universities will have to reinvent themselves in a world where information is accessible to all and updated exponentially.” He added, “The universal values of equality, pluralism, tolerance, freedom of speech, integrity, and the pursuit of truth, which are constantly challenged around the globe, are the breath of academic life and should be defended.”

Education Minister Rabbi Rafi Peretz said at the ceremony, ” I wish to thank the people of the Technion for all that they have done for the State of Israel. Our future is dependent on research and development in the exact sciences, technology, medicine, and architecture. You are the engine that drives all of this. Especially in these days of uncertainty, it is tremendously important to have islands of stability, excellence and continuity like the Technion.

Outgoing Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie said, “I set myself three main goals when I entered office: massive recruitment of outstanding young faculty, dramatic improvement in the quality of teaching and attitude towards students, and turning the Technion into a global university. In the global context, we have expanded the Technion’s influence, and there is no doubt that the highlights were the establishment of the two new campuses in China and New York. In terms of improvement of teaching, the Technion has jumped from last place to first place among Israeli universities in student satisfaction. We also had tremendous success in recruiting new faculty members: Some 270 new faculty members joined the Technion ranks over the past decade, and they have made Technion younger and even more excellent. This is evident in the quantity and quality of scientific articles, research grants and prestigious awards.”

Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Distinguished Prof. Aaron Ciechanover said that, “The Technion may not be the best university in the world, but it is the institution to which the State of Israel owes its very existence. The Technion is responsible for the two most important pillars on which the state stands: security and economy. The Technion must continue to lead in science and technology while also addressing the ethical aspects, since there is no technological invention without ethical consequences.”

Haifa Mayor Dr. Einat Kalisch-Rotem thanked Prof. Lavie for his work on behalf of the city of Haifa and its residents and presented him with a certificate of appreciation which reads: “In appreciation of your exceptional and longstanding activity in promoting Technion as the leading institution in its field in Israel and in the world.”

Prof. Sivan, 64, a resident of Haifa, is married and the father of three, and served as a pilot in the Israeli Air Force. In 1991 he joined the Faculty of Physics at Technion and is holder of the Bertoldo Badler Chair. His research over the years has covered a wide range of fields including quantum mesoscopic physics and the harnessing of molecular and cellular biology for the self-assembly of miniature electronic devices. Prof. Sivan has held a number of leadership positions both at Technion and on the national level.  He is the founding director of the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Research Institute (RBNI), which he headed between 2005 and 2010. More recently Prof. Sivan headed the National Advisory Committee for Quantum Science and Technology.

 

Breakthrough at the Technion: Researchers have developed an inexpensive, environmentally friendly and safe hydrogen production technology.

The E-TAC water-splitting technology facilitates an unprecedented energetic efficiency of 98.7% in the production of hydrogen from water and has other key advantages over water electrolysis. A startup company, H2Pro, was founded based on this development and is working on its commercialization.

Researchers at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology have developed an innovative, clean, inexpensive, and safe technology for producing hydrogen. The technology significantly improves the efficiency of hydrogen production, from ~75% using current methods to an unprecedented 98.7% energy efficiency. The researchers’ finding were recently published in Nature Energy.

The Technion researchers developed a unique process based on a cyclic process in which the chemical makeup of the anode (the electrode where the oxidation process takes place) changes intermittently. In the first stage, the cathode (the electrode where the reduction takes place) produces hydrogen by reducing water molecules while the anode changes its chemical composition without producing oxygen. In the second stage, the cathode is passive while the anode produces oxygen by oxidizing water molecules. At the end of the second stage, the anode returns to its original state and the cycle begins again. This innovative process, called E-TAC water splitting (Electrochemical – Thermally-Activated Chemical water splitting), decouples the hydrogen and oxygen evolution reactions. Based on this technology, the researchers founded H2Pro, a startup company working on converting the technology to a commercial application. 

The research, part of the Nancy and Stephen Grand Technion Energy Program (GTEP), was conducted by Professor Avner Rothschild of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Professor Gideon Grader of the Faculty of Chemical Engineering, together with Dr. Hen Dotan and Avigail Landman, a doctoral student under the joint supervision of Prof. Grader and Prof. Rothschild.

Enormous amounts of hydrogen are produced annually worldwide: ~65 million tons valued at ~130 billion dollars, with a total energy of ~ 9 exajoules (EJ), the equivalent of ~2,600 teraWatts per hour (TWh). These amounts are constantly increasing and are expected to triple over the next 20 years. Hydrogen consumption is expected to reach 14 exajoules by 2030 and 28 exajoules by 2040.

About 53% of the hydrogen produced today is used to produce ammonia for fertilizers and other substances, 20% is used by refineries, 7% is used in methanol production and 20% serves other uses. In the future, hydrogen is expected to serve additional applications, some of which are in accelerated stages of development: hydrogen as fuel for fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV), fuel for storing energy from renewable energy sources for grid balancing and power-to-gas (P2G) applications, industrial and home heating, and more.

About 99% of the hydrogen produced today originates in fossil fuels, mainly by extraction from natural gas (SMR).  This process releases ~10 tons of CO2 for every ton of hydrogen and that is responsible for ~2% of all anthropogenic CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. The presence of considerable amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere accelerates global warming. This explains the urgent need for cleaner and more environmentally friendly alternatives for hydrogen production.

Currently, the primary alternative for clean hydrogen production without CO2 emissions is water electrolysis. This process entails placing two electrodes, an anode and a cathode, in alkaline- or acid-enriched water to increase electrical conductivity. In response to passing an electrical current between the electrodes, the water molecules (H2O) are broken down into their chemical elements, such that hydrogen gas (H2) is produced near the cathode and oxygen (O2) is produced near the anode. The entire process takes place in a sealed cell divided into two compartments. Hydrogen is collected in one part and oxygen in the other.

Clean hydrogen production entails a series of technological challenges. One of these is the significant loss of energy. Today the energetic efficiency of electrolysis processes is only 75%, and this means high electricity consumption. Another difficulty is related to the membrane that divides the electrolytic cell into two. This membrane is essential for collecting the hydrogen on one side and the oxygen on the other, yet it limits the pressure in the electrolytic cell to 10-30 atmospheres, while most applications require hundreds of atmospheres of pressure. For example, fuel cell electric vehicles use compressed hydrogen at 700 atmospheres. Today this pressure is increased by means of large and expensive compressors that complicate operation and increase system installation and maintenance costs. In addition, the presence of the membrane complicates the assembly of the production apparatus, significantly raising its price. Moreover, the membrane requires periodic maintenance and replacement.

The E-TAC technology has several significant advantages over electrolysis:

1. Absolute chronological separation between hydrogen production and oxygen production, with the two processes occurring at different times. Consequently:
   1. The membrane separating the anode from the cathode in the electrolytic cell is no longer necessary. This represents a substantial savings over electrolysis: the membrane is expensive, complicates the production process and requires high purity water and ongoing maintenance to prevent it from fouling.
   2. It eliminates the risk of a volatile encounter between oxygen and hydrogen. Such an encounter is liable to occur in ordinary electrolysis if the membrane ruptures or its seal is broken.
   3. Currently, the use of membranes limits the pressure in hydrogen production. The technology developed at the Technion renders the membrane unnecessary, thus facilitating hydrogen production under much higher pressure, thus eliminating some of the high costs of compressing the hydrogen later.
2. In the new process, oxygen is produced via a spontaneous chemical reaction between the charged anode and the water, without using an electrical current at that point. This reaction eliminates the need for electricity during oxygen production and increases energetic efficiency from 75% using customary methods to an unprecedented 98.7% efficiency.
3. The E-TAC technology is expected not only to lower operating costs but also equipment costs. H2Pro estimates that the cost of equipment to produce hydrogen using E-TAC will be about half the cost of equipment used in existing technologies.

Electrolysis was discovered more than 200 years ago and since then has undergone a cumulative series of individual improvements. Currently the Technion researchers are proposing a disruptive change in concept that they believe will lead to less expensive, clean and safe hydrogen production. They also believe the new process is likely to generate a revolution in hydrogen production based upon clean and renewable energy such as solar energy or wind power. 

Initial assessments indicate that it will be possible to produce hydrogen on industrial scales at competitive production costs compared to production from natural gas via SMR and, as noted, without emitting CO2 into the atmosphere.

The developers of the technology—Prof. Gideon Grader, Prof. Avner Rothschild and Dr. Hen Dotan—joined together with the founders of the Viber company to establish H2Pro, a company working on commercializing this new technology. Located in the Caesarea Industrial Park, the company was given an exclusive license by the Technion to commercialize the product and to date has raised ~$5 million in a campaign led by Hyundai. H2Pro has more than 20 employees, most of them Technion graduates.

The research is supported by the Nancy and Stephen Grand Technion Energy Program (GTEP), the Ed Satell gift for Nitrogen-Hydrogen Alternative Fuels (NHAF), the Adelis Foundation, the Ministry of Energy, and the European Commission (EU Horizon 2020 Framework Programme).

For the full article in Nature Energy click here 

Link to H2Pro website:   https://www.h2pro.co/

Technion scientists have succeeded in inhibiting the protective mechanism of Salmonella bacteria by using substances originally developed to treat Alzheimer’s disease

They intend to continue this research direction toward developing innovative treatments that will neutralize virulent antibiotic-resistant bacteria

Researchers from the Technion Faculty of Biology were able to inhibit biofilm formation in Salmonella bacteria. Biofilm, a resistant layer of microorganisms that form on and coat various surfaces, constitutes a serious medical and environmental problem because it protects bacteria and enables them to attach to tissues, medical devices, pipes and more. The discovery made by Associate Professor Meytal Landau, doctoral student Nir Salinas, and the laboratory research team is expected to lead to the development of innovative treatments that will inhibit the antibiotic resistance of virulent bacteria. 

In 2017, Prof. Landau’s research team published an article in Science describing new discoveries about Staphylococcus aureus—an especially virulent bacterium that has become resistant to many types of antibiotics and that is responsible for a considerable number of infections in hospitals and in the community. The researchers discovered that this bacterium, which attacks the organism’s T-cells of the immune systems, does so in part by means of secreting certain fibrils. These toxic fibrils resemble amyloids, proteins associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, but differ from them structurally. In an article published in Nature Communication in 2018, Nir Salinas and his colleagues on the research team revealed their discovery that proteins from the same family as the toxic fibrils produce exceptionally stable amyloid structures that can survive under extremely difficult conditions and protect the bacteria. Prof. Landau expressed the hope that these discoveries will lead to new treatments that will impair the fibrils and significantly diminish the aggressively virulent infections caused by Staphylococcus aureus.

In a recent study in PLoS Pathogens, the Technion researchers suggested that by interfering with amyloid fibrils produced by E. coli and Salmonella, bacteria often linked with contaminated water or food, they can hamper the bacteria’s defense mechanisms and their ability to attach to tissues and medical devices. This is accomplished by repurposing substances that have already undergone clinical trials for treating Alzheimer’s. The major advantage of this repurposing is that the approval process is much shorter and less expensive than in the case of a new compound.

The substances tested on Salmonella bacteria do not harm the bacteria directly. Instead, they damage the biofilm, the resilient layer that protects bacteria from substances that pose a danger to them, including antibiotic drugs. The researchers estimate that this approach of impairing the biofilm will reduce the risk of developing resistance compared to antibiotics that kill the bacteria and thereby induce defense mechanisms against the drug, making the bacteria more resilient and virulent.

The research examined the possibility of damaging Salmonella and E. coli bacteria found in contaminated food. Nevertheless, the researchers hope their discovery will also be effective in battling other bacteria, including Staphylococcus aureus. In his ongoing doctoral research, Mr. Salinas will focus on developing stable antibacterial substances and on examining small molecules that will interfere with the in-vitro assembly of amyloids in bacteria. He hopes these developments will accelerate the crucial battle against the development of virulent strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

The research is being carried out in collaboration with the Institute for Complex Systems in Jülich and in Düsseldorf, Germany. The Technion Center for Structural Biology (TCSB), the Lorry Lokey Interdisciplinary Center for Life Sciences and Engineering, the Electron Microscopy Center, and the Center for Electron Microscopy of Soft Matter in the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute (RBNI) also provided assistance for this project.

Associate Professor Landau joined the Technion faculty after completing post-doctoral studies at UCLA, where she specialized in X-ray micro-crystallography of amyloids associated with Alzheimer’s disease. In September 2012 she founded her laboratory in the Faculty of Biology at the Technion. 

Mr. Nir Salinas completed his bachelor’s degree in molecular biochemistry in the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion. Today he is following a direct program to a doctoral degree in the Faculty of Biology.

For the article in PLoS Pathogens click here

New technology developed at the Technion is expected to improve personalized care in cancer treatment

Technion researchers have developed a deep learning-based method for mapping critical receptors on cancer cells. Using digital images of biopsies taken from breast cancer patients, the new technology is expected to significantly improve personalized cancer treatments. Published in the prestigious JAMA journal, the research was conducted by doctoral students Gil Shamai and Ron Slossberg and Professor Ron Kimmel of the Technion Faculty of Computer Science, in collaboration with Dr. Yoav Binenbaum of Ichilov Hospital and Professor Ziv Gil of Rambam Medical Center.

The technology extracts molecular information from biopsy images that underwent hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining. H&E is a common dye used to test tissue taken in a biopsy. The staining allows the pathologist to identify the type of cancer and its severity in the tissue under the microscope. But staining alone does not allow the identification of characteristics that are crucial in determining the appropriate treatment. These include the molecular profile of the tumor, its biological pathways, the genetic code of the cancer cells, and the common receptors on the cell membrane. The mapping of receptors on the cell membrane is particularly relevant to personalized medicine, since it enables matching cancer patients with the treatment that will block the receptors and inhibit the development of the tumor.

The Technion researchers’ conceptual innovation is in extracting molecular information from the cell shape and the environment (the morphology of the tissue) as reflected in the H&E scans. According to Mr. Shamai and Prof. Kimmel, “Pathologists we spoke to said it was an impossible task. A human pathologist cannot infer the tumor features from its shape because of the sheer number of variables. The good news is that artificial intelligence technologies, and especially deep learning, are capable of doing so. The computer, unlike even the most skilled pathologist, can characterize the cancer with a complex analysis of its morphology.”

With the help of image processing and artificial intelligence tools, the researchers showed, for the first time, the ability to predict the molecular profile of cells from tumor morphology, that is, only from looking at the tissue as it appears on standard H&E scans.

“We succeeded in identifying the ‘signature’ that the cancer leaves in the tissue,” Mr. Shamai explains. “It’s a morphological signature (formative) that, through our technology, we are able to glean essential information. It is important to note that deep learning systems require a huge amount of information and obtaining the kind of information required is not easy. To that end, we have written software code to scan network sources and automatically download thousands of biopsy samples and the relevant medical information approved for research.”

The study examined more than 20,000 scans from 5,356 breast cancer patients. Using the new technology, the researchers were able to map estrogen and progesterone receptors, among other molecular biomarkers, from the scans alone and based on cell morphology. The study focused on breast cancer, but the researchers make it clear that this is a feasibility study relevant to all cancers.

According to Prof. Kimmel, “We have succeeded in showing that cancer has a unique signature in tissue morphology and that computerized mapping of this morphology can give us tremendously relevant information on tumor characteristics. In the first phase, we believe it will be a tool to help doctors make decisions and will later be developed as a real clinical tool.”

The research was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, the National Science Foundation, the Lorry Lokey Interdisciplinary Center for Life Sciences and Engineering, and Schmidt Futures.

For the full article on JAMA click here.

Researchers at the Technion and the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) present, as published in Nature Biotechnology, significant progress in storing information on DNA

 

Researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa and the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya have demonstrated a significant improvement in the efficiency of the process needed to store digital information in DNA.
In a paper published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, the group demonstrated storage of information in a density of more than 10 petabytes (one petabyte (PB) is one million gigabytes) in a single gram of DNA while significantly improving the writing process. To illustrate, this density, theoretically, allows for storing all the information stored on YouTube in a volume of a single teaspoon.

The study was led by research student Leon Anavy, a student in the Technion Faculty of Computer Science, under the guidance of Professor Zohar Yakhini of the Technion Faculty of Computer Science and the Efi Arazi School of Computer Science at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya. The study was conducted in collaboration with Professor Roee Amit’s Synthetic Biology Laboratory at the Technion Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering.

The amount of digital information available to humanity has grown at a tremendous speed since IBM invented the hard disk in the 1950s. Storing this information has become a major challenge not only in the technological context but also with regards to economic and environmental aspects, as server farms – information warehouses that serve us all – are currently responsible for about 2% of global carbon emissions, a similar rate to the cumulative emission of global air traffic, and for about 3% of global electricity consumption, more than the electricity consumption of the entire UK. Against this backdrop, a new technological approach has developed over the last decade: information storage in DNA. This technology allows for significant minimization, longer-term (thousand-fold) retention of information, and zero energy and economic cost of maintenance.

 

The basic idea of encoding information on DNA is that the DNA molecule is a chain made up of links called nucleotides. The nucleotides are divided into four types marked with letters A, C, G and T. To store information on DNA, each binary sequence (consisting of the 0 and 1 symbols) must be translated into a sequence consisting of these letters. In the next step, in a process called synthesis, actual DNA molecules are produced representing these same sequences. To read the data, these DNA molecules are sequenced. DNA sequencing produces an output that represents the nucleotide sequence that makes up each molecule in the input. That output is then translated into a binary sequence that represents the original message that was coded. Modern technologies support the synthesis of many thousands of different nucleotide series in parallel.

The storage of information on DNA is a very complex technological challenge. In the field of information reading (sequencing), there has been tremendous progress driven by the genome revolution; for the writing of information, however, there are still significant technological difficulties and costs are heavier. This is the importance of the breakthrough achieved at the Technion and IDC Herzliya. It allows for: (1) increasing the number of letters used to encode the information (beyond the original 4 letters); (2) significantly reducing the number of synthesis rounds required to store information on DNA; (3) improving the error correction mechanism used.

Researchers at the Technion and at IDC Herzliya have increased the effective number of letters beyond the four building blocks in natural DNA, using new letters that are unique combinations of the original letters. The idea is similar to the formation of new colors using mixtures of base colors. Increasing the number of letters allows more information to be encoded in each letter in the sequence.
According to Prof. Yakhini, “The current synthesis and sequencing processes are inherently redundant, because each molecule is produced in large numbers1 and is read in multiple copies during sequencing. The method we developed leverages this redundancy to increase the effective number of letters well over the original four letters, making it possible for us to encode and write each unit of information in fewer cycles of synthesis.”

 

The team demonstrated a reduction of the number of synthesis rounds required per unit of information by 20%. They also showed that the number of synthesis rounds could be reduce in the future by 75% without significant development efforts. This means that the storage process will be faster and less expensive.

“In this work, we have implemented a DNA based storage system that encodes information with synthesis efficiency that is significantly better than the standard approach,” explained Prof. Amit. “The study included the actual implementation of the new coding technique for storing large-volume information on DNA molecules and reconstructing it for testing the process.” In fact, on one of the shelves in Prof. Amit’s lab at the Technion sits a small test tube containing about 10 nanograms (billionths of a gram) of DNA, encoding thousands of copies of a bilingual version of the Bible.

The research group has developed advanced error correction mechanisms to overcome errors that are an integral part of biological-physical processes, like the one used here. Part of the DNA sequence of the molecules that store the information, designed by Leon Anavy and Prof. Yakhini, is used for this error correction.
According to Leon Anavy, “thanks to the use of error-correction codes that are tailored to the unique encoding we created, we were able to perform highly efficient coding and to successfully recover the information. When working in a system consisting of millions of parts (molecules), even one-in-a-million events occur, which can disrupt the reading. Careful coding allowed us to overcome these problems.”

According to the researchers, “the technology we presented in the paper has the potential to streamline further processes in synthetic biology and biotechnology. We believe that in the coming years, we will see a significant increase in the use of synthetic DNA in research and industry.”

The synthetic DNA used by the researchers and designed by the group was produced by the Twist Bioscience, a California based company that also has offices in Tel Aviv. Sequencing was performed at the Technion’s Genome Center. The study was partly supported by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 Framework Program for Research and Innovation. Leon Anavy is a fellow of the ADAMS fellowship program of the Israeli Science Academy. Dr. Orna Atar and research student Inbal Vaknin were also involved in the study.

For the full article in Nature Biotechnology click here

 

 

Researchers at the Technion have developed an innovative technology to purify wastewater tainted with formaldehyde

Toxic wastewater is produced mainly manufacturing processes of adhesives, but also in the wood, paper and textile industries. The removal of formaldehyde from water is essential to prevent contamination of groundwater and soil.

 

Researchers at the Technion have developed an innovative, patented technology to purify water from the pollutant formaldehyde. The research was led by Dr. Adi Radian and Ph.D. student Yael Zvulunov of the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, in collaboration with Prof. Ayelet Fishman and Dr. Zohar Ben-Barak Zelas of the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering. The team’s findings were recently published in the Chemical Engineering Journal.

Formaldehyde, whose chemical formula is CH2O, is a carcinogenic substance that can penetrate our bodies through breathing, eating, and drinking. It is considered to be one of the most problematic indoor pollutants.

The present study deals with the remediation of formaldehyde-polluted water from industrial processes. Formaldehyde is used in the production of glue and is therefore very common in the wood, paper, and textile industries, where it accumulates in the water used for production. The discharge of these wastewaters into the environment is, of course, prohibited, so great efforts are taken to safely dispose of them. Since removing it from water is very expensive, some companies simply keep the contaminated water in barrels, waiting for the day that a satisfactory solution is discovered.

The research team’s development is based on Montmorillonite clay, a natural mineral characterized by a very large surface area. One gram of this clay has a surface area of about 760 square meters. This feature gives the clay a rare adsorption capacity. The patent developed by the Technion is based on processing the clay in a manner that increases the adsorption of formaldehyde.

The other major component in the new technology is a formaldehyde-degrading bacterium. Such bacteria have evolved in the Negev after many years of formaldehyde use for soil disinfection. This use has led to the development of formaldehyde-resistant bacteria, which are able to decompose the dangerous compound. To solve the problem of resilience, Negev farmers were assisted by Prof. Ayelet Fishman, who harnessed the bacteria in question for the present study. Ironically, the resilience that was damaging to farmers aided the development of new technology at the Technion.

The researchers, however, had to overcome a difficult technical problem: a large amount of formaldehyde in the industrial wastewater kills the bacteria immediately. Therefore, a protective system was needed for bacteria to survive and decompose the dangerous material.

The material developed by the Technion researchers is based on montmorillonite clay that has been modified using a polymer that changed the overall negative charge to positive. With this modification, the clay absorbs the formaldehyde and reduces its concentration. Bacteria that break down the substance are pre-attached to the material. After each cycle of formaldehyde decomposition, the material cleans itself for another round. According to Dr. Radian, the development may also be relevant for other uses, such as adsorption and degradation of pesticides that threaten to contaminate groundwater.

The study was supported by the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute (RBNI) at the Technion and the Israeli Ministry of Science and Technology.

Dr. Adi Radian, head of the Environmental and Soil Chemistry Laboratory at the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, completed her Ph.D. at the Faculty of Agriculture at the Hebrew University, where she studied the use of modified clays to increase the adsorption of organic pollutants. She went on to complete a post-doctorate at the University of Minnesota, where she developed a gel that attracts and affixes bacteria that break down pollutants like fuel and pesticides. In July 2016, Dr. Radian returned to Israel and joined the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Technion.