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The Adelis Award for groundbreaking brain research was presented at Technion to Dr. Yaniv Ziv of the Weizmann Institute of Science

The Adelis Brain Research Award was granted last week at Technion to Dr. Yaniv Ziv, a researcher at the Department of Neurobiology at the Weizmann Institute of Science. The 2019 Brain Research Award was presented to Dr. Ziv by Rebecca Boukhris and Sidney Boukhris, Trustees of the Adelis Foundation and by Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie. The award ceremony took place at the Technion Board of Governors meeting on June 16, 2019

Prof. Lavie thanked the representatives of the Adelis Foundation for its tremendous contributions to brain research in Israel and for their generous donation to Technion for the establishment of the André Deloro Building for Biosciences, Medicine and Engineering. He said, “The brain, to a large extent, is still a black box, and studies like those of Dr. Ziv give us a glimpse inside that box. This ceremony is an opportunity to congratulate not only the prize recipient but also their mentor, Prof. Michal Schwartz, winner of the 2019 EMET Prize in Life Sciences. Prof. Schwartz also supervised the 2017 Adelis Prizewinner, Prof. Asya Rolls of the Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, and the lesson here is that it is important to choose the right mentor.”

Rebecca Boukhris, Trustee of the Adelis Foundation, said that “We are proud to support talented young scientists like Yaniv, and in this way promote and encourage brain research in Israel. The future of Israel depends on its young people because today’s youth will build tomorrow’s world, so it is important to encourage young people to ask, learn, demonstrate curiosity, and broaden their imagination. This is the only way we can expand the circle of excellence that Israel needs.”

The Adelis Foundation, established in 2006 by the late Mr. André Cohen Deloro, of blessed memory, aspires to make a meaningful impact on the lives of Israeli citizens and strengthen Israel as a successful, secure and prosperous nation in the following key areas: scientific and medical research; education; and societal welfare. The Foundation supports academic excellence in Israel, and in particular medical and scientific research. In 2015, in keeping with the legacy of the Foundation’s founder and in loyalty to his vision, the foundation inaugurated the Adelis Brain Research Award which grants $100,000 annually to an outstanding young Israeli researcher.

The purpose of the award is to encourage excellence among young Israeli scientists in the field of brain research; to advance our knowledge and understanding of the brain, its functioning, and the diseases connected with it; and to achieve international scientific impact.

Brain research is a leading global scientific research priority.

The award panel of judges comprises senior figures from Israel’s scientific community: Dr. Gal Ifergane, Prof. Moshe Bar, Prof. Illana Gozes, Prof. Eilon Vaadia, Prof. Jackie Shiller, Prof. Rafi Malach, Prof. Noam Ziv, and Prof. Michal Schwartz, veteran leading Israeli brain researchers.

In the award’s fifth year, the Adelis Foundation was both pleased and proud, to witness many high-quality proposals representing Israeli potential in the field of brain research.

The main criteria for the Adelis Prize are excellence, innovation and achievements. The judges had a difficult task, given the diversity of the submissions and their high level. The 2019 award was granted to Dr. Yaniv Ziv, a researcher at the Department of Neurobiology at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

Professor Jackie Shiller of the Technion presented the judges’ decision:
“We are proud to announce Dr. Yaniv Ziv from Weizmann Institute as the 2019 Adelis laureate. The prize committee found Dr. Ziv’s past and present contributions, his long-term goals, and the overall importance of his research to warrant the prize. Dr. Ziv deals with the one of most fundamental and important questions in brain research, how the brain forms new memories, how it maintains these memories stable despite a constant instability in neuronal function. Dr. Ziv uses the most advanced methods to study the neuronal network with high spatial and temporal precision over time. His methods using novel computational approaches including machine learning yielded exciting new insights about how our memories are represented and stored. Despite being a young researcher, Dr. Ziv is already known worldwide and well esteemed for his outstanding contributions to the field”.

Dr. Yaniv Ziv earned a BSc in biology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2001. He completed a PhD program in neurobiology at the Weizmann Institute of Science in 2007. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Biology at Stanford University starting in 2008 and joined the Department of Neurobiology at the Weizmann Institute in 2014. His academic and professional honors include the 2007 Otto Schwartz Foundation award for excellence in studies and research, and the Weizmann Institute of Science Award for an outstanding PhD thesis in 2007. He was awarded the Rothschild Foundation postdoctoral fellowship and the Machiah Foundation postdoctoral fellowship. In 2014 he was awarded the Sieratzki Prize for Advances in Neuroscience, and in 2018 appointed CIFAR-Azrieli Global Scholar in the Brain, Mind and Consciousness program. Dr. Yaniv Ziv is married to Dr. Michal Ziv (a clinical psychologist) and has three kids, Romy, Noa and Itamar. Research in Dr. Ziv’s lab focuses on the neural mechanisms of long-term memory.

The main objective of Dr. Ziv’s research, funded by Adelis, is to identify the principles that underlie the storage and organization of information in long-term memory. Towards this goal, the Ziv lab is applying novel optical imaging and computational analysis methods that they have developed. These methods allow tracking the coding properties of large populations of the same neurons over many weeks and analyzing how their joint activity patterns change over time and as a function of experience. Ziv’s current research centers on neural coding in the hippocampus and related cortical circuits that are crucial for spatial navigation and for the formation and processing of memories for places and events. The proposed research aims to represent the structure of relationships between neuronal activity patterns that underlie specific experiences and address fundamental questions that could not have been addressed before. For example: How do hippocampal neural code change during learning, and what aspects of the codes are degraded in forgetting? Can individual neurons be fungible (i.e. mutually interchangeable) for memory storage? And, to what extent are memories of different experiences similarly organized in the brains of different individuals?

Prof. Ilan Marek of the Technion Elected to the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities

Ilan Marek, Professor of organic chemistry at the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, has been elected to the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities is the leading body in Israel’s scientific community. It was established by law in 1961 with the aim of bringing together the best scientists in Israel, to nurture and promote scientific activities in Israel and to advise Israeli governments on research and scientific planning of national importance. Prof. Marek was accepted among six new members of the academy that will now have 132 members. “The Academy is blessed with the participation of these elite researchers who can empower it and assist in fulfilling its mission to strengthen science in Israel,” said Academy President Prof. Nili Cohen.

Prof. Marek heads the Mallat Family Organic Chemistry Laboratory at the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion. His work is concerned with the design and development of new and efficient stereo- and enantioselective strategies for the synthesis of important complex molecular structures. He is particularly interested in developing carbon-carbon bond forming processes, which efficiently create multiple stereocenters in a single-pot operation.

Born in Israel, Marek moved to France with his family when he was one year old. In 1988, he completed his doctorate at the University Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, and after postdoctoral research in Belgium, he received a position as a researcher at the CNRS at the University Pierre et Marie Curie. In 1997, after 34 years in France, he returned to Israel and joined the Technion’s Schulich Faculty of Chemistry. He currently heads the Mallat Family Organic Chemistry Laboratory and holds the Sir Michael and Lady Sobell Academic Chair.

Prof. Marek has published several hundreds of research articles, edited more than 13 books and won numerous national and international awards including the Weizmann Prize for Exact Sciences; the Israel Chemistry Society Prize for Academic Excellence; the Royal Society Chemistry Organometallic Award; the Janssen Pharmaceutical Prize for Creativity in Organic Synthesis; the Alon Fellowship; the Michael Bruno Memorial Award; the Taub Prize for Academic Excellence; and the Yanai Prize for Excellence in Academic Education. In December 2017, he was elected to the French Academy of Sciences.

Technion Congratulates the Honorary Fellowship Recipients for 2019

On June 16, 2019, Technion conferred Honorary Fellowships upon seven outstanding individuals.

Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie said in his opening remarks, “We are here tonight to celebrate seven beloved faces in the album, the beautiful faces of the Technion family from near and far and to recognize our dear honorary fellows.

“Sarah Arenson who, with her late husband Avie, have been devoted members of the Technion family. They helped the Technion preserve the heritage of the design traditions of the built environment;

“Gideon Stein, an exemplary alumnus of the Technion Faculty of Electrical Engineering who played a major role in founding Mobileye vision technologies;

“Mitch Julis from Los Angeles and Linda Kovan from Detroit who represent the emerging leadership of the American Technion Society, whose enthusiasm is infectious and who revitalize the support for the Technion in their communities;

“Marlene and Eugene Shapiro from Phoenix represent those who have been involved with Technion for many decades and have been active leaders at every level of the American Technion Society;

“And finally, Prof. Dr. Thomas Scheper from Leibnitz University in Hannover, Germany. Thomas is chairman of the German Technion Society, a champion of Technion and of the State of Israel in Germany, and has played a major role in enhancing German-Israeli academic collaboration.”

Sarah Arenson

In recognition of her impassioned commitment to the State of Israel, of her social philanthropy and of her late husband’s monumental contribution to Israel’s built environment; in admiration of her research into ancient Mediterranean cultures and their impact on modern civilization and of her determination to give it documentary resonance; and in gratitude for her beneficent support of the Technion’s Avie and Sarah Arenson Built Heritage Research Center.

Mitchell Julis

In recognition of his deep devotion to the Technion and Israel; in appreciation of his exceptional support of Jewish communities on every level; in gratitude for his enthusiastic championing of the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute; and in honor of his selfless efforts to advance the work of the American Technion Society and the Technion for the betterment of Israel and the world.

Linda Kovan

In honor of her active and tireless leadership of the American Technion Society on both local and national levels; with gratitude for her sweeping vision that helped revitalize support for the Technion in her native Detroit; in appreciation for her inspiring commitment to the Technion and Israel, and in recognition of her many important contributions to her local community.

Prof. Dr. Thomas Scheper

In recognition of his bold commitment to championing the State of Israel and its scientific achievements in Germany, of his support for Israel’s life science students, and of his leadership in advancing the breadth and scope of collaboration between Israeli and German researchers; and in appreciation for these and his other contributions to the enhancement of German-Israeli academic engagement, and for his longstanding association with the German Technion Society.

Eugene and Marlene Shapiro

In great admiration for their decades of tireless commitment to Technion and Israel; in recognition of their active leadership at every level of the American Technion Society, and as members of the Technion International Board of Governors; and in acknowledgment of the active and vital roles they have played with such energy and enthusiasm in growing Technion’s circle of supporters.

Dr. Gideon Stein

In recognition of his technological innovation making car travel safer for all and his prominent contribution to vision safety technology as the sensory underpinning of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems; in admiration of his prolific research in the field of computer vision and its profound impact on cutting-edge designs of autonomous vehicles; and with gratitude for his generous donations to the Technion as a role model alumnus supporting his alma mater.

Technion Confers Honorary Doctorates upon Distinguished Individuals

Today, Monday, June 17^th, Technion will confer honorary doctorates for 2019 at the annual Board of Governors event. The ceremony will take place in the presence of President Prof. Peretz Lavie; Chairman of the Council Gideon Frank; and Chairman of the Board of Governors Lawrence Jackier; Senior Management and Faculty Deans.

The recipients of the Honorary Doctorate award for 2019 are:

Carol Epstein

Carol Epstein earned her bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and is a former president of the Cornell Club of Washington and a proponent of Cornell Tech and the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute. She is a second-generation American Technion Society (ATS) supporter and leader on the local and national levels.

Dr. Stuart I. Feldman

Dr. Stuart Feldman has made pioneering contributions to software systems and programming languages and has left his mark on industrial research. As Chief Scientist of Schmidt Futures, he is responsible for scientific knowledge programs.

Prof. Dr. Alfred Forchel

Prof. Dr. Alfred Forchel is a highly acclaimed leader in the fields of nanofabrication, physics of semiconductor nanostructures and semiconductor lasers. His academic career spans over 30 years and his research activities have continuously been at the forefront of global research.

Prof. Stéphane Mallat

Prof. Mallat is a global scientific leader in the fields of signal and image processing. He has made fundamental contributions to the development of wavelet theory marking a revolution in signal processing. His research also covers harmonic analysis and machine learning. His academic work has been cited over 100,000 times.

Moshe Safdie

Moshe Safdie, CC, FAIA, is a world-renowned architect, urban planner, educator, theorist and author. Spanning a celebrated 50-year career, Safdie is committed to architecture that is conversant with the geographic, social and cultural elements that define a place and that respond to human needs and aspirations.

Sami Sagol

Sami Sagol was born in Turkey and, at 15, immigrated to Israel with his family. Under his leadership, Keter Plastics, a company founded by his father in 1948, was transformed into a global concern with an annual turnover reaching the billion-dollar mark. A graduate of what is today Technion’s Schulich Faculty of Chemistry, Sami Sagol has contributed generously to his alma mater and specifically to the establishment of the Center for Complex Materials in the Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering.

Nina Avidar Weiner

Nina Weiner is the co-founder, President and Chairwoman Emerita of Israel Scholarship Education Foundation (ISEF) and is a zealous champion of Israel’s bright young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Through ISEF, she has helped to forge a new generation of leaders who are making their mark on Israeli society.

Prof. Stéphane Mallat will speak on behalf of the recipients.

The ceremony will take place today at 8:30 pm in Churchill Auditorium, Technion City, Haifa

For more information, contact Doron Shaham, Technion Spokesperson – Tel. 050-3109088

Zisapel Brothers Donate New Building for Technion’s Faculty of Electrical Engineering

Brothers Yehuda and Zohar Zisapel, both alumni of Technion’s Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering, will donate funds to construct a new building for the Faculty in which they studied.

Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie announced the gift yesterday evening in the presence of the donors and Haifa Mayor Dr. Einat Kalisch-Rotem, at the opening event of the Technion International Board of Governors annual meeting. Prof. Lavie thanked Yehuda and Zohar Zisapel for their outstanding gift, “Many alumni recognize the significance of their Technion degree only years after they graduate, but Yehuda and Zohar have continuously supported their home faculty since their graduation, and this new gift will enable the faculty to maintain its research status as a global leader.”

The new building, to be named the Zisapel Electrical Engineering Building, will be located between the Faculty’s two existing buildings and will help Technion expand and improve its teaching and research facilities as part of the academic development plan for Technion’s Faculty of Electrical Engineering. The building will serve the Faculty for teaching and research in electronics, computers, and communications, and will function as a hub for basic and applied research for training scientists, students and engineers, and for developing advanced technologies. The new building will have an impact on nurturing excellence in the field of electrical engineering on an international level.

The Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering is Technion’s largest faculty and the largest engineering department in Israel, with over 2,200 students. During its 80 years of existence, the Faculty has educated approximately 15,000 alumni who led the transformation of Israel from an agricultural economy to a high-tech powerhouse. These alumni form the backbone of Israel’s civilian and military knowledge-intensive industries.

The Zisapel brothers, founders of the RAD Bynet Group, have maintained a warm relationship with Technion through the years, helping with financial support and also personal involvement. One of the Zisapel family’s most generous gifts to Technion led to the establishment of the Sara and Moshe Zisapel Nanoelectronics Center, dedicated in 2007 in memory of their late parents.

Yehuda Zisapel, former head of the Technion Alumni Association; initiated the “From Three to Five” project, which helps high-school students complete high-level matriculation exams in STEM subjects; and the “Ofakim l’High-Tech” program (now called “Achievements for High-Tech”), that helps discharged soldiers from Israel’s periphery to pursue academic studies in engineering and science.

Zohar Zisapel has also supported Technion in numerous ways and contributes millions of dollars for children’s technological education and to expose every Israeli child to the world of computers and the internet. Last year, he was named the Israeli Chair of Technion’s global fundraising campaign, which aims to raise US$ 1.8 billion to strengthen Technion’s leadership position in the global arena.

“As Technion alumni, we have been fortunate to contribute to the expansion of research and teaching in the faculty from which we graduated,” said Yehuda Zisapel. “We have been in touch with our alma mater ever since our graduation, and it is our privilege to provide support for the new challenges facing Technion and the State of Israel. The high-tech industry is desperate for engineering and science graduates for its continued growth and prosperity. The new building will welcome scientists, expand the faculty’s research infrastructure, and educate engineers for the Israeli high-tech industry.”

In 2015, Prof. Andrew Viterbi, a founder of Qualcomm and a leading figure in the global digital sector, donated $50 million to the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, which is named for him and his late wife, Erna. “It is my great pleasure to join in thanking Yehuda and Zohar Zisapel for their continuing spontaneous generosity on behalf of the Technion, the technological jewel of Israeli academia,” he wrote in a special message. “I particularly appreciate that their current gift is directed toward funding a new building for the Electrical Engineering Faculty, a discipline which I consider to be the cradle of the Israeli technology which has contributed to protecting the nation for half a century and more recently to the success of the Startup Nation.”

“Zohar and Yehuda Zisapel’s generous gift joins several other significant donations that Technion recently received from alumni,” said Prof. Boaz Golany, Technion Vice President for External Relations and Resource Development. “This gift is an important milestone in the process of recruiting alumni to support the institution where they studied. In the United States, there is a time-honored tradition that encourages alumni to support their alma maters, but in Israel we are still struggling to entrench a similar tradition. I view the Zisapel brothers as role models and call on other alumni to follow their example, each in his own way.”

Prof. Nahum Shimkin, Dean of the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering, thanked Zohar and Yehuda Zisapel in the name of the Faculty for their generous contribution. “The Zisapel brothers, both of whom are graduates of the Faculty, are among the most notable pioneers of Israel’s high-tech industry,” he said. “The generous gift for establishing the Nanoelectronics Center, which is named for their parents Sara and Moshe Zisapel, enabled the establishment of an advanced research center that serves numerous research groups from Technion and elsewhere. The current gift will enable the Faculty of Electrical Engineering to continue training the best engineers and scientists for Israel’s high-tech sector, which needs high-quality human capital in order to continue thriving. I am proud that the Faculty’s main building will carry the name of the Zisapel brothers.”

 

Umbrella Conference, Attended by Technion Scientists, Closes After Successful Deliberations in Germany

The 33rd Umbrella Conference on Energy Conversion and Storage took place this week in Germany, with the participation of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, the Jülich Research Institute and RWTH Aachen University.  

The Umbrella Conference was held at the Jülich Research Institute in Germany, in cooperation with the Technion, Jülich Research Institute and RWTH Aachen University in Germany. The aim of the conference was to promote scientific cooperation and joint research among the three institutions. This is the second year which focuses on energy conversion and energy storage, coordinated with the Grand Technion Energy Program (GTEP).

The meetings were attended by more than 60 researchers from the three universities, with the highlight being the awarding of prizes to three leading researchers in the field of energy. The prize is awarded annually to young faculty members, and this year is awarded for their achievements in energy research.

The 2019 winners were:

Lior Kornblum of the Technion, for the development of a unique combination of thin layers for energy transformation; Dr. Xiaoyan Yin of the Jülich Research Institute and Francisco Guzman of the Institute for Machine Elements and Systems Engineering at the University of Aachen.

Prof. Wayne Kaplan, the Technion’s executive vice president for research, said at the conference: “This is a significant collaboration of 33 years, with excellent connections among the three institutions, each with its own uniqueness and each contributing to the other with knowledge and skills.”

As part of the program, in the winter the ‘Winter School’ was held in collaboration with the Russel Berrie Nanotechnology Institute (RBNI), and this was attended by some 140 doctoral students and lecturers. Organizers are now focussing on the ‘Spring School’ in Germany in the spring of 2020, which has aroused interest around the world. In the next two years, the activity will focus on the life sciences and the connection between Big Data and neuroscience. “The Technion is very proud of the Umbrella partnership that is bringing science and engineering to new heights,” says Prof. Kaplan.

TechnoBrain 2019, Technion’s annual scientific challenge competition encourages students to step ‘out of the box’ and embrace scientific challenges in a creative way.

Neev-Ya Durban, after whom the competition is named, would have been proud to see these amazing, self-driven student teams. Neev-Ya, a former student at Technion’s Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, sought to challenge Technion students by posing creative engineering tasks. “We need to take them away from their textbooks and give them a way to express themselves creatively,” he had said.

This year’s challenge was based on the slinky, a popular, patented helical spring toy invented by engineer Richard James and his wife Betty in the 1940s, which can perform a number of tricks, including travelling down a flight of stairs, end-over-end, as it stretches and re-forms itself with the aid of gravity and its own momentum.

Before the competition, the teams put their innovative structures to the test, measuring the vertical alignments of the 18 stairs to see how their structures met the preset speed and water overflow criterion. Most of the designs were based on simple slide devices while some also employed a pendulum designed to harness the flow of water out of the container.

“I didn’t sleep for a week but it was well worth the challenge,” said Ori Nissim of Technion’s Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Together with his team-mate, Ori Michael of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and the Faculty of Computer Science, the two (Oris) won first place at the TechnoBrain event. “The whole idea of TechnoBrain is to step away from our strenuous learning and courses and to implement what we learn into a creative project,” agreed the two winners.

Simplicity is the key. The winners said that at first, their ideas were far-fetched. “We even considered using centrifugation to limit the amount of water flow out of the container but eventually understood that a pair of rubber bands would do the trick just as well”. Complete with a coarse board to increase friction and a mast, serving as the braking mechanism, the two were ready to go. “At the last minute we decided to add wheels to the front of the board to assist the structure at the final step of its descent,” the two recalled.

In at second came (Yerida Lezoreh Yerida) Dovi Kogan, Shahar Zur and Shahar Tsadok. This talented trio of Technion’s Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, built a sled-like structure with unique wooden wheels, resembling actual stairs in their structure, to enable wide-scale friction upon contact with the ground.  

Third place went to (Stairship) Sam Mendes, Sher Hazan and Avihay Lael also of Technion’s Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. Their device made use of a vertically aligned instrument to keep water overflow at a minimum during descent and incorporated various elements that were printed in a 3D printer.     

Doctor Bob’s TechnoBrain competition is made possible thanks to the generous support of Robert Shillman (Doctor Bob), a Technion Guardian who received an Honorary Doctorate from Technion in June, 2018.

Also present at the event were Neev-Ya’s parents, Prof. Emeritus David Durban of Technion’s Faculty of Aerospace Engineering and his wife Rachel. Judging the competition was Prof. Alon Wolf of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering.

Moderator, Prof. Irad Yavneh of Technion’s Faculty of Computer Science was responsible for the competition’s energetic vibe and Sheer Haan of the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning skillfully coordinated the event.

On Monday, 10.6.2019, between 11:00 – 14:00, the Neve Sha’anan Gate will be closed to traffic.

This coming Monday, 10.6.2019, a traffic sign gantry will be erected at the Neve Sha’anan Gate at Technion City.

When the gantry is being lifted into place, (between 11:00 – 14:00), the Neve Sha’anan Gate will be closed to
traffic.

Cars that want to enter the campus during the aforementioned time frame can do so via Nesher
Gate.

The exit via Neve Sha’anan Gate will remain open throughout the lifting operation.

In an emergency, please contact the Security Center by calling 2222.

Better Than Staples and Pins – Hot-Glue Gun Fuses Biocompatible Tissue

Hot-glue guns can be used for more than putting together cardboard furniture, home decorations, and toys. In fact, researchers at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology have developed a hot-glue gun to adhere human tissues that have been seriously injured.

Most serious injuries are currently treated with pins and stitches that have many drawbacks. For the patient, they are very painful, leave scars, require high skill from the doctor, and sometimes have to be removed after the tissues heal. Medical glue, on the other hand, can produce improved medical and cosmetic results.

Such tissue bioadhesives are widely used in dermatology, surgical theaters, and in the field. But even though they have advantages over sutures and staples, currently available tissue glues are limited by their mechanical properties and toxicity. Because they are very toxic, they can be utilized only on the surface of the skin. In addition, hardening of the glue may make the organ less flexible or the adhesion may not be sufficiently strong.

With these limitations in mind, researchers have long been trying to develop a glue that is suitable for different tissues, non-toxic, and flexible after hardening. Such a glue would also need to decompose in the body after the tissue is fused together.

In an article published recently in the journal Advanced Functional Materials, Biomaterials Laboratory head Prof. Boaz Mizrahi and doctoral student Alona Shagan introduce a very strong, non-toxic tissue adhesive that remains flexible even after solidification.

Melting the glue and smearing it on the damaged tissue is performed with a hot-glue gun. Unlike the glue guns with which we are familiar, this gun warms the glue to a moderate temperature – just above that of the body – so as not to cause a burn. After the glue is applied, it quickly hardens and decomposes within a few weeks. The adhesive is also suitable for the adhesion of tissue inside the body, and it is four times as strong as existing adhesives used for this purpose. Tested on cells and laboratory animals, it was effective and nontoxic.

The new approach is based on a biocompatible, low-melting-point, four‐armed N‐hydroxy succinimide‐modified polycaprolactone (star‐PCL‐NHS). Star‐PCL‐NHS is inserted into a hot-melt glue gun and melts upon minimal pressure, the team wrote. It is squeezed directly onto the wound, where it solidifies, bonding strongly with both edges of the wound. Changes in molecular weight allow control of adhesive strength, melting point, and elasticity properties. In-vitro and in-vivo evaluations confirm the biocompatibility of this system. The straightforward synthetic scheme and the simple delivery method – combined with the desirable mechanical properties, tenability and tissue compatibility – are desirable traits in wound management.

The researchers believe the new concept will lead to the development of devices that will reduce the use of stitches, staples and pins, speed up the healing process and reduce scarring.

For the full article click here

Wearable Devices for Medical Diagnosis: An International Conference at the Technion

On May 13-14, the First International Conference on Wearable Devices for Medical Diagnosis was held at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. Attended by industry and academic personnel from all over the world, the conference was led by Professor Hossam Haick, head of the Nanomaterial-based Devices Laboratory at the Wolfson Chemical Engineering Faculty and a member of the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute (RBNI).

“The field of ​​wearable devices has been gaining momentum in recent years, and today there are wearable diagnostic technologies such as smart watches and smart clothes,” said Prof. Haick. “But they are often inaccurate or limited in the variety of possible applications. The way to leapfrog ahead in this area is biochemical sensing – precise monitoring of physiological conditions based on chemical monitoring of the skin and of various organs. We aim to produce non-invasive – or almost non-invasive – monitoring technologies and to connect the sensors to IOT (Internet of Things) infrastructures, so that multiple data can be collected and analyzed electronically for the benefit of the medical staff.”

Conference lectures focused on a wide range of topics that included pulmonary function monitoring, cardiac activity monitoring, the development of medical monitoring sensors, and innovative skin patches for rapid and inexpensive monitoring of tuberculosis.

Dr. Andrey Broisman, scientific director of engineering at the Ministry of Science and Technology, greeted the conference participants and presented the Ministry’s support channels for Israeli science and international cooperation.

The opening lectures were delivered by Prof. Kenneth Suslick of the University of Illinois and Prof. Corrado di Natale of the University of Rome. Prof. Suslick presented the solutions developed in the last decade in the field of sensors that are likely to play a major role in the diagnosis of diseases by wearable technologies. These include inexpensive sensors that decompose, as well as ones that mimic the natural olfactory system and provide a visual output that describes the object’s odor properties.

“In fact, we developed a system that identifies the ‘molecular fingerprint’ of odors, enabling accurate electronic mapping of the components of odor and monitors toxic gases and spoiled food,” said Prof. Suslick. “They can distinguish among different types of coffee, whiskey, etc. In medicine, we have been able to perform continuous monitoring over time and identify biological markers of heart and kidney disease, and no less importantly, monitor bacterial resistance to medications.”

Prof. di Natale described his approach to electronic monitoring of biochemical materials related to human health. This approach, “combinatorial selectivity,” simulates the natural system of human smell sensing. “A person has about 350 smell sensors that can differentiate among millions of sources of odors,” he said. “Inspired by the human olfactory system, we have developed a technology that makes it possible for us to monitor malaria and cancer and also to distinguish among different types of cancers.”

Ph.D. candidate Muhammad Khatib of the Haick Research Group presented innovative technology in the world of wearable monitoring – flexible sensing systems that can repair themselves.

“When we speak about wearable equipment,” said Mr. Khatib, “we want systems that can stretch and are flexible, but they also must be self-correcting, which we developed with inspiration from nature and the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.”

“Animals have the ability to repair damaged tissues in their body, and that is the characteristic that we want to copy,” Mr . Khatib continued. “What we have developed is a polymer-based transistor that can repair itself not only structurally and mechanically, but also in terms of its electrical properties. After we saw that it succeeded in fixing itself when we cut it, we repeated it in various types of water, even seawater, and found that it quickly repairs itself and recovers its previous capabilities. The significance of this is that these devices can work in the damp environment of biological tissue, on sweaty skin, and so forth.”.

The conference was held at a unique time in terms of the international activities of the Nanomaterial-Based Devices Lab, namely the completion of the SniffPhone consortium and the opening of two new clusters: VOGAS and A-Patch. The three consortia are part of the Horizon 2020 program of the European Union, which allocated a total amount of 18 million euro to them.

The SniffPhone system is based on a smartphone-related technology for speedy diagnosis of cancer and other diseases based on the patient’s breath. The new hardware is a system the size of a smartphone into which the patient exhales (without the need to hold it directly on the mouth). The data are transmitted via mobile phone to the “cloud” in which the information is analyzed and the results are transmitted to the attending physician. Vogas, a consortium of academics and industry partners from Europe and Latin America, is continuing the same project for eventual clinical implementation.

A-Patch, a consortium of researchers from academia, hospitals, and various companies, is working for the continued development of a cheap and reliable patch for tuberculosis (TB) surveillance. TB, one of the world’s most infectious and deadly diseases, accounts for about 1.8 million deaths each year.

The current diagnostic method, a skin test, requires laboratory services and takes a long time. The skin test is a process that involves injecting a substance (tuberculin) into one of the arms, testing the skin reaction after a few days and repeating the whole process in the other arm two weeks later. The development on which the new consortium works is a small, inexpensive, disposable diagnostic sticker that will cost about $1.50. A multiple-use sticker will cost about twice as much. The label reads the patient’s physiological data and attaches it to a smartphone. This data is then transferred to the cloud for analysis and diagnosis by a physician. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been involved with the project for several years.

 

An artificial black hole provides quantitative confirmation of the temperature and thermality of Hawking radiation

During his distinguished career as a theoretical physicist and cosmologist, the late Stephen Hawking predicted that black holes – invisible and massive phenomena in space with such strong gravity that nothing, even light, can escape its deep, dark grasp – emit radiation.  This Hawking radiation should have a thermal spectrum, similar to the radiation from any warm object. The temperature of the Hawking radiation should agree with the temperature predicted by Jacob Bekenstein.

Now, a team of researchers from the Department of Physics at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology have created an artificial black hole in which sound plays the role of light. By devising a way to measure the spectrum of Hawking radiation, they have found that artificial black holes do emit radiation like an ordinary warm object, as Hawking’s predictions asserted.

A paper explaining their groundbreaking research appeared in the May, 30 2019 issue of Nature.

Almost four decades ago, a theory emerged suggesting artificial black holes could be constructed and used to measure the physics of Hawking radiation, a type of thermal radiation, the existence of which Hawking predicted in the 1970s and which now bears his name. However, it was the task of creating an artificial black hole, and devising ways to measure the spectrum of Hawking radiation and its temperature, that led to the recent breakthrough.

“Our artificial black hole provides confirmation of the thermality of Hawking radiation,” explained lead researcher Professor Jeff Steinhauer. “In addition, we found that the temperature is determined by the artificial gravity at the surface of the artificial black hole, also consistent with Hawking’s predictions.”

The success of their work is yet another profound insight into the nature of black holes, among the most mysterious and least understood secrets of the universe.

The concept of an object in space with gravitation fields too strong for light to escape was considered in the 18th century. The first modern theory about the existence of black holes was developed in 1916, but not fully characterized and considered to be just mathematical curiosities until the late 1960s, when theories were sparked by knowledge about the collapse of massive stars. Although they could not be seen, a consensus was soon reached that black holes existed in most galaxies.

Having studied this phenomenon and problem for a decade, the research team made constant improvements to their experimental tools over the last three years. The goal was to not only create artificial black holes, but also to develop methods to make measurements to check Hawking’s predictions. To reach their conclusions, the Hawking radiation experiment was repeated 7,400 times providing a density profile for each “run”, from which the researchers computed averages.

“Theoretical works, combined with our long-term study of this subject, allowed for the observation of spontaneous Hawking radiation in an artificial black hole,” reported Steinhauer.  “The improvements in our experimental apparatus allowed us to measure the thermality of the Hawking spectrum and compare its temperature with Hawkings’ prediction, given by the surface gravity.”

According to the researchers, this temperature (as predicted) provides an interesting link between the theories of Hawking and those of astrophysicist Jacob Bekenstein.  In 1972, Bekenstein also presented a theory on black hole thermodynamics.

“Remarkably, although their calculations were based on very different ideas, both Hawking and Bekenstein came up with the same conclusion that the temperature was determined by the gravity at the surface of the black hole,” said Steinhauer. “We confirmed their predictions.”

While the discovery made by the Technion physicists makes clearer the nature of artificial black holes by measuring the spectrum emitted (very similar to the spectrum that would be emitted by an ordinary warm object), the low levels of radiation not only confirm Hawking’s theory, but could also lead to further research.

According to Steinhauer and his team, their findings provide not only hints about the nature of real black holes, but also about the “information paradox.” According to Hawking, the radiation and its thermal spectrum contain very little information. This idea is the basis of the information paradox, which poses questions such as: What is the fate of information that falls into a real black hole? Does it disappear from the universe? And, if not, where does it go?

The researchers found that the spectrum of the Hawking radiation is indeed thermal.  So, the information paradox remains unresolved with future researchers needing to look elsewhere to investigate the information paradox enigma.

 

Technological Innovation for the Benefit of Competitive Sports

The First Scientific Conference of the Israeli Olympics Sports Research Center – aimed at using scientific knowledge to improve sports performance – was held recently at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa and was attended by leading researchers and scientists, as well as senior coaches from Israel and members of the sports-tech industry, along with guest lecturers from the USA and England.

The conference was held at Technion’s Faculty of Mechanical Engineering on Wednesday, May 15, as part of the Annual Belfer Symposium and a new cooperation venture between Technion and the Olympic Committee of Israel.  

The research center which encourages applied research for advancing Olympic Sport in Israel is headed by Prof. Alon Wolf of Technion’s Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and directed by exercise physiologist Muli Epstein, Scientific Director of the Olympic Committee in Israel,  and its Elite Sports Unit.

Among the scientific and technological challenges in the field of athletic achievement that were discussed was the challenge of breaking the two-hour barrier in marathon races. Running a marathon in less than two hours is not only a physiological challenge, and new developments in the field of footwear and nutrition may soon provide the answer. Experts agree that it is possible to beat the record, and many believe that Kenyan Olympic runner Eliud Kipchoge may achieve the new record in the near future.

Prof. Yannis Pitsiladis, an expert in sports and exercise science at England’s Brighton University and a world expert on the genetic and environmental effects of athletic performance, spoke about the enormous challenge of breaking the two-hour barrier in a marathon run. He stated that this is possible as, “The borders are not fixed, and by investing time and energy, they can be extended.” However, he added that this goal requires cooperation among researchers in various fields, including nutritionists, biomechanics and data scientists. “We need to develop  tools with which to inject carbohydrates into the runner’s body effectively, and to provide him/her with intelligent sensing systems that monitor physiological variables and provide feedback on his/her condition in real time.”

Dr. Alison Sheets, Senior Biomechanics Researcher at Nike, whose research focuses on the biomechanical mechanisms that limit the performance of athletes through experimental and computational approaches. Her lecture addressed the contribution of equipment innovation in improving athletes’ sports performance.

“Why can’t I run faster, why can’t I jump higher? These questions keep me awake,” said Nike’s Dr. Sheets, who seeks to improve the athletic performance of the super athlete. Established in 1980, Nike’s Biomechanics Laboratory’s goal is to develop ways to overcome existing limitations and enable athletes to improve their achievements while reducing injuries.

“Since the 1980s, tremendous scientific developments have taken place, including the power of computing, data science and 3D printing, which give us new tools to combat  sporting challenges,” Dr. Sheets added.

Prof. Wolf said that the research center was designed to promote Israeli sports on three levels – the physiology of the individual athlete, the technology of the equipment and the interaction between the two. During the conference, Prof. Wolf and Muli Epstein presented a fascinating talk about the history of scientific research in Olympic Sports and the current challenges in the field.

“We recently inaugurated the Israeli Center for Olympic Sports Research – a joint cooperation between the Olympic Committee and  Technion, which is a leading body in science and technology,” said Gili Lustig, CEO of the Olympic Committee of Israel. “I have no doubt that together, we can improve the training patterns and physiological tracking of our athletes and thus lead them to new heights.”

Yael Arad, Israel’s first athlete to win an Olympic silver medal and Board Member of the Olympic Committee of Israel and Chairman of the Sports Committee, said that, “The cooperation with Technion is at one with the quantum leap in the goals that we have set for ourselves. If we have so far aimed at returning from any Olympics with one or two medals, now we want to achieve more. Not only to be good but to be the best. And for that we have to focus on things that we are not good at, and to improve and bring measurable results, and in short – more medals. It is a long-term process whose benefits will be seen only at the 2024 Olympics and perhaps even later. But it will happen if we will be patient, determined and consistent.”

Dr. Maya Benzoor-Cale, Director of the Department of Physical Therapy at the Center for Sports Medicine and Research at Israel’s Wingate Institute, focuses her research on movement in rehabilitation and sports, and especially on how science fits into the clinical treatment of Olympic athletes.

Prof. Anath Fischer, of Technion’s Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, spoke about a bionic hand (a 3D printed hand) simulation using artificial intelligence (AI).

Following the conference, four Israeli Olympic trainers presented challenges from their respective fields to researchers at the new center. Niv Libner, coach of Israel’s women’s cycling team, sought to develop tools to improve training and decision-making in training and races. Rogel Nahum, who represented Israel three times in triple jumps in the Olympic Games, said that these areas are desperate for tools to improve the accuracy of running and hitting the jumping board. Sailing coach Gur Steinberg sought to develop precise methods for measuring distances and learning how world-champion sailors succeed. Claudia Laciga, coach of the Israel Beach-Volleyball Team, said the players needed tools that would improve their ability to read the opponent and his intentions.”

Following the conference there was a visit to the research laboratories of the Israeli Center for Olympic Sports Research on campus.