{"id":84896,"date":"2022-03-08T12:27:51","date_gmt":"2022-03-08T10:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.technion.ac.il\/blog\/breaking-the-glass-ceiling\/"},"modified":"2022-03-08T12:27:51","modified_gmt":"2022-03-08T10:27:51","slug":"breaking-the-glass-ceiling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.technion.ac.il\/en\/blog\/breaking-the-glass-ceiling\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking the Glass Ceiling"},"content":{"rendered":"

March 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic is casting terror on the whole world. In Israel, a strict lockdown is declared, leaving most of the country\u2019s population stuck inside their homes.<\/p>\n

In those crazy days, Sofia Segal was in her house in the Carmel with her husband and two children, watching children\u2019s theater on television. Glancing at an online news site, she learned that Donald Trump, the then-President of the United States, announced that he takes hydroxychloroquine in order to alleviate the symptoms in the event that he is infected with COVID-19. As a doctoral student in the Technion\u2019s Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, Sofia was curious about the research potential in using this drug and decided to evaluate integrating it in her research on cardiac pacemakers.<\/p>\n

\u201cHydroxychloroquine is a drug used for treating a variety of autoimmune diseases, and it is somewhat effective against COVID-19 symptoms,\u201d Segal explains, \u201cbut it has side effects, including slowing down the heart rate (bradycardia). As a result, it is liable to endanger COVID patients suffering from damaged physiological functioning, and especially populations considered at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s announcement intrigued Segal, whose doctoral research focuses on natural cardiac pacemakers \u2013 the tissue that provides the heart its beating rate. In her words, \u201cThere are several compartments that set the pace for the heart\u2019s pulse. If one of these natural pacemakers is harmed, another one can cover for it \u2013 but the beating rate will change accordingly. If the damage is extensive, cardiac disorders such as cardiac insufficiency, ventricular fibrillation, atrial fibrillation and others, may develop. In our lab, we study the biological, chemical and electrical processes involved in creating the heart\u2019s natural beating rate, and the effect of various drugs on the heart\u2019s function.\u201d<\/p>\n

Segal is conducting her doctoral research under the supervision of Prof. Yael Yaniv, director of the Bioelectrical and Bioenergetic Systems Laboratory. She shared her thoughts about Trump\u2019s hydroxychloroquine statement with Prof. Yaniv and with her colleagues in the lab. That is how the idea of an original and fascinating research project was born, which hypothesized that if a patient receives hydroxychloroquine together with a drug that increases the heart rate, they will benefit from both worlds, curbing the disease and also preserving a healthy heart rate. This project led Segal to win a prize at the Faculty Research Day that year.<\/p>\n

From Belarus to the Carmel Mountains<\/span><\/p>\n

Sofia Segal was born in Minsk, Belarus, and made Aliyah in 1990 with her family, when she was one year old. When she was eight, she settled in Haifa with her mother, in the Ramat Remez neighborhood adjacent to the Technion campus. \u201cThe location wasn\u2019t a coincidence. My mother was the captain who navigated my life, and from infancy she aspired for me to study at the Technion. My whole family consists of engineers who studied at the Technikum in Russia. I received a Soviet-style education which instilled in me a sense of striving for excellence. This attitude is also visible in my athletic activities, which are an integral part of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

This same Soviet-style education, says Sofia, brought her to take piano lessons from the age of five, as well as to excel in her high school Scientific track, serve in 8200 Unit in the IDF and, of course, to pursue undergraduate, master and doctoral studies at the Technion, during which she achieved numerous successes. \u201cI believe that this Soviet education with which I grew up molded my approach according to which there is nothing that stands in the way of one\u2019s aspirations. Everything depends on oneself, and if you want to succeed you must know \u2013 mainly \u2013 how to get up again after falling down. Without this ability, one cannot pursue a career as a scientist, since failure is an inseparable part of the process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thus, choosing the Technion was an obvious choice. \u201cAs a child I was attracted to science, especially chemistry, biology and electronics, and I looked for a way to connect these fields to the world of medicine. At the Technion\u2019s Open Day, I found my calling at the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, which became my second home during the past decade.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, as an outstanding doctoral student and teaching assistant, she is herself a star at the Open Days, during which the faculty hosts young candidates who are debating what to study. \u201cRecruiting excellent students is a big honor,\u201d she insists, \u201cand our efforts are bearing fruit. In my undergraduate class, there were barely 30 students in the faculty, while now there are approximately 150 in each class. The faculty invests heavily in teaching, and this is very apparent in the level of studies and the students\u2019 overall experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At the end of her undergraduate studies, Sofia met Prof. Daphne Weihs, who is a faculty member, and she told her about a new addition to the faculty \u2013 Dr. Yael Yaniv (today, Prof. Yael Yaniv). Yael joined the conversation, and the rest is history. Sofia Segal was Prof. Yaniv\u2019s second student in the Technion lab and Segal also conducted her \u00a0PhD studies in\u00a0\u00a0 Yaniv\u2019s lab. She is set to complete her doctorate this year. \u201cYael is a huge inspiration,\u201d says Sofia. \u201cShe is a true professional who believes in what she does. She believes in girl power and sweeps us along with her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Segal\u2019s colleagues in the lab include doctoral students Limor Arbel Ganon, whose field is pacemaker tissues in mice, Savyon Mazgaoker Samya, who researches human heart cells, and Noa Kirshner-Peretz, who studies rabbit atrial cells. \u201cAs part of our collaboration, we are developing an extensive and deep understanding of pacemaker activity and the possibilities of improving its function in the context of hydroxychloroquine use. In this research, we were able to map out the leading mechanisms for the drug\u2019s side effects and demonstrate that using a different off-the-shelf drug cancels the slowing down of the heart rate.\u201d They proved the efficiency of combining two drugs both in the live model and in the experiments in human cells, and these findings can be translated to clinical trials that will examine the efficacy of this combination in humans.<\/p>\n

It’s worth noting that today, cardiac rhythm disturbances caused by damaged functioning of the natural pacemakers are treated through artificial pacemaker implants. \u201cThese pacemakers are invasive, require regular maintenance and expose the patient to various risks,\u201d Sofia explains. In her research, she examines the possibility of rendering artificial pacemaker implants unnecessary by treating the natural pacemakers through drugs rather than in an invasive manner.<\/p>\n

Segal\u2019s master\u2019s degree was devoted to developing a tissue culture technique for growing pacemaker cells in laboratory conditions. This technique proves that pacemaker cells from rabbits retain their properties in cultures by adding a material that slows down the heartbeat. \u201cBased on this, it is possible to carry out tissue culture experiments and predict identical results in the live organism,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n

\u201cProf. Yaniv is my supervisor, friend and sometimes like my mother,\u201d Segal points out. \u201cThe women researchers in the lab work two complete shifts, each of which is very challenging. We are both full-time researchers in the lab and also mothers. The task of managing our families, especially bringing up our children, mainly falls on us women, and therefore we raise the banner of balancing these two jobs (do our best to balance these two jobs). For Prof. Yaniv, the family is of foremost importance, and therefore during times of crisis she encourages us to focus on our personal needs. However, it is clear to all of us that we must make up for the lost research time, and\u00a0 this requires \u2013 mainly \u2013 trust.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family is of foremost importance to Sofia as well \u2013 meaning her husband Zohar and their two children, 6.5-year-old Tevel and 3.5-year-old Lorel. \u201cI met Zohar when I was 18, when he joined a special unit in the army. His background is completely different from mine: he grew up in Tzfat (Safed) in a traditional family. His mother is of Moroccan descent, and his father has roots in Romania, and he has two brothers and a sister. He completed a master\u2019s degree and several other study programs, and today is a manager in a security and business intelligence company. I believe that something about his different culture attracted him to me \u2013 the extended family, the traditions, the freedom to choose what to study and do, the food, the warmth and the friendliness. To my delight, our children are growing up in a mix of cultures and are completely blind to these cultural differences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Helping the elderly<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition to her success with teaching, research and her family, she is also proud of the social project she is involved with, together with her lab partner Limor Arbel-Ganon. The two women, who are both doctoral students and young mothers, take part in volunteer activities organized with the faculty \u2013 helping the elderly in Haifa and the vicinity together with the local welfare Department. A strong friendship was born between Limor, Sofia and an elderly Holocaust survivor who escaped from Poland to Ukraine when he was five, was imprisoned in Siberia and arrived in Israel in 1948. The two women succeeded in collecting warm clothes and food for him for the winter and even cooked for him special Polish dishes that he missed so much.<\/p>\n

Segal will soon complete 12 years of studying at the Technion, and will continue on to conquer her next goals in the biomedical industry. \u201cMost of my years at the Technion were devoted to researching the heart using a range of research methods. I am so grateful to the Technion for being my professional home, and especially to the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering. Thanks to them, I acquired a great deal of engineering knowledge, expertise in \u2018wet\u2019 lab research, and autodidactic abilities. Moreover, I was exposed to a platform that connects science, technology and medical applications. For me, International Women\u2019s Day is a significant milestone for all women, and especially for women in science whose work often contributes to humankind as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

March 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic is casting terror on the whole world. In Israel, a strict lockdown is declared, leaving most of the country\u2019s population stuck inside their homes. In those crazy days, Sofia Segal was in her house in the Carmel with her husband and two children, watching children\u2019s theater on television. 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