Yearly Archives: 2019

The Technion Faculty of Education in Science and Technology recently held the closing event of “Intelligent Robotics” in which all participants gathered at Technion City to present their projects.

Among the skills exemplified by the robots were autonomous mapping and navigation, communication using IoT (Internet of Things); and drones that could photograph the terrain from the air and transfer data through a ground station to a ground-based robot that designated to deal with detected problems.

The final event took place at the Technion with the participation of high school students, parents and mentors from the Technion and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

MIT student Keila Holman with ORT Technikum-Givatayim pupils

The “Intelligent Robotics” project was born in 2017 at the initiative of the Center for Robotics and Digital Technology Education as a collaboration between the Technion and MIT. The CRDTE conducts research focusing on technological learning environments, experiential learning, modeling and analogy, educational robotics, human-robot interaction, museum education, learning mathematics with applications and in cultural context. One of its activities is to actively engage high school students with the field of intelligent autonomous systems.

“We want to provide school students in Israel with real engineering skills that are relevant to the new world of employment, skills that not yet taught in regular school programs,” said CRDTE Head Prof. Igor Verner, who explains how he was inspired by the MIT Beaver Works Summer Institute program in which he participated as a researcher. “We see this project as an innovative model for the interdisciplinary specialization that combines computer science, electronics and mechanics. In the coming summer, we will present the project at a closing ceremony of the robotics program at MIT.”

In collaboration with the global company PTC and with the involvement of students from MIT, the CRDTE has developed an environment for the experiential learning of advanced technologies. “You have built a truly amazing lab that enables you to experience an environment that is very similar to the real world,” said PTC Israel CEO Ziv Belfer at the event: “The world has become autonomous, connected and controlled, and here, you experience all this.”

This year, following the success of last year’s pilot, Israel’s Education Ministry and ORT Israel also became involved. 66 students from five schools participated: Hugim in Haifa; ORT Technikum in Givatayim; ORT Gan Yavne; Bosmat Haifa; and the Israel Air Force Technical School in Haifa.   

Presentation of a drone robot on a photography mission

The project’s activities were coordinated by Dr. Dan Cooperman of the Technion and Gadi Herman of ORT Israel. At the end of 2018, the pupils underwent a preparatory course in which they learned robotics; programming in Python; IoT; working principles in Linux; and the Robot Operating System. In January 2019, three MIT students who came to Israel as part of the MISTI Global Teaching Labs program joined the teaching staff and taught the students robot programming in ROS.

“In our age, interdisciplinary cooperation is needed to develop complex things,” said Technion Senior Vice President Prof. Adam Schwartz,  “and this is what we do here at the Technion – learning the most complicated things to build together complex, successful and useful technologies – to benefit mankind.”

The project’s activities were coordinated by Dr. Dan Cuperman of the Technion and Gadi Herman of ORT Israel. At the end of 2018, the students underwent a preparatory course in which they learned robotics, programming in Python, IoT, working principles in Linux, and the Robot Operating System. In January 2019, three MIT students who came to Israel as part of the MISTI Global Teaching Labs program joined the teaching staff and taught the students robot programming in ROS.

“In our age, interdisciplinary cooperation is needed to develop complex things,” said Technion Senior Vice President Prof. Adam Schwartz, “and this is what we do here at the Technion – learning the most complicated things to build together complex, successful and useful technologies – to benefit mankind.”

“The best path to social, economic and employment advancement is to study,” said Prof. Yehudit (Judy) Dori, Dean of the Faculty Education in Science and Technology. “That’s why we’re cooperating with the educational system. We want the best students here at the Technion.”

“The project nurtures the 21st century students’ performance and exposes them to new fields,” said Milena Meron, who is Principal of the Hugim High School, from where students are participating in the project for the second time.

“I was so impressed by how motivated and enthusiastic the students were to learn about robotics and autonomous systems,” said Ariel Levy, an MIT student who taught in the project. “The students quickly picked up the necessary skills for the project. I was so proud to see everyone’s presentation at the end! I had so much fun teaching in Israel and I hope I can return soon.” ”

The parents of Noya, a student at ORT, wrote: “We want to thank everyone who made this project happen. Thank you for the meaningful, challenging and extraordinary education that made our daughter tell us each day with great excitement about the project’s progress. We sensed the desire to learn, the commitment and the responsibility that you gave her. There is no doubt that it is a special experience. We’re already waiting for the next project!”

Hey Doc, How’s My Immune System Doing?

New Study Published In Nature Medicine Reveals An Immune-Age Clock For Assessing One’s Immune Health

Associate Professor Shai Shen-Orr

If those ubiquitous TV infomercials are to be believed, a person’s age can be determined solely by outward signs, like wrinkled skin, gray hair, and yellow teeth. But according to a team of researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and Stanford University, the state of a person’s immune system provides a far more accurate measurement of a person’s health than physical signs or even chronological age. The team has also developed a way to gauge “immune age,” which could bring about new frontiers in personalized medical treatment, drug and vaccine clinical development, and health management and insurance processes.

Over an individual’s life, the immune system declines in function, a process accompanied by an increase in inflammation. This ultimately leads to an inability to cope with infections and a higher risk of chronic diseases such as cancer and heart disease, the leading causes of death among older people. Due to the high complexity of the immune system, no real metric of immunological health exists in the clinic beyond the Complete Blood Count. This lab test, which has been in existence since 1957, enumerates the abundance of immune cells, but at a resolution too low to identify anything but extreme conditions.  

Enter the new monitoring system developed by the Technion-Stanford team. Their study characterized annually, at high resolution and with thousands of different parameters, the immune systems of 135 healthy people at different ages over a period of nine years. The researchers collected rich longitudinal data that allowed for the capture a pattern of immune cellular changes occurring over time that are common to all adults, irrespective of individual differences between peoples’ immune systems.

Doctoral student Ayelet Alpert

“Individuals varied only at the rate their immune system changes, not in the actual pattern of change,” said Shai Shen-Orr, Associate Professor in the Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and lead co-senior author of the study. “This allowed us to map a path of how the immune system ages and to quantify an individual’s immune age. Unlike your actual chronological age, the immune-age is intimately tied to the state of one’s immune system, the body’s chief sentinel. We can, therefore, capture medically relevant information using immune age that physicians would otherwise miss.”

Using the new method, the researchers quantified the immune age of more than 2,000 adults who participated in the Framingham Heart Study, which has been carried out among people living in the Boston area for more than half a century. By analyzing the data collected on this large sample, the researchers showed that advanced immune age predicts mortality at an older age beyond known risk factors. In other words, although they may be in the same age group, people with an “older” immune system are at higher risk of dying than people with a “young” immune system.

Dr. Yishai Pickman

“This paper represents a very important step towards developing useful measures of immunological health, especially as it could help to identify who is at risk for cardiovascular and other diseases,” said Professor Mark M. Davis, Head of the Stanford Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection and the other co-senior author of the study. “It’s been sixty years since the last immunological benchmarks (CBCs) were introduced into general medical practice and so it’s high time we had something much more sophisticated such as we describe here, that reflects the tremendous explosion of knowledge that we have had in the field in this time.”

Because immune age is also affected by genetics, the researchers want to characterize the immune age of populations with a genetic predisposition to a long life, such as descendants of people who passed the age of 100. “By doing so, we may characterize genes that affect immune age,” said Prof. Shen-Orr. “In addition, the method we developed will make possible identification of lifestyle, habits, and medications that affect immune age positively or negatively.”

The research was published in the prestigious journal Nature Medicine and was led by Prof. Shai Shen-Orr of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and Prof. Mark Davis of Stanford University, with co-first authors, doctoral student Ayelet Alpert and Dr. Yishai Pickman of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, together with other Technion and Stanford researchers. The research has been supported by grants from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH-NIAID), the Ellison Foundation, the Howard Hughes Institute, the Israel Science Foundation, the Rappaport Institute, and the Kollek and Taub Family Awards.

Click here for the paper in Nature Medicine

Super Sensitive, Groundbreaking Smart Sensor “Tastes” and “Sniffs”

Professor Hossam Haick

Researchers from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa have developed an innovative sensing system capable of identifying and distinguishing different stimuli. The system is based on origami (the art of paper folding) combined with ink developed at the Technion.

The Israeli researchers have developed an innovative sensing system capable of identifying and distinguishing different stimuli. The research, just published in the journal Nature Communications, was led by Professor Hossam Haick of the Technion’s Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering and the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute, and Dr. Min Zhang, who did his post-doctoral fellowship with him. Dr. Zhang is currently an associate professor at East China Normal University.

“Today, there is significant demand for multi-purpose sensing systems for specific purposes,” said Prof. Haick. “These systems have great potential as applications in medicine, counterterrorism, food safety, environmental monitoring, ‘The Internet of things’ and more. The problem is that existing technologies, such as gas chromatography, have many disadvantages, including high cost.”

The challenge facing the researchers was to develop a single system sensitive enough to identify and distinguish among different stimuli. They say they developed a solution inspired by nature.  “When we think about the human sensory system, we think of a whole that brings all the data to the brain in a format that it understands. That inspired our development, which is meant to concentrate in a different place all the environmental data we want to monitor. It is a multi-purpose sensory system that absorbs the stimuli and distinguishes among them.”

(L-R) Dr. Min Zhang and Professor Hossam Haick

The system developed by Prof. Haick and Dr. Zhang, called “origami hierarchical sensor array” (OHSA), is an integrated array of grouped sensors written on the target object in conductive ink that the two scientists developed.  It is a single device that demonstrates sensing abilities and detecting physical and chemical stimuli – temperature, humidity, light and volatile organic particles – at high resolution of time and space. Since it also distinguishes between isomers and chiral enantiomers (forms that are mirror images of each other), it paves new avenues for medical diagnosis. It is worth noting that volatile particle monitoring can be useful in a variety of areas including the diagnosis of disease and monitoring of dangerous substances.

There are many advantages to this unique ink – its low price, the ability to produce it in large quantities and the simplicity of its application on the target surfaces. The researchers conducted experiments that included control groups (other types of ink) and showed that the special ink attaches itself tightly to materials such as aluminum foil; glass; photo paper; Kapton tape (a polyimide film developed by DuPont in the late 1960s that remains stable across a wide range of temperatures and is used in, among other things, flexible printed circuits and thermal blankets used on spacecraft, satellites, and various space instruments; nitrile (the material used to make disposable gloves); and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS, used to make contact lenses and for medical technologies and cosmetics).

The ink also allows writing on human skin and nails in a kind of conductive tattoo, waterproof – which may allow, for example, constant monitoring of relevant physiological variables. In addition, it can also be used on human skin and fingernails as a kind of water-resistant, conductive tattoo – which can make possible, for example, constant monitoring of relevant physiological variables.

“We can say that our system identifies the ‘fingerprints’ of chemical and physical stimuli and supplies information about them,” said Prof. Haick. Its low cost will make possible its application in many places, including poor areas, for medical and other uses.”

Click here for the paper in Nature Communications

Optical Microscope images of composite made of melanin-analogous polydopamine and graphene, coating (a) paper; and (b) flexible substrate made of Kapton

New Research Capitalizes on Therapeutic Promise of Programmed Cell Death  

Assistant Professor Yaron Fuchs of Technion Israel awarded Sartorius & Science Prize for Regenerative Medicine & Cell Therapy

Assistant Professor Yaron Fuchs

Yaron Fuchs of Technion Israel is the 2019 grand prize winner of the Sartorius & Science Prize for Regenerative Medicine & Cell Therapy, for work that reveals a role for programmed stem cell death in wound healing and tissue regeneration. The findings, described in his prize-winning essay, “The therapeutic promise of apoptosis,” could potentially pave the way to novel regenerative medicine and tumor therapies that target stem cells undergoing apoptosis – a type of programmed cell death.  

Adult stem cells are characterized by their ability to self-renew and transform into distinct cell types, positioning them as critical drivers of tissue replenishment and repair. While great strides have been made in researchers’ understanding of the many molecular pathways that control the fate and function of stem cells, very little is known regarding the specific processes underlying their elimination.

To address such unknowns, Fuchs, who now heads the Laboratory of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, further investigated how seemingly “immortal” stem cells committed cellular suicide. He closely examined the proteins involved in apoptosis using a model system known to be dependent on stem cells: the hair follicle.

Fuchs discovered that loss of ARTS in mice, a protein involved in promoting apoptosis, resulted in hair follicle stem cell expansion and lead to a dramatic improvement in skin repair. Mice lacking ARTS were able to regenerate hair follicles and formed smaller scars following wound infliction. What’s more, inactivation of the protein XIAP, which is targeted by ARTS reversed these observations and impaired wound healing.

Fuchs verified that ARTS and XIAP exerted similar effects in the intestinal epithelium, a system rapidly replenished by actively dividing stem cells. In this context, loss of ARTS function also protected intestinal stem cells against apoptosis, increased their numbers and enhanced intestinal regeneration.  

“These studies demonstrate the importance of apoptosis in restricting stem cell expansion and enabling proper repair, suggesting that it serves as a defense mechanism against irreparably damaged stem cells and the emergence of cancer. The findings also suggest that transiently targeting pathways that encourage apoptosis in hair follicles or intestinal stem cells may offer therapeutic benefits to promote wound healing and regeneration,” said Fuchs.

In Fuchs’ award-winning essay, which will be published in the 8 March issue of Science, he highlights his quest to understand how epidermal stem cells use apoptosis-promoting proteins. Fuchs observed that a large number of proliferating cells within the sebaceous gland (a mini-organ which releases oily secretions) expressed an active form of caspase-3, a protein that triggers programmed cell death. Interestingly, these cells did not show any of the hallmark morphological characteristics of an apoptotic cell.

To Fuchs’ surprise, deletion of caspase-3 caused reduced proliferation and cell number, decreased organ size, and impaired sebaceous gland regeneration. Intrigued by this result, Fuchs found that caspase-3 controls the activity of YAP, a fundamental regulator of tissue regeneration and organ size.

“This discovery is particularly important, as it sheds light on standard-of-care cancer treatments like radiation and chemotherapy, which intentionally accelerate caspase-3 activity to execute tumor cell apoptosis. It also may hold promise in other applications, such as promoting wound healing by manipulating caspase-3,” said Fuchs.

“Stem cells are well known to promote tissue regeneration, but it’s less clear how stem cell elimination could impact disease,” said Science biomedicine editor Dr. Priscilla Kelly, who chaired the prize jury. “Dr. Fuchs revealed the unexpected connection between cell death pathways and the ability of stem cells to govern wound healing, skin repair and tumor growth. This is an excellent example of how state-of-the-art research can be applied to advance regenerative medicine and model new therapeutic interventions.”

Fuchs noted that he is currently in the process of developing specific inhibitors and activators of apoptotic proteins to improve stem cell-dependent skin and intestinal regeneration. Ongoing work indicates that the interplay between caspase-3 and YAP contributes to both skin wound healing and tumorigenesis. As such, his team is currently developing novel strategies for targeting caspase-3 activation in different tumor settings and regenerative models.

Next steps will include zeroing in on the myriad of molecular signals emanating from apoptotic cells, to better understand the effect they have on their surrounding environment. Fuchs hopes to harness such processes to drive tissue regeneration and block tumor development. Taking a different research direction, too, he seeks to uncover new stem cell populations, pinpointing the role they play in tissue homeostasis, repair, and tumor formation.

Established in 2017, the Sartorius & Science Prize for Regenerative Medicine & Cell Therapy – now in its second year – is an annual prize geared toward researchers focused on basic or translational research that advances regenerative medicine and cell therapy (including cell-, gene-, or immunotherapy, tissue engineering, and materials engineering). The winner is awarded $25,000 and publication of his or her essay in Science. The award is announced and presented at a ceremony for which Sartorius will provide financial support to help enable the grand prize winner to attend the ceremony.

Fuchs, along with all finalists, will be recognized during an award ceremony for invited guests only the evening of 25 April at AAAS Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

2019 Grand Prize Winner

Yaron Fuchs, for his essay ” The therapeutic promise of apoptosis.” Yaron Fuchs received his undergraduate degree from Haifa University and pursued a direct Ph.D. track at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology. He next carried out his postdoctoral research at Rockefeller University and Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Upon completion, he returned to the Technion Israel Institute of Technology, where he now heads the Laboratory of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. His research is focused on different modes of cell death and how they regulate diverse aspects of stem cell biology and stem cell-dependent processes.

Finalist Daniele Tauriello, for his essay “From poor prognosis to promising treatment.” Daniele Tauriello studied at Utrecht University, the Netherlands, and did his Ph.D. at the University Medical Centre Utrecht. Dr. Tauriello has been a postdoctoral fellow at IRB Barcelona, Spain, working on the role of TGF-β in the tumor immune microenvironment in colorectal cancer metastasis. This year, he will set up his lab at the Radboudumc, Radboud Institute for Molecular Life Sciences, in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

Finalist Ritu Raman, for her essay “Modeling muscle.” Ritu Raman received her undergraduate degree from Cornell University and her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Raman is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she is developing and integrating novel responsive biohybrid materials into implantable devices.

Finalist Florian Bentzinger, for his essay “Best supporting actors.” Florian Bentzinger received his undergraduate degree and Ph.D. from the University of Basel in Switzerland. Following his post-doctoral studies at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute in Canada, Dr. Bentzinger moved back to Switzerland and joined the Nestlé Institute of Health Sciences. In 2016 he was appointed as an assistant professor at the Université de Sherbrooke in Canada where he is conducting research on the skeletal muscle stem cell niche in health and disease.

For the full text of finalist essays and for information about applying for next year’s awards, see the Science Web site at http://www.sciencemag.org/prizes/sartorius-science-prize-regenerative-medicine-cell-therapy.

Give the Hippopotamus Some Respect

Nature is always a profound inspiration, and the field of biomimicry – developing products inspired by nature – has now been officially established at the Ramat Gan Safari Zoo by doctoral student Michal Topaz of the Technion’s Faculty of Education in Science and Technology.

Sewing thread for surgical sutures inspired by porcupine spines; air conditioning systems based on the structure of termite colonies; and insect repellants and bacterial disinfectants based on hippopotamus sweat – all these are the products of bio-inspiration. On display at the Safari Zoo in Ramat Gan, they are just examples of the ingenuity of doctoral student Michal Topaz, who is part of the environmental education research group led by Prof. Tali Tal of the Faculty of Education in Science and Technology.

For the past 15 years, Topaz has worked in the Ramat Gan Safari’s education department. After completing her master’s degree in sociology and anthropology at Tel Aviv University, former Safari director Yehuda Bar told her about a new field of research called biomimicry. “Go and read about it,” he suggested, “and maybe we’ll do something with it.”

Topaz accepted the challenge and plunged into what she describes as a whole world of thinking that combines innovation, entrepreneurship and nature conservation. “Biomimicry is an interdisciplinary field that regards nature as a boundless source for applicable ideas and developments and solutions for existing human problems. Instead of asking how we can use nature, we ask what we can learn from it,” says Topaz.

“We imitate nature – and are inspired by its mechanisms, structures, processes, and biological and ecological principles – while deeply admiring nature and understanding that we have a lot to learn. This thinking provides significant additional justification for preserving nature,” she adds.

Based on extensive and in-depth learning, Topaz established the field of education for biomimicry at the Safari, making it into the only zoo in Europe to be engaged with the science of biomimicry. With the accumulating amount of knowledge and experience gained from training others, Topaz began her doctoral research on zoo-based adult science education in this field.

Activities such as courses, seminars, and workshops are offered in the Safari, just across from the animal courtyards. Through guided observations, creating games to enrich the animals’ environments and unmediated encounters with animals, participants learn about wildlife, apply critical and creative thinking and gain experience in biomimicry-inspired thinking in the zoo.

As one of the participants said: “It’s easier to be inspired by the giraffe’s tongue after it licks you – when you feel the roughness of its tongue – and by an elephant’s trunk after you plan, build and carry out a game meant for it to play using its trunk. We gain from learning from close up. This is experiential, near and exciting learning that also contributes to enriching the animals’ lives.”

The field of education of biomimicry brings a new kind of audienceto the zoo – visitors who usually don’t come to the Safari such as professionals from a variety of fields including medicine and aeronautics – and, of course, teens.

For example, what can wildlife tell is about aeronautics? An engineer came looking for ways to minimize the weight of the wings of an aircraft. Biomedical engineers come, seeking to learn about the structure of honeycombs in beehives. Turtle shell armor can be an inspiration to develop better stents for heart patients.

Based on extensive and in-depth learning, Topaz established the field of education for biomimicry at the Safari and turned it into the only zoo in Europe that deals with biomimicry. With the accumulated knowledge, and the additional experience she gained in the training, Topaz began her doctoral research on adult science education in zoos in this field.

“We present a variety of technologies in various fields, such as surgical sutures by the quills of porcupines (for medical uses); the structure of a shopping mall that uses air conditioning based on the piles of earth of termites (architecture); and, of course, the robotic snake developed in the Technion lab of mechanical engineering led by Prof. Alon Wolf for medical use and search and rescue missions. We present these biomimicry developments in the context of science in everyday life. For example, a stick to help a blind person that is inspired by the sonar of bats, or an antibacterial insect repellant inspired by hippo sweat. Even Velcro, which we all use to attach and detach things easily, is based on biomimicry from the thorns of plants.”

Topaz notes that biomimicry is also used “to bring man closer to nature and especially to living creatures.”

In her research, Topaz examines the results of biomimicry activities in the zoo. “What each participant will take from the biomimicry course depends on his background and interests. A physician, an architect, an entrepreneur and a physiotherapist – each will take away something else. Some with focus on scientific or technological issues; others will learn from the environmental aspects behind the developments; while others would be interested in social issues connected to both topics.”

There is much importance in the personal history of the participants, their curiosity and interests and the know-how they bring with them. Like other extracurricular studies in Prof. Tal’s group, the research examines different aspects of learning among adults in unique educational conditions, which adds to a better understanding of the characteristics of science learning in an informal environment. This subject that has been studied very little around the world. In addition, biomimicry education programs – especially in the informal environment of the zoo – offer an innovative approach to environmental education.

Doctoral student Limor Arbel-Ganon of the Technion has won the first place in the poster competition at the Israeli Society of Physiology and Pharmacology (ISPP). The conference was held in Jerusalem on February 14, 2019.

Limor Arbel-Ganon

Limor’s research is focused on how mechanical overload can modulate sinoatrial node function. The sinoatrial node is the heart’s primary heart pacemaker, and it controls heart rate and rhythm. Sinoatrial node failure is associated with increased mortality in heart failure patients and in patients suffering from other cardiovascular diseases, where rhythm disturbance is associated with over 40% of sudden deaths. To date, the mechanisms that lead to sinoatrial node failure remain unclear. Increased venous return, which for example has been documented in heart failure patients, affects right atrial filling, distending the atrial wall where the sinoatrial node is located. Thus, it is possible that stretch is involved in sinoatrial node dysfunction in heart failure. In line with this hypothesis, a preoperative analysis of right atrial pressure and sinoatrial node function in children scheduled to undergo a Fontan operation showed that sinoatrial node dysfunction was absent in patients presenting normal right atrial pressure, but present in those with elevated right atrial pressure.

Limor has developed a system to stretch mouse sinoatrial node tissue and measure in parallel the beating rate using advanced imaging techniques. The system was tested on tissue dissected from control mice at different stretch levels. She found that stretching the SAN tissue from healthy mice led to an increase in the beating rate and a decrease in its variability around the mean. To understand the internal mechanisms that connect between the mechanical load and pacemaker function, we simulated the effect of stretch on sinoatrial tissue from a heart disease patient. The research showed that changes in calcium and phosphate signaling are responsible for the rhythm disturbance in unhealthy sinoatrial node tissue and for the increase in beating rate in healthy sinoatrial node tissue.

How Three Technion Researchers Could Help Save the World’s Water Supplies

Three researchers who have developed novel techniques for clearing particulate contaminants from water recently presented their work at the 15th International Conference on Small Water and Wastewater Systems (SWWS) and the 7th International Conference on Resource Oriented Sanitation (ROS). The two conferences were co-located at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. The researchers are all faculty members in the Technion Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Dr. Michal-Green

Prof. Michal Green, a world-renowned water treatment expert, reviewed several innovative methods developed in her laboratory to remove nitrates from water. According to her, “high concentrations of nitrates are the main reason for the closure of wells in the coastal aquifer of Israel with a potential for rehabilitation of tens of millions of cubic meters per year.” The various technologies developed in her laboratory, under the management of Dr. Sheldon Tarre, are designed to provide solutions to problems related to the removal of nitrates. These include the removal from brines, which are a by-product of membrane processes, by biological denitrification; removal by ion exchange and bio-regeneration; combination of nanofiltration and reverse osmosis to remove nitrates without brine production; and finally, a closed denitrification radiator with hydrogen as the electrons’ donor, a reactor characterized by high efficiency and very high efficiency of hydrogen.

Prof. Yael Dubowski examined an innovative method for removing organic micropollutants from water: irradiation of the polluted water by ultraviolet (UV) light at extremely short wavelengths. Prof. Dubowski’s research is currently focused on Triclosan, an anti-bacterial substance used in products such as soap and toothpaste. Its presence in treated wastewater effluent and in freshwater is undesirable. According to Dubowski, “The common solutions for treating micropollutants such as triclosan in water are based, inter alia, on the addition of chemicals, which complicates the operation of the system, while we offer a treatment comprising of ultraviolet irradiation only.” Prof. Dubowski and her colleagues are investigating the optimum UV wavelengths for decomposition of triclosan and other organic micropollutants, when irradiating the water with UV light at these wavelengths create a significant chain reaction that decomposes the micropollutants and disinfects the water. The study was funded by the Volkswagen Foundation and the Lower Saxony State of Germany. Since the system is relatively simple and inexpensive and does not require the purchase of various chemicals, it is an excellent solution for local (decentralized) treatment units.

Dr. Adi Radian

Dr. Adi Radian, who deals with environmental chemistry with an emphasis on the development of soil and contaminated water treatment methods, introduced new technology to remove pesticides from water by combining adsorption and biodegradation. Pesticides are usually present in polluted water at very low concentrations. So low, in fact, that the usual methods of removing them from water are ineffective. The innovative method developed by Dr. Radian is based on encapsulation of bacteria in a gel made of silicon particles. Micropollutants (pesticides, for instance) are adsorbed to the gel that envelops the bacteria and then degraded by the encapsulated bacteria.

This was the first time that these two conferences, which are part of a series of annual conferences on small water and wastewater treatment systems under the auspices of the International Water Association (IWA) and the Israeli Water Association, were held in Israel. They were organized by Prof. Eran Friedler of the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and Prof. Amit Gross of the Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research at Ben Gurion University. Some 200 scientists, practitioners and government officials participated, about one-third from Israel and two-thirds from abroad.

https://www.swws2018.org.il/

https://swws2018.net.technion.ac.il/

https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/bd25dc_4f0747ed7f904178afcfe199cb009f09.pdf

Technion and Galilee Medical Center Successfully Test Student-developed Information System

(l-r) Tal Alon and Yarden Shapira

Students from Technion’s LAPIDIM Excellence Program at the Faculty of Computer Science – Tal Alon and Yarden Shapira – recently developed an innovative information system designed to help the management team of the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya make educated and informed decisions in times of emergency. The system was recently implemented in a successful “war drill” in cooperation with the emergency department at the Health Ministry, the IDF Home Front Command, Israel Police, Magen David Adom, fire rescue services and the Nahariya Municipality. The students created a system that includes a user-friendly interface and that presents the management of the Medical Center with a wide range of vital data in real time: the number of people in a ward, anticipated hospitalizations, anticipated patient discharges, availability of operating rooms and blood units.

Students Tal Alon and Yarden Shapira conducted the project under the supervision of Prof. Benny Kimelfeld, the academic supervisor of the LAPIDIM Excellence Program and in collaboration with the Information Systems Department and the management team of the Galilee Medical Center. “The project was initiated as a result of my meeting with Dr. Ziv Paz, Director of the Rheumatology Unit and Assistant Director for Technology and Innovation at the Galilee Medical Center,” says Prof. Kimelfeld. “He believed that the cooperation between us might be useful in the context of databases and analysis of information. At the same time, students from Technion’s LAPIDIM Program asked whether I knew of any projects in ‘the real world’ wherein they could express their technological, entrepreneurial and managerial skills, and make an immediate impact.”

(l-r) Prof. Benny Kimelfeld, Tal Alon and Yarden Shapira

Thus, the connection between the Faculty of Computer Science and the Medical Center began. After several ideas for joint projects were presented, the Center’s administration raised the subject of drill preparedness: the practice of war scenarios and complex multi-casualty events. The Medical Center noted that the problem with such events is that the varied information such as – the locations of the teams, injury levels, and the burden on the wards is not readily available to the management in real-time and that in order to obtain this information they need to contact IT professionals.

Alon and Shapira together with Shelly Shalem, Tomer Biton and Mark Lifshitz of the Medical Center’s information systems department began mapping the information sources. They found 150 different systems, and understood that an integrated system that would distill the relevant information in a friendly and simple manner to the management was required. The students developed the model for the project using a Full Stack approach – a holistic method that handles all aspects from the server and the database to the user interface.

“We provide our students with a variety of technological as well as soft skills; such as teamwork and interpersonal communication, but Tal and Yarden were also required to deal with executive aspects. Each of their recommendations had to pass through a number of managers who would approve, correct or revoke their suggestions. They worked at a very fast pace compared with the norm in large organizations such as hospitals. When they were asked to find a solution to a problem, they would do so rapidly surprising the staff with their quick response time.”

According to Prof. Kimelfeld, “As computer scientists, such collaborations are an excellent opportunity to develop innovative technologies. What we usually lack is the vast database available in public and industrial organizations, and here we were privy to this resource in the process of close collaboration that allowed access to servers and information without compromising patient privacy. We have also had meetings regarding other such projects, and there is potential to work with other bodies that need information processing support. In such collaborations, in addition to students, we can also include faculty members who are interested in working on large databases in their research.”

In recent years, the Galilee Medical Center, headed by Dr. Masad Barhoum, a graduate of the Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, has been working to implement technological initiatives. Dr. Barhoum, general director of the Medical Center said, “I would like to thank the Technion and Prof. Kimelfeld for the cooperation that enabled us to integrate the system developed by the students into a large and extensive exercise that we held recently. There is no doubt that the main challenge today is the incorporation and integration of information flowing from many different systems. The ability to integrate information and create a real-time picture of the situation is essential for proper management in an emergency. I am pleased with the cooperation and believe that we are expected to have additional projects in which we will be able to combine forces in designing a leading information system for both routine and emergency use.”

The LAPIDIM Excellence Program of Technion’s Faculty of Computer Science was established over a decade ago with the aim of identifying and training future leaders in the hi-tech industry. The students in the program complete a full course of study in one of the Computer Science tracks, as well as courses in entrepreneurship and management at the William Davidson Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management. The students, who have access to an exclusive study area in the faculty, receive full exemption from university tuition, a monthly stipend, a computer, and personal support and mentoring from a faculty member.

An exemplary process of Technion technology transfer from lab to the marketplace is revealed in an early stage Startup, Nanosynex which offers a rapid and efficient diagnosis of antimicrobial resistance.

Your daughter is in pain with a urinary infection. To be safe while awaiting lab results, the doctor prescribes a large dose of a broad-spectrum antibiotic. This fails to work and the infection spreads: a superbug is colonizing the bloodstream. In finding the most effective antibiotic to counter infection, speed can save lives and it is the possibility of rapid diagnosis which Nanosynex is offering through its game-changing system.

Loading and scanning a nanoliter array device used to develop a rapid medical diagnostic for antibiotic resistance. Credit: Jonathan Avesar, Levenberg lab

Each year in the United States, at least two million people become infected with bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics and around 23,000 people die as a result, according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC). A report supported by the UK government and the Wellcome Trust predicts that Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) could cost US$100 trillion between now and 2050, with the annual death toll reaching 10 million over that period. Established estimates reveal that for every hour that effective antibiotic treatment is delayed, survival rates drop by around 7.6% for patients with septic shock. Technologies that predict the resistance of a specific bacteria within the shortest possible time can save lives.

One such technology will be commercialized into an innovative system developed by Nanosynex. The test offers same-day results to help doctors determine the most appropriate antibiotic treatment for their patients. It uses a phenotypic approach involving microfluidic techniques and fluorescent-based analysis. The product will be marketed to laboratories in the form of disposable cards and a fluorescent reader

Nanosynex co-founders, Diane Abensur (CEO) & Michelle Heymann (VP Marketing)

Nanosynex technology is based on research from the laboratory of Prof. Shulamit Levenberg, Dean of the Technion Faculty of Biomedical Engineering. Prof. Levenberg and her team developed a diagnostic chip with hundreds of nanoliter wells containing a specific bacteria-antibiotic combination. The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Nanosynex co-founders, Diane Abensur (CEO) & Michelle Heymann (VP Marketing)

The highway to commercialization opened when two students from the Technion Startup MBA program chose technology from the laboratory of Prof. Levenberg as a case study as part of the entrepreneurship course. Initially funded by the Israel innovation Authority (IIA) Kamin grant, the entrepreneurs presented the business case at T³ (Technion Technology Transfer). They showed commitment from their first investor and strategic partner – the major shareholder of Biosynex – a French company in the rapid diagnostic industry with a distribution network in +60 countries. Nanosynex emerged as a Startup in 2017, with funding to further develop the concept. They began winning prizes, entered the Technion DRIVE Accelerator and signed a definitive license agreement with the Technion Research and Development Foundation (TRDF).

Nanosynex Co-founders Michelle Heymann and Diane Abensur were attracted to Technion because of its reputation for innovation and technology transfer. “Both passionate about Life Sciences, we were looking for an opportunity in this field and were determined to create a Startup that will respond to a huge need, make the world a healthier place, all that with a reasonable time to market so we could see through commercialization,” says Heymann. “We searched for technologies in the T³ Book of Big Ideas and started a deep scouting and analysis process of the top potential Technion discoveries with our strategic partner Biosynex. That’s how we understood that Prof. Levenberg’s research could bring us exactly what we were looking for.”

“Most of the tech-transfer process is a business deal that requires sharp negotiation skills and goodwill from all parties”, says Heymann. “We created Nanosynex based on a Technion technology, hired Technion alumni as employees and strive to make Nanosynex an important part of the Technion high-quality ecosystem at every opportunity. Nanosynex just closed its seed round of investment and is now fully dedicated to its prototyping.”

High School Students Are Inspired by Technion’s ‘Tech Women’ Event

At Tech Women, outstanding female high school students were encouraged to pursue academic studies in science and engineering.

High-school students at Tech Women 2019

Over 800 outstanding female high school students from all over Israel attended the 4th annual Tech Women 2018 event in November, hosted by Technion to encourage women to study science and engineering. The event was made possible through the generosity of the Rosalyn August Girls Empowerment Mission (GEM) Initiative.

Rosalyn August, who came to Technion for the event with her granddaughter Lauren, told the crowd about her own personal experience as a young woman in the U.S. in the 1960s. At the time, she was discouraged from joining the family business and, eventually, she became an advocate for women breaking the glass ceiling. She also explained why she supports Technion.

“It is clear to me that technology is our future and it is our duty to help integrate women into this field. Trust yourselves, find what you love and love what you do,” Mrs. August asserted, adding that she felt an instant bond with Technion’s quiet, underplayed vibe as soon as she arrived on campus for the first time a decade ago. All of the students who were invited to participate in the event study mathematics and other science and technology related subjects at the highest level. At Technion, they met with female researchers, faculty members and graduate students, as well as visiting laboratories and hearing about the various fields of study.

In her opening remarks, Prof. Marcelle Machluf, Dean of the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, said: “I have always had to prove myself, and being the only woman in the room drives me even further.” When Technion first opened in 1924, female students comprised only 6% of the student population. Gradually, and especially during the past decade, the number of female students at Technion has grown considerably, and today they account for 40% of the student body.