Yearly Archives: 2019

Out of Technion Israel – the latest news and updates. This issue zooms in on giant leaps to bring innovative cures and insights to some of the most fearful diseases. Enjoy and subscribe to receive Technion LIVE direct to your inbox!

A decade for the Technion International Center

42 students from 6 countries completed their studies at the Technion International Center; more than half are continuing to a master’s degree on the Haifa campus

The graduation ceremony for the bachelor’s degree graduates of the International Center took place this month at the Technion. 22 of the graduates will continue to pursue a master’s degree at the Technion. The ceremony was held amid the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Center, which is currently headed by Roknit Lis HaCohen. The Technion International Center opened in August 2009 with 22 students and has since become a global knowledge hub that attracts students from all over the world. To date, 2,953 students were enrolled from 73 countries. 7 couples married after meeting there.

Graduates of the Technion International Center at the ceremony (Credit: Yifat Yogev, Technion Spokesperson’s Office)

The Senior Executive Vice President of the Technion Prof. Adam Shwartz said that obtaining degrees is a great achievement not only for students but also for the families who supported them. He told the students, “You have worked very hard here, but you have gained extensive and solid knowledge that has prepared you for the road ahead in academia and in industry. We live in a very competitive world where diverse skills are required, one of which is working in a multinational, multicultural and multilingual team, and also this you acquired here. I estimate that in just a few years you will realize how important the tools are that you received at the Technion.”

At the ceremony, bachelor’s degrees were awarded to 42 students – 17 graduates of the first cycle in chemical engineering and 25 graduates from the seventh cycle in civil engineering. Most of the students (34) are Chinese, with the rest coming from Ethiopia, Mauritius, Italy, Slovakia and Turkey.

The diplomas in civil and environmental engineering (and a helmet for all graduates) were awarded by Profs. Rafael Sacks and Eran Friedler, and the diplomas in chemical engineering were awarded by the Dean of Faculty, Prof. Gideon Grader and Prof. Moshe Sheintuch.

“A decade ago, I established the International Center with Prof. Amnon Katz, the late Prof. Noah Galil and Ariel Geva,” said the founder of the International Center at the Technion Prof. Arnon Bentur. “We established that Center to share with the world the experience of Israel as a young state based on science and technology and to expose Israeli students to the wider world. It is very exciting to see here tonight, you and your families, and I hope you stay in touch with the Technion whether you stay here or live abroad.”

On behalf of the recipients of degrees in civil and environmental engineering, Dan Tercini spoke. Tercini, a 24-year-old Milan native, said he was not admitted to the Technion on the first try but insisted and succeeded the second time. “If there is something you can’t get through one day without thinking about – don’t give up on it. I didn’t give up and I tell you too: Believe in yourself, fight for what you want – and succeed.”

On behalf of the recipients of degrees in chemical engineering, Guyan Chen from China, talked about the difficult moments and the ability to overcome challenges together with classmates. She said that engineers had great moral responsibility and that they should take this into account.

The ceremony was hosted by Center Advisor Carrie Golan, who noted that 55 students from the new cycle of the International Center had arrived to begin their studies.

Ultrasound-Responsive Nanoparticles Developed to Fight Pediatric Cancers

A new technology that uses ultrasound-responsive nanoparticles to kill a tumor by focused ultrasound has been developed by researchers in the Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The nanoparticles, which have been found to be especially effective in cells characteristic of pediatric cancers, are designed so that they enable the encapsulation and targeting of anti-cancer drugs in combined treatments. 

Prof. Alejandro Sosnik

The researchers, Professor Alejandro Sosnik and master’s degree student Vladi Kushnirov-Melnitzer, verified the micro-structure of the platform in Themis – the advanced electron microscope (transmission electron microscope or TEM) installed at the MIKA Center of Technion.

The transport of drugs in the body is a medical challenge that has accelerated in recent years as a result of the integration of nanotechnology in this field. The basic idea is to encapsulate the intended drug within nanoscale particles that carry it to the damaged tissue, where it is discharged without a decline in critical concentration or damage to healthy tissues. 

To realize this concept, the scientific community has to deal with a series of complicated challenges that include the synthesis of new nanometer particles that will both suit the drug and be of very controlled size, so that it fits the target body tissue. According to Prof. Sosnik, “these particles must exhibit some vital capabilities, including chemical resistance, stability in a biological environment, and biocompatibility – that is, the substance’s depletion after it is broken down in the body. In addition, each drug requires that the particles have other properties that are a big different, so it is necessary to have flexibility in the production of the particles.” 

The uniqueness of the new nanometric particles developed in Prof. Sosnik’s lab lies in the integration of ceramic and polymer elements.

“In fact, these nanometric particles of titanium dioxide [TiO2] mixed with a polymer exhibit a combination of properties such as high physical stability and encapsulation of hydrophobic [water-repelling] drugs,” said Prof. Sosnik. “In addition, we have achieved precise control over the size of these particles in a very wide range of dimensions – from 26 to 230 nanometers – which are relevant to the accumulation of a wide variety of tissues and organs in the body such as a tumor.”

The researchers discovered that these particles are sensitive to ultrasound – a fact that gives them great significance in destroying cancer cells. For instance, a brief excitation of the particles by using therapeutic ultrasound causes the formation of molecules with very high oxidation abilities (reactive oxygen species) that kill all nearby cells. The study demonstrated the particles’ efficacy in the treatment of cancer cells characteristic of cancers in children.

The researchers’ clinical goal is the use of this innovative technology for the treatment of a wide variety of malignant tumors through initial targeting of particles to the cancer and the localized irradiation of the tumor with ultrasound. In this way, one can minimize the side effects of regular chemotherapy and localize the elimination of the tumor without damaging healthy cells. 

The researchers also showed that the nanoscale particles can capture inside the hydrophobic drug nitazoxanide, which is used in the treatment of parasites and viral infections, mostly in children. 

“This is the first time that titanium oxide nanoparticles have been used successfully to capture drugs at the synthesis stage,” said Sosnik. “We have already protected this invention in the US with a patent application for this technology, and we hope that the success of our experiments will lead to preclinical trials that will validate its therapeutic efficacy.”

The research was supported by the European Commission (FP7) and the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute at the Technion (RBNI). The researchers thank Dr. Yaron Kaufman, head of the Technion’s Electron Microscopy Center, for his assistance in characterizing the particles in the Themis microscope. 

Technion Study Reveals New Mechanism that Supervises Identity of Mature Cells

Loss of identity is characteristic of old age, and likely perturbation to newly discovered mechanism is involved in neurodegenerative and other aging-related diseases including diabetes and cancer

Researchers in the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology discovered a new mechanism that supervises the identity of mature cells. Maintaining cellular identity is essential for the physiological functioning of the cell, the tissue, and the survival of the living creature. The research, published recently in eLife magazine,  was conducted by Professor Amir Orian, Dr. Naama Flint Brodsly, Dr. Olga Boico, Adi Shafat, and Eliya Bitman-Lotan.

The study focused on enterocytes, the primary mature (differentiated) cells in the inner wall of the small intestine in the fermentation fly model (Drosophila). The rapid aging of the Drosophila flies – they are “old” at 2-3 weeks – allows researchers to trace aging-related processes relatively quickly. Moreover, the cellular structure of the fly’s gut is relatively simple, highly similar to the human gut, and therefore advantageous to study.

One hallmark of multicellular organisms is the differentiation of stem cells to give rise to differentiated cells of the body – skin cells, bone cells, intestinal cells, etc.. As a result, the stem cells are a sort of “factory” for producing assorted cells. How stems cells differentiate is an issue of study for many research groups around the world. The Technion research group, on the other hand, examined what happens after differentiation. They focused on how mature cells safeguard their identity, for example, how enterocytes retain their identity as enterocytes.

Professor Amir Orian

“It turns out that the preservation of cellular identity is not a default option,” said Prof. Orian. “The fact that a gut cell does not at times become a skin cell, for example, is not self-evident. Safeguarding the differentiated/mature state requires constant effort by active molecular mechanisms. It’s a little like in a human relationship; it is not enough to start.  You also need to work to keep the relationship functioning.”

The researchers explain that without strict control over the preservation of cellular identity, the gene system required for the designated cell type will cease to manifest itself, and irrelevant programs will manifest out of place (e.g. genes of the heart will manifest in intestinal cells). These disruptions will impair the tissue’s ability to perform its physiological tasks. Moreover, loss of cell identity is accompanied by processes such as pathological de-differentiation, which makes differentiated cell turn into new cell types and may lead to conditions such as cancer and progeria-like diseases, which are characterized by accelerated aging and caused by mutations in the nuclear Lamin protein. As such, the discovery of the mechanism that maintains the cellular identity of mature cells is of great interest.

The Orian Lab discovered that two of the main factors in preserving cellular identity are the transcription factor Hey and the proteins at the vicinity of the cell nucleus envelope termed Nuclear Lamins.

Transcription factors are the main players in the genetic control mechanism. Their effect is focused on the translation of genetic information from DNA to mRNA, the molecule that contains the information needed to build the proteins in the cell. Their proper functioning is essential for the proper creation of proteins as well as for the proper functioning of the organism as a whole. The researchers found that the transcription factor Hey promotes the expression of the unique differentiated Lamin gene in the differentiated enterocyte. At the same time, Hey inhibits the expression of the stem cell-related Lamin gene. In the differentiated cell, Hey together with the mature Lamin shapes the structure of the nucleus generating a unique organization to the mature enterocyte cell nucleus. This design is required for the continuous control of the differentiated cell identity; in aging cells, the level of Hey decreases, leading to loss the unique structure of the nucleus, and thereby loss of cell identity and physiological impartment of the gut tissue.

Based on this understanding, the researchers demonstrated that genetic manipulation leading to the acute deficiency of Hey or Lamin in enterocytes leads to premature aging of the intestinal tissue and premature death of young files, similar to the physiological process that occurs in old age. In contrast, strengthening the expression of the Hey gene in enterocytes prevented the appearance of defects related to the aging of gut cells, thereby improving the functioning of the gut tissue and slowing its aging.  

This discovery is a breakthrough since it identifies key supervisors and new mechanisms that safeguard the identity of mature cells. The translation of these findings into the cancer arena and the aging processes has the potential to be the basis for improving treatments for age-related diseases. Future pharmacological inhibition of key supervisors will also enable a significant improvement in stem cell rep-programing and engineering required for the repair of various medical disruptions.

Associate Professor Amir Orian, graduated from the MD/Ph.D. program at the Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine. He heads the Ruth and Stan Flinkman Genetic Networks Laboratory in the Technion Faculty of Medicine and is a member of the Technion Integrated Cancer Center (TICC).

The research was supported by a grant from the Israel Science Foundation (739/15), the Rappaport Research Institute for Medical Research, and the Ruth Marandy-Flinkman Cancer Research Fund.

Source

A multinational research team from the Technion and National Taiwan University have developed hollow nanometric balls that are expected to be used for drug delivery and safe immunizations. 

Professor Ehud Keinan

Based on the chemical behavior of natural viruses, researchers from the Technion and  National Taiwan University have developed hollow nanometric balls that are expected to be used for drug delivery and safe immunizations. The study, a collaboration between Professor Ehud Keinan and Dr. Ephrath Solel from the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion and their colleagues in Taiwan under the direction of Prof. Yi-Tsu Chan, was published in Nature Communications.

Spherical objects are found frequently in nature, in both the inanimate and living worlds. They are usually created through the assembly of 12 pentagon-shaped tiles. Examples of this phenomenon include the buckyball (carbon 60 molecule), spherical viruses, and artificial structures, such as soccer balls and geodesic domes. 

Spherical viruses in nature implement this symmetry in order to build their shells with an external diameter ranging from 15 to 500 nanometers. According to Prof. Keinan, “these shells assemble spontaneously from their components under the proper conditions, and disassemble under other conditions, thus enabling the viral life cycle. The icosahedral virus capsids teach us important lessons, including the economy of surface area-to-volume ratio and the genetic efficiency of subunit-based symmetric assembly. The shells of viruses teach us a valuable lesson about how to build artificial spherical objects.”

Dr. Ephrath Solel

Chemical imitation of spherical objects has many potential implementations that include packaging and delivering drugs and other sensitive substances, synthesis of uniformly sized nanometric particles, control over the chemical activities of various substances, chemical analysis, catalysis, molecular architecture, and safe immunization based on synthetic antigens that imitate the natural viruses. 

In 2007, some of the research team members proposed a general strategy for building spherical shells using chemical synthesis. The idea was to manufacture pentagon-shaped tiles in the laboratory that could assemble into a ball according to various chemical mechanisms, similar to the process by which a soccer ball is assembled (see illustration). While the principle seems simple, implementing it experimentally entailed many difficulties and the experiments continued unsuccessfully for 12 years, in other research groups as well.

Ultimately, the Technion and Taiwan researchers succeeded in implementing this strategy. They produced pentagon-shaped molecular tiles in the laboratory that resembled shallow bowls. The spontaneous assembly of 12 pentagon-shaped tiles and 30 cadmium ions created a spherical cage with an external diameter of 6 nanometers and shell thickness of 1 nanometer. 

Now the researchers are planning to produce spheres with different chemical compositions to meet different needs, such as for immunization purposes, controlled release of medications, molecular architecture, and exploiting solar energy. 

For the complete article in Nature Communications, click here.

Illustration: Three possible strategies for constructing spherical objects from pentagon-shaped tiles. Left to right: a) tiles directly adhering to each other; b) tiles connected using digonal connectors; c) tiles connected using trigonal connectors.

The lightest car in the history of the “Formula Student” competitions in Europe returns home from the Czech Republic to the Technion, with a trophy for first place in the final Skidpad round.

The Technion team celebrates winning first place

The Technion’s current racecar is the lightest vehicle in the history of Formula Student competitions – weighing only 132 kilos after shedding more than 120 kilos in just three years. The victory in the Skidpad is the first trophy won by an Israeli team in the dynamic round of these competitions.

This year, the team participated in three competitions in the World Round of Formula Students in Europe. Some 600 universities from around the world participated in the competitions, which were held in Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic. The Formula Project has been held at the Technion since 2013, and this is the seventh consecutive year that the Technion team has participated in the competition. At the same time, construction of the autonomous Formula car, which is expected to join the races in the summer of 2020, is underway.

The “Formula Technion” project currently involves 35 students from three faculties: Mechanical Engineering; Aerospace Engineering and Industrial Engineering and Management. The team is headed by student Tal Lifshitz of the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering. 

Minister of Science and Technology Ofir Akunis congratulated the delegation on winning: “This is another huge achievement for Israeli innovation. We continue to triumph in all international science and technology competitions and get proof of our success and of the government decision I initiated to fund Israeli delegations to international competitions.”

Formula Technion cars are designed and constructed by students as part of the “New Product Design” course held at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering under the guidance of Prof. Reuven Katz. The project is supported by many entities, most notably the Nancy and Stephen Grand Technion Energy Program. The delegation also received funding from the Ministry of Science and Technology for the students to travel abroad. 

Technion Formula in the fast lane

The Interior

The Skidpad

The Technion profoundly mourns the untimely death of its student Aya Naamneh from the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering and stands together with the family during this difficult and painful time.

Aya participated in a Technion academic program, that took place in the city of Mekelle in Ethiopia together with students from Technion, York University in Canada and Mekelle University. The four-week program ended this past Wednesday (14.8). After completion of the program, six students, including Aya, stayed in Ethiopia for a private trip during which Aya separated from the group.

The Technion is in direct contact with the family and is helping them in every way that is needed.

איה נעאמנה ז”ל

Technion-developed Application Will Help Visually Impaired Cross Street

The app was developed by two students from the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering

Roni Ash and Dolev Ofri, students from the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology, have developed an innovative application expected to significantly assist the visually impaired and the blind. The app was presented at the 2018 ICSEE International Conference in Eilat, Israel, and won the Thomas Schwartz Outstanding Project Award.

Pictured from right to left: Yair Moshe, Dolev Ofri, Ayelet Cohen and Roni Ash

The app allows visually impaired pedestrians to safely cross the street at a traffic light. It recognizes the pedestrian traffic light and notifies the user of its color. The user is only required to point the phone camera in the desired general direction – it does not need to be accurate – and the app notifies him or her if it is possible to cross. The need for the development of such assistive technology is particularly great when it comes to a crosswalk where there is no audio indication for the blind.

The app’s high credibility is based on deep learning, training an artificial neural network that learns to identify the traffic light color based on a large set of traffic light examples. The dataset used for training the system was built by the students who developed the app as an undergraduate final project in the Signal and Image Processing Laboratory (SIPL) of the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering, headed by Professor David Malah and Laboratory Engineer Nimrod Peleg. They performed the project under the guidance of Laboratory Engineer Yair Moshe and also received help from student Ayelet Cohen. The project is a collaboration of the lab with the social hub at the Technion.

To increase awareness of using the app and demonstrate its use, its creators are shooting these days a short humorous video. The video will be directed by filmmaker Elad Kidan, an Ophir Award winner, who heard about the app and volunteered for the task.

Researchers from the Technion and Tel Aviv University succeeded in gaining control of one of the world’s most secure industrial programmable logic controller (PLC)

As part of the attack, the researchers managed to turn the controller on and off, download rogue command logic, and change the operating and source codes. Moreover, they succeeded in creating a situation in which the engineer operating the controller did not recognize their “hostile intervention.”

The attack on the Siemens Simatic S7 controller will be presented TODAY at the prestigious Black Hat Hacking Conference.

The Siemens Simatic S7 controller

Researchers from the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology and Tel Aviv University, in collaboration with Israel National Cyber Directorate have managed to take control of a Siemens PLC, which is considered to be one of the safest controllers in the world. They will present the attack at the prestigious Black Hat Conference in Las Vegas on August 8. 

A version of the paper was sent in advance to Siemens so that it could fix the vulnerabilities found.

The attack was led by Professor Eli Biham, the head of the Hiroshi Fujiwara Cyber Security Research Center at the Technion and Dr. Sara Bitan, from the Technion’s Faculty of Computer Science, and Professor Avishai Wool of the School of Electrical Engineering at Tel Aviv University, together with the students Aviad Carmel, Alon Dankner and Uriel Malin.

As part of the attack, the researchers analyzed and identified the code elements of the Siemens proprietary cryptographic protocol, and on the basis of their analysis, created a fake engineering station, an alternative to Siemens’ official station. The fake engineering station was able to command the controller according to the will of the attackers. They were able to turn the controller on and off, download rogue command logic according to their wishes, and change the operation and source codes. They also succeeded in creating a situation in which the engineer operating the controller did not recognize their “hostile intervention.”

Professor Eli Biham from the Technion’s Faculty of Computer Science

The research leading to the attack focused on Siemens S7 Simatic systems, a series of programmable logic controllers. PLCs are currently used in a wide spectrum of operations that include critical infrastructures such as power stations, water pumps, building controls, production lines, lighting systems, vehicles, aircraft, automatic irrigation, and smart homes. Their main goal is automatic process control that optimally responds to environmental conditions and changes. The controllers receive instructions from a computer and operate the relevant terminal equipment for the operator: sensors, motors, traffic lights, and more. 

The new generations of the Simatic S7 family are considered safer and more protected than their predecessors, mainly due to improvements in the quality of encryption. Therefore, attacks on them constitute a complex challenge that requires extensive knowledge in various fields.

Since Siemens does not publish the protocol of operation of the controllers, the researchers recreated the protocol through reverse-engineering. According to Prof. Wool, this part of “detective work” took many months.

After the protocol was reconstructed, the researchers went on to map the security and encryption systems of the controller and detect weaknesses in these systems. Indeed, they were able to determine common keys with the controller and through them impersonate a legitimate engineering station from the point of view of the controller.

Professor Avishai Wool of the School of Electrical Engineering at Tel Aviv University

All this allowed them to load the controller malware despite the cryptographic security inherent in the systems. According to Prof. Biham, “this was a complex challenge because of the improvements that Siemens introduced in newer versions of Simatic controllers. Our success is linked to our vast experience in the study of controllers and their security and in combination with our in-depth knowledge in several areas – systems understanding, reverse engineering capabilities, communications protocol analysis, and cryptographic analysis.”

Dr. Bitan noted that the attack underscores the need for investment by both manufacturers and customers in securing industrial control systems. According to her, the attack shows that securing industrial control systems is a more difficult and challenging task than securing information systems.

Mr. Malin and Dr. Bitan will present the research at the prestigious Black Hat Hacking Conference in Las Vegas from 11:00–11:50 a.m. on Thursday, August 8.