Technion scientists mobilized in the worldwide effort to find solutions for the current global health crisis

Researchers in more than 30 Technion labs are working round the clock to help fight the spread of COVID-19. Their research includes early detection and diagnosis of the virus, development of a vaccine and therapies, and designing robotic solutions for remote monitoring and care of patients.

“Technion is at the forefront of science and technology worldwide, and during this time of crisis, we are collaborating closely with the health system and the hospitals in order to find immediate solutions to the challenges they are facing,” said Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan. “We are working on advanced diagnostic techniques, personalized medical treatment, technologies that enable pinpointed drug delivery, treatment protocols based on machine learning and artificial intelligence, data mining and Big Data management, developing robots for remote medical care, and more. Technion’s added value is apparent in the close interaction between medicine and engineering at our university, and in the interdisciplinary collaborations that are generating rapid and sophisticated solutions to help fight COVID-19.”

Technion emergency projects include:

Diagnostics

• Prof. Hossam Haick, Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering: His lab is developing a diagnostic test for pre-symptomatic coronavirus carriers. Research focuses on two approaches: diagnosing the virus with a breath test, and monitoring the virus with an inexpensive patch adhered to the arm or chest.
• Prof. Roy Kishony, Faculty of Biology: Pooling method for accelerated testing of COVID-19.
• Prof. Amit Meller, Faculty of Biomedical Engineering: Identifying and quantifying viral RNA using nanopores.
• Prof. Moran Bercovici, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering: Innovative and rapid diagnostic test using blood and saliva.
• Prof. Yonatan Savir, Rappaport Faculty of Medicine: Thermal imaging camera that measures vital signs from a distance, for detecting coronavirus patients. In collaboration with the COVID-19 National Emergency Team of the Directorate of Defense Research and Development (DDR&D) at the Ministry of Defense.
• Prof. Yehoshua Zeevi, Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering, and Prof. Rafael Beyar, Rappaport Faculty of Medicine: Systems for long-distance medical care. 
• Prof. Daniel Ramez, Faculty of Biomedical Engineering: A sensor for rapid coronavirus diagnosis using CRISPR technology. 
• Prof.  Yoav Shechtman, Faculty of Biomedical Engineering: Advanced microscopy techniques for detecting coronavirus antibodies in the blood. 
• Prof. Tomer Shlomi, Faculty of Computer Science: Diagnostic testing based on throat cultures and blood and urine samples.
• Prof. Gilad Yossifon, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, and Prof. Yehezkel Kashi, Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering: Rapid and precise diagnostic techniques. 
• Prof. Naama Geva-Zatorsky, Rappaport Faculty of Medicine: Home-testing for coronavirus diagnosis. 

Vaccine development 

• Prof. Avi Schroeder, Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering: Developing a vaccine for coronavirus based on a vaccine for shrimps, he invented at Technion – and is being commercialized by his Technion start-up ViAqua Therapeutics. 
• Prof. Zaid Abassi and Prof. Oded Lewinson, Rappaport Faculty of Medicine: Prof. Lewinson is developing recombinant ACE-2 receptors in collaboration with Prof. Ofer Mandelboim of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The aim is to develop antibodies for ACE-2 receptors on which the coronavirus attaches itself to the host organism’s cells. 

Therapeutics

• Prof. Josué Sznitman, Faculty of Biomedical Engineering: Innovative technology for delivering drugs to the lungs. Especially suitable for treating acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), which is the principal cause of death among coronavirus patients. 
• Prof. Roee Amit, Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering: Developing an ointment to treat coronavirus infections. 
• Prof. Marcelle Machluf, Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering: Trapping the coronavirus using the existing nano-ghost technology developed in her lab.
• Prof. Avi Schroeder, Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering: Developing a targeted drug for treating acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), based on existing drug delivery methods.  
• Prof. Dror Seliktar, Faculty of Biomedical Engineering: Direct drug delivery to the lungs.
• Prof. Beni Cukurel, Faculty of Aerospace Engineering: Respirators using microturbines.

Aids for medical teams

• Prof. Eyal Zussman, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering: Developing filters and coatings using nanometric fibers. 
• Prof. Yotam Bar-On, Rappaport Faculty of Medicine: Virologist specializing in COVID-19 – expert advice to medical teams.
• Prof. Shai Shen-Orr, Rappaport Faculty of Medicine: Identifying infected individuals based on their immune response; monitoring disease progression and complications in infected individuals; triage for the aged population and predict those with a higher risk of complications or death. Additional collaboration to develop rapid cell-based diagnostics for infections. 
• Prof. Shady Farah, Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering: Developing anti-viral disinfectants.
• Prof. Shie Mannor, Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering: Artificial Intelligence research to evaluate the patients’ condition and the progress of the disease, in collaboration with Prof. Uri Shalit, Davidson Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management and Prof. Joachim Behar, Faculty of Biomedical Engineering. 
• Prof. Alex Bronstein, Faculty of Computer Science is developing ultrasound for lung imaging. The researchers are adapting inexpensive ultrasound sensors in order to identify infections in the lungs caused by the coronavirus. Prof. Ron Kimmel, Faculty of Computer Science and Doron Shaked of General Electric are collaborating on this project. 
• Prof. Ezri Tarazi, Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning: Design and produce novel protective equipment for medical personnel using 3D printing; establishing a national network of designers who will plan and produce products for immediate use in the COVID-19 crisis. 
• Prof. Yoav Eichen, Schulich Faculty of Chemistry: 2D and 3D biocidal surfaces. 
• Prof. Yair Ein-Eli, Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering: Active coating for face masks.
• Prof. Debbie Lindell and Prof. Oded Beja, Faculty of Biology: Analysis of antiviral sterilizers. 

In addition, Technion researchers and Rambam Health Care Campus medical staff are working together in high gear on numerous emergency projects. This collaboration is led by Technion VP for External Relations and Resource Development Prof. Alon Wolf, Rambam Director-General Prof. Michael Halberthal and former Rambam Director-General Prof. Rafi Beyar. 

“I am immensely proud to bring Zoom to my alma mater. Innovation runs deep in the Technion, and their graduates bring so many gifts to Israel and the world.”

It’s in the RNA

Technion Prof. Avi Schroeder and his innovative team at ViAqua Therapeutics have an “extremely effective” method that boosts the immune system of animals and protects them against RNA viral diseases.

The team aims to take this system – which is currently applied to aquatic life – to support human health.

The secrets to moving through the COVID-19 pandemic can be found in the core qualities of trust and equity, according to Technion Prof. Daniel Orenstein. This includes transparency and reliability of official information and community action.

Prof. Orenstein’s research explores the complexity of socio-ecological systems and the study of science-policy discourse with a goal of improving environmental policy in the face of rapidly intensifying challenges and ecological change.

Technion professor in the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Attending Physician in Infectious Diseases at the Rambam Health Care Campus Dr. Yael Shachor-Meyouhas shares her insights on the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes the unique Technion advantage in applying telehealth and telemedicine, as well as the research promise within the evidence that young people are much less affected by Corona.

Why do young people respond differently?

On the frontline of treating past, present and future carriers of the Covid-19 in Israel, Prof. Yael Shachor-Meyouhas is an Attending Physician in the Infectious Diseases Unit at Rambam Health Care Campus and the Deputy Director of Ruth Rappaport Children’s Hospital. According to her, young people may hold the key to this, and many other future viruses. 

“We didn’t see any mortality in Italy so far in patients under the age of 29,” she says. “It’s amazing because it’s different from many other viruses. After we perform those clinical studies, we can go back to the laboratories we have at the Technion – and we have many – and we can learn about this virus and many other viruses, and then we can go back to the clinical field and see if we can find a drug or even a vaccine for this virus and many other viruses that can cause severe illness.”

Dr. Shachor-Meyouhas is a graduate of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and completed her internship and residencies in pediatrics (2006) and infectious diseases (2009) at Rambam Health Care Campus. 

“Here at Rambam, we treat those patients in isolation using new technology – telehealth and telemedicine – and I think the Technion is a great platform for using those technologies and to help us develop those technologies to help us contain the Coronavirus outbreak,” says Dr. Shachor-Meyouhas.

Her main research interests are Infectious diseases among immunocompromised patients, fungal infections, viral infections, and hospital-acquired infections. She is a member of the European Society of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and a member of the organizing committee for the Israeli Pediatric Infectious Disease Society. She has authored more than 30 publications and a chapter about pediatric legionellosis in Decision Support Medicine.

Engineering of Life: International Conference on Biomedical Engineering

The International Biomedical Engineering Conference was held at the end of February at the Haifa Congress Center, led by the Israel Society for Medical and Biological Engineering (ISMBE) and sponsored by the IEEE – the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

From right to left: Prof. Daphne Weihs, Prof. Moshe Shoham, Prof. David Elad, and Prof. Tamir Tuller
Credit: Amir Chen

The event opened with the greetings of Conference Chair, Prof. Tamir Tuller of Tel Aviv University and Prof. Daphne Weihs, the new President of the ISMBE. The Deputy Mayor of Haifa Adv. David Etzioni and Dr. Galit Rand, the director of strategic planning and research at the Haifa Municipality also welcomed the participants. The opening lecture was given by Prof. Meital Zilberman of Tel Aviv University, the outgoing president of the Society, who spoke about natural polymers in biomedical applications.

Two new Honorary Members of the Society were announced at the conference:

Prof. Moshe Shoham, a member of the Technion’s Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. He established his first robotics lab at Columbia University, and after joining the Technion he established one of the world’s most advanced robotics labs.  Alongside his extensive research and teaching activities, Prof. Shoham is a serial entrepreneur who has led the founding of pioneering robotics companies including Mazor Robotics, which was acquired two years ago for $1.6 billion.  The company has developed an innovative brain and spinal surgery system.

Prof. David Elad, who completed all his academic degrees at the Technion and is currently a faculty member in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Tel Aviv University’s Faculty of Engineering. He is a leading world expert in two fields: the respiratory system and the reproductive system. In recent years, he has been working on a revolutionary development in the second area: an artificial uterus that will allow for the expansion of scientific knowledge on the rooting of human embryos in the uterine wall and may even help women without a uterus.

Many diverse topics were discussed at the conference including characterization of Crohn’s disease, portable and deep ultrasound imaging, blood flow and oxygen monitoring in the placenta, a smart chip for the study of ALS muscular dystrophy, innovative technologies for gluing and sealing (damaged) tissue, packaging (microencapsulation) of pancreas cells, a platform for drug-choice for delivery to the brain, mechanobiology of cancer and wounds, artificial cells for drug delivery, and tissue engineering in spinal cord injury rehabilitation. The second plenary lecture was delivered by Prof. Ron Weiss of MIT in the USA, who spoke about synthetic biology in mammalian cells and its integration into developing solutions to medical problems.

This year, the tradition that was established last year continued – popular lectures on various wide topics in Biomedical Engineering were given in Hebrew, intended primarily for high school students. The popular session was attended by many hundreds of high schooler students and the general public and included the following lectures: Prof. Meital Zilberman (Tel Aviv University) on biomedical engineering – the relationship between engineering and medicine, curricula and industry in Israel; Prof. Natan Shaked (Tel Aviv) – the future of in vitro fertilization; Prof. Daphne Weihs (Technion) – the hard head of cancer cells: the relationship between mechanics and early diagnosis and prediction; Prof. Moshe Brand (Ariel) – stents and arteries, war and peace; Prof. Tamir Tuller (Tel Aviv) – the next revolution in human evolution: intracellular engineering of genetic material; Prof. Orit Shefi (Bar Ilan) – engineering principles in the nervous system – how does it help in reconstruction?; and Mr. Zohar Gendler (CEO of NGT3) – success factors and failure of medical startups – examples from personal experience.

During the conference, Excellence Awards were bestowed to the following doctoral students: Chen Avraham from Ben Gurion University on “Integration of sensory information in the sensorimotor system across space and time “; Alexander Krakowitz from Tel Aviv University – “Minimizing patient dose in spect myocardial blood flow measurements “; Michael Margolis of Bar Ilan University – “Fast and sensitive detection of the specific DNA sequences using magnetically modulated biosensors “; Eliram Nof from the Technion – “Fluid and Mass transport phenomena in neonatal ventilation”; Lea Peko of Tel Aviv University – “The Science of Prevention of Medical Device-Related Pressure Ulcers “;  and Ido Weiner from Tel Aviv University – “Harnessing computational modeling to overcome the heterologous gene expression barriers in microalgae”.

Some 90 posters were presented at the conference, and prizes were awarded to four outstanding posters: Rakefet Rosen of the Technion, Shani Cohen of the Technion, Zohar Tsafrir of Tel Aviv University and Lior Debby of the Technion. In addition, the IGEM group of Tel Aviv University, which includes outstanding undergraduate students, presents its project.

The ISMBE conference serves as a meeting of academic researchers across the wide spectrum of the biomedical engineering field in Israel and the world and connects researchers and students from all the universities, physicians, healthcare professionals, and Israeli and international industry. At the conference, academic researchers presented the most innovative scientific and technological developments, and the industry participants – from established companies and startups from Israel and around the world – presented booths, posters, and lectures.  High school students, undergraduate students, and graduate students were exposed to cutting edge research in the wide field of biomedical engineering and also presented the research works in which they participated.

Technion and Rambam Health Care Campus scientists present a novel method for testing over 60 patients simultaneously

Testing for COVID-19 is currently being conducted in Israel with the focus on people with specific symptoms. The current rate of testing – about 1,200 a day – does not allow for monitoring of asymptomatic carriers in the population, which is vital to curb the epidemic.

COVID-19 is diagnosed with PCR testing, which is common for virus monitoring. This test examines the presence of a unique genetic sequence of viruses in a sample taken from the patient. The test takes several hours thus generating a bottleneck in identifying COVID-19 infected people in Israel and around the world. According to Dr. Yuval Gefen, director of the Rambam Clinical Microbiology Laboratory, “Today, we receive approximately 200 COVID-19 test samples a day, and each sample undergoes individual examination. According to the new pooling approach that we have currently tested, molecular testing can be performed on a “combined sample,” taken from 32 or 64 patients. This way we can significantly accelerate the testing rate. Only in those rare cases, where the joint sample is found to be positive, will we conduct an individual test for each of the specific samples.”

According to Prof. Roy Kishony, head of the research group in the Faculty of Biology at Technion, “This is not a scientific breakthrough, but a demonstration of the effectivity of using the existing method and even the existing equipment to significantly increase the volume of samples tested per day. This is done by pooling multiple samples in a single test tube. Even when we conducted a joint examination of 64 samples in which only one was a positive carrier, the system identified that there was a positive sample. Although there are some logistical challenges in implementing the method, we expect that it will greatly increase the volume of samples tested per day so that we can identify the asymptomatic carriers. This approach should reduce the chance of infection and flatten the infection curve.” 

Director of the Rambam Virology Lab, Dr. Moran Szwarcwort-Cohen estimates that: “implementing pooling in the final stage of the PCR test, will make it easier for us to shorten the entire process and significantly increase the test rate.”

President of the Technion Prof. Uri Sivan said: “This experiment that was conducted by Technion and Rambam researchers is complex, and under normal circumstances would take months. This is a remarkable example of the mobilization of an outstanding team in a time of crisis. The initial experiment was completed in less than four days. This achievement emphasizes the importance of the close relationship between Technion and Rambam and between medicine and engineering. Technion researchers have been enlisted in the war against the Coronavirus and this is one of the many activities currently underway at Technion to combat the spread of the disease.”

General Director of Rambam Health Care Campus Prof. Michael Halberthal said that: “This collaboration between Technion and Rambam, for the benefit of all humanity, is just one example of many joint projects between the two institutions. These collaborations are designed to harness the multidisciplinary capabilities of Technion researchers for the advancement of medicine.”

The experiment was led jointly by Technion and Rambam researchers. At Technion by Dr. Idan Yelin together with Noga Aharony, Einat Tamar and Dina Berenbaum in Prof. Kishony’s laboratory and with Amir Argoetti from Prof. Yael Mandel-Gutfreund’s laboratory, both labs are in the Faculty of Biology. Prof. Roy Kishony holds the Marilyn and Henry Taub Chair in Life Sciences. Dr. Esti Messer, Head of the Technion Biological Safety Dept, set up the dedicated laboratory and accompanied the entire experiment. 

At Rambam Health Care Campus, the team was led by Dr. Yuval Gefen, Dr. Moran Szwarcwort-Cohen with support of Prof. Michael Halberthal, Rambam General Director and CEO.

For the first time in Technion’s history, the semester opened with a comprehensive program of distance teaching and learning. 

The spring semester at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology opened on schedule – Wednesday, March 18, 2020 – with a comprehensive program of distance teaching and learning. This is in accordance with the updated guidelines of the Ministry of Health and the Council for Higher Education following the spread of COVID-19.

Technion faculty practice distance teaching ahead of the opening of the online Spring semester.

Technion has long been investing in the development and promotion of innovative digital teaching technologies. This has included both implementation and the training of faculty members in novel teaching methods for distance and hybrid learning (which combines frontal teaching with distance learning). Now, as a result of the spread of COVID-19, all Technion faculties are prepared for distance teaching and learning. In the past days, faculty members have undergone refresher training.

“Tomorrow we will open the semester with online courses and distance learning for thousands of students from home,” said Dean of Undergraduate Studies Prof. Hossam Haick. “We believe that with teamwork, and the efforts of our faculty members, we will provide digital learning extensively. We conducted intensive equipment testing with the participation of dozens of lecturers and some 2,000 students, to identify and fix glitches and to improve technical preparation for the opening of the semester.”

“In recent weeks we have put a lot of effort into building the technological infrastructure and carry out the necessary training,” wrote Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan to faculty and students. “However, transferring all instruction to online teaching is a major challenge. Its implementation during normal times would have been spread over a long period with numerous testing. The rapid proliferation of the Coronavirus left us with little time, and so there may still be glitches. We are confident that you understand this and that your cooperation will help correct any issues that may arise.”

“The online learning program is led by the Center for Promotion of Learning and Teaching headed by Dr. Abigail Barzilai,” said Senior Executive Vice President Prof. Oded Rabinovitch. “The Center, the faculty, the adjunct staff, and all relevant departments at Technion are working day and night to help us get through this challenging period and return quickly to a conventional teaching and learning routine. The students, under the courageous and wise leadership of the Students Association, are our true partners as we embark on this complex program together.”

In recent years, the Technion has introduced innovative technologies for distance teaching and learning, including:

1. Synchronous learning based on live broadcast of lectures, tutorials and meetings using the Zoom app.
2. Asynchronous learning based on pre-recorded lectures, the MOODLE learning management system, accessibility of digital materials via the Panopto system, shared access of documents and materials, and discussion forums. Hundreds of videotaped courses and lessons are available online. 
3. Integrated synchronous and asynchronous learning.

Dr. Aviv Censor of the Faculty of Mathematics at Technion is Israel’s leading online lecturer. Following the move to distance learning in the days of Corona, Censor filmed a special training video that has already received thousands of views. For the video click here.