Yearly Archives: 2020

Researchers at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and Rambam Health Care Campus have developed a toolbox that will help analyze the information gleaned from the physiological time series of oximeters increasingly being used during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Assistant Professor Joachim Behar

During the pandemic, many individuals with suspected or confirmed, but mild cases of COVID-19 are told to monitor their symptoms at home or from government managed locations (hotels in Israel). Hospitalization is only an option if there is a medical need, in particular shortness of breath. As a result, there has been an increase in purchases of low-cost commercial oximeters for people to self-monitor their oxygen saturation.

A low oxygen level in the blood means low oxygen in the body’s tissues, a condition that can ultimately lead to organ failure.

While monitoring the blood oxygen level may be a meaningful way to remote monitor individuals with mild COVID-19, a number of these commercial devices, even if CE or FDA approved, have limited accuracy. As a result, their practical use in this specific context is debatable.

More importantly, patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) with pneumonia, a common complication of the coronavirus, are continuously monitored with oximeters. However, there is a lack of smart algorithms that can exploit the information encrypted within these oxygen saturation physiological time series. The development of such algorithms could better support the continuous monitoring of ICU patients and predict eventual deterioration.

Jeremy Levy

What remains unclear is how exactly the information contained in the oxygen saturation physiological time series may be useful. Are trends or absolute values or the occurrence of specific patterns the most meaningful information to identify the disease and predict its course?

With these questions in mind, the laboratory for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine (AIMLab., https://aim-lab.github.io/) in the Technion Faculty of Biomedical Engineering has developed a toolbox of oximetry biomarkers to analyze these physiological time series. The toolbox, developed by master’s student Jeremy Levy and Assistant Professor Joachim Behar together with Dr. Ronit Almog and Dr. Danny Eytan  from Rambam Health Care Campus, has been integrated into the open-source software PhysioZoo developed jointly by the AIMLab and the Bio-electric and Bio-energetic Systems Laboratory headed by Professor Yael Yaniv. The software PhysioZoo can be freely downloaded at (https://physiozoo.com/).

Technion researchers present a new approach to overcoming anticancer drug resistance in melanoma.

Melanoma often presents a rapid resistance to molecular anti-cancer therapies. Now, in a discovery that can one day help address this major clinical challenge, researchers from the Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine have uncovered two proteins which, together, play a major role in drug resistant Melanoma.

The research was published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology and was led by Prof. Amir Orian of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and Dr. Emily Avitan-Hersh of the Faculty of Medicine and Rambam Dermatology Department (as part of a doctoral dissertation) in collaboration with Prof. Ze’ev A. Ronai of the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in California.

According to world statistics, melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer, killing one person every hour. In the U.S. alone, about 6,850 people are expected to die from the disease this year, most of them men. Although there have been advances in targeted and immunotherapy melanoma treatments in recent years, a substantial percentage of patients fail to respond or develop resistance to such therapies.

Professor Amir Orian

In many cases, melanoma results from a mutation in a gene coding for an enzyme called BRAF. This mutation promotes uncontrolled cell division and prevents programmed cell death, resulting in the development of cancer/melanoma tumors. Several years ago, new drugs that inhibit BRAF became available. These drugs are currently at the forefront of treating the disease, but unfortunately, melanoma cells develop rapid resistance to the same drugs − reducing their effectiveness and patients’ survival rates.

A “hallmark” observation in melanoma tumors from the patients are “stabilized oncoproteins.” Oncoproteins are cancer-causing proteins, which have the ability to turn healthy cells into cancerous cells. They are usually short-lived, however in such melanoma tumors they abnormally stabilize, thereby increasing their levels and pro-cancer activity. In previous experiments by Prof. Orian’s group, the oncoproteins were found to be protected against their natural protein degradation process by a protein called RNF4.

The team observed that high RNF4 levels in melanoma tumors correlate with poor prognosis and treatment resistance. Even more notably, they found that the tumorigenic properties (tumor growth, formation, and therapy resistance) of RNF4 in melanoma requires another protein: the translation initiation factor, eIF2α. RNF4 binds to eIF2α and stabilizes it, increasing p-eIF2α levels. In turn, p-eIF2α is required for RNF4 activities including the development of resistance, creating a devastating positive feedback loop.

The study spans the entire spectrum between basic research and clinics, from cell culture to xenografts in model mice to melanoma patients. The findings showed that increased levels of RNF4 characterize about 40% of melanoma patient tumors.

Dr. Emily Avitan-Hersh

The elucidation of the RNF4-dependant pathway in melanoma and its dependency on eIF2α has the potential to enable doctors to predict how a patients’ melanoma will respond to targeted therapies, allowing doctors to better personalize treatments for individual patients. The findings also present an opportunity for researchers to find a new pharmacological treatment to selectively block this pathway, effectively destroying such treatment-resistant melanoma tumors.

The study was conducted together with graduate students Yamen Abu Ahmad and Avital Oknin Vaisman of the Orian Lab and Rambam Senior Pathologist Yaniv Zohar, MD, PhD.

The research was supported by Fine and Wolf Fellowships, an Atidim research grant, National Cancer Institute Grants, the Israel Cancer Research Fund (ICRF) project grant, the German‒Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development, and the Flinkman-Marandy Family Cancer Research Grants.

Prof. Amir Orian MD/PhD is the head of the Stan and Ruth Flinkman Laboratory for the Study of Genetic Networks at the Faculty of Medicine and a member of the Technion’s Integrated Cancer Research Center (TICC).

Dr. Emily Avitan-Hersh MD/PhD is a Lecturer in the Technion Faculty of Medicine, Deputy Director of the Department of Dermatology, and a member of the Rambam Clinical Research Institute, Rambam Medical Center.

Click here for the paper 

Breakthrough Quantum Microscope: Prof. Ido Kaminer and team have made a dramatic breakthrough in the field of quantum science: a quantum microscope that records the flow of light, enabling the direct observation of light trapped inside a photonic crystal.

Their research, “Coherent Interaction Between Free Electrons and a Photonic Cavity,” was published in Nature. All the experiments were performed using a unique ultrafast transmission electron microscope at Technion. The microscope is the latest and most versatile of a handful that exists in the scientific world. 

“We have developed an electron microscope that produces, what is in many respects, the best near- field optical microscopy in the world. Using our microscope, we can change the color and angle of light that illuminates any sample of nano materials and map their interactions with electrons, as we demonstrated with photonic crystals,” explained Kaminer. “This is the first time we can actually see the dynamics of light while it is trapped in nano materials, rather than relying on computer simulations,” added Dr. Kangpeng Wang, a postdoc in the group and first author on the paper.

Prof. Ido Kaminer

All of the experiments were performed on the ultrafast transmission electron microscope in the Robert and Ruth Magid Electron Beam Quantum Dynamics Laboratory headed by Kaminer. Prof. Ido Kaminer is a faculty member in the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering and the Solid State Institute. Kaminer is affiliated with the Helen Diller Quantum Center and the Russell Berrie Nanotechology Institute. The research team also includes: Dr. Kangpeng Wang, Raphael Dahan, Michael Shentcis, Dr. Yaron Kauffmann, Adi Ben-Hayun, Ori Reinhardt, and Shai Tsesses. 

Far-reaching Applications

This breakthrough is likely to have an impact on numerous potential applications, including the design of new quantum materials for storing quantum bits with greater stability. Similarly, it can help improve the sharpness of colors on cell phones and other kinds of screens.

“It will have an even wider impact once we investigate more advanced nano/quantum materials. We have an extremely high-resolution microscope and we are starting to explore the next stages,” Prof. Kaminer elaborated. “For example, the most advanced screens in the world today use QLED technology based on quantum dots, making it possible to control color contrast at a much higher definition. The challenge is how to improve the quality of these tiny quantum dots on large surfaces and make them more uniform. This will enhance screen resolution and color contrast even more than current technologies enable.”

Photo taken by the quantum microscope: the light pattern captured in a photonic crystal
Courtesy of Nature, Prof. Ido Kaminer

A New Kind of Quantum Matter

The ultrafast transmission electron microscope in Prof. Kaminer’s AdQuanta lab has an acceleration voltage that varies from 40 kV to 200 kV (accelerates electrons to 30-70% the speed of light), and a laser system with sub 100 femtosecond pulses at 40 Watts. The ultrafast electron transmission microscope is a femtosecond pump-probe setup that uses light pulses for exciting the sample and electron pulses for probing the sample’s transient state. These electron pulses penetrate the sample and image it. The inclusion of multidimensional capabilities in one setup is extremely useful for full characterization of nano-scale objects.

At the heart of the breakthrough lies the fact that advances in the research of ultrafast free-electron-light interactions have introduced a new kind of quantum matter – quantum free-electron ‘wavepackets.’ In the past, quantum electrodynamics (QED) studied the interaction of quantum matter with cavity modes of light which has been crucial in the development of the underlying physics that constitutes the infrastructure of quantum technologies. However, all experiments to date have only focused on light interacting with bound-electron systems – such as atoms, quantum dots, and quantum circuits – which are significantly limited in their fixed energy states, spectral range, and selection rules. Quantum free-electron wave packets, however, have no such limits. Despite multiple theoretical predictions of exciting new cavity effects with free electrons, no photonic cavity effect has previously been observed for free electrons, due to fundamental limits on the strength and duration of the interaction. 

Prof. Kaminer and team have developed an experimental platform for the multidimensional study of free-electron interactions with photons at the nanoscale. Their unique microscope achieved record near-field optical maps by utilizing the quantum nature of electrons, which were verified by observing Rabi oscillations of the electron spectrum that cannot be explained by pure classical theory. 

More efficient free-electron-cavity-photon interactions could allow strong coupling, photon quantum state synthesis, and novel quantum nonlinear phenomena. The field of electron microscopy and additional areas of free-electron physics may gain from the fusion with photonic cavities, enabling low-dose, ultrafast electron microscopy of soft matter or other beam-sensitive materials. 

Prof. Kaminer hopes that the microscope will serve the wider Technion community in other research fields. “I would like to nurture interdisciplinary collaboration,” he noted.

(l-r) Prof. Ido Kaminer, Dr. Kangpeng Wang, Research team members, Research Engineer Raphael Dahan (far right)

Prof. Ido Kaminer completed his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Physics at Technion as part of the Psagot reserves program and the Rothschild Technion Excellence Program. He completed his MSc and PhD under the supervision of Dist. Prof. Moti Segev. Kaminer went on to do a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT, where he was hosted by Prof. Marin Soljačić and Dist. Prof. John Joannopoulos, with the support of the Marie Curie Fellowship, the Rothschild Fellowship, and the MIT-Technion Fellowship. In 2018, Kaminer joined the faculty of the Technion Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering.

Over the years, Prof. Kaminer has received numerous additional awards and grants, including the Israeli Physics Society Graduate Student Award, Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award in Laser Science by the American Physics Society, Azrieli Faculty Fellowship and an ERC Starter Grant on behalf of the European Research Council.

Dr. Kangpeng Wang is a Lady Davis Postdoctoral Fellow at Technion. The research was also supported by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, which awarded the Adams Scholarship to Shai Tsesses. Prof. Ido Kaminer is a member of the Helen Diller Quantum Center and the Russell Berrie Nanotechology Institute. All of the experiments were performed in the Robert and Ruth Magid Electron Beam Quantum Dynamics Laboratory located in the Electron Microscopy Center in the Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering. 

Click here for the paper in Nature

Helping Hands: Technion “Tikun Olam”

Unknown to many but very much appreciated by the children whose lives they change, students from a number of faculties volunteer to develop and produce 3D printed mechanical and robotic prosthetic hands for children.

A very extraordinary project in Prof. Alon Wolf’s Biorobotics and Biomechanics lab(BRML) is “tikun olam” (repairing the world) in action. Together with Haifa3D, a non-profit organization, students from the faculties of Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science work in the BRML on a very unique project. Together they, design, produce and distribute free prosthetic hands to children.

Functional prosthetic hands are not provided for free to anyone in Israel nor in many places around the world. These prosthetic hands can cost tens of thousands of dollars. For a child who is growing constantly, it is impractical to even buy one. Technion students are introduced to these children by Haifa3D, a local nonprofit organization run by volunteers (some are students themselves). The students have perfected a method to make the mechanical and robotic hands inexpensively on a 3D printer. The children are able to choose their own colors and logos for the hands and that makes a big difference to them. Children who were shy and ashamed before become proud of their new hands. From not being able to catch a ball and do other simple tasks their lives are greatly improved.

Israeli children are not the only recipients of Technion 3D prosthetic hands, the hands have been given to children in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria and other countries worldwide. The mechanical engineering students tutored a group from the West Bank to make the hands on a special visit to the lab. The designs are provided to the world through the global organization e-Nable, a community that creates and shares open source designs for assistive devices, and they are also shared on the BRML webpage.

Prof. Alon Wolf, The head of BRML and Technion Vice President for External Relations and Resource Development explains, “This is one of those outreach activities that has a large impact on society and educates our students to become leaders, not just technological or entrepreneurial leaders but leaders in impact; the impact they bring to society with the knowledge they acquire at the Technion during their studies. This is the beauty and strength of the Technion.”

Prof. Alon Wolf

Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and Rambam Health Care Campus have established a joint fund for research in human health. The fund will be directed towards the development of new therapies, rapid diagnostics, technologies to protect medical staff, innovations in healthcare and more. These interdisciplinary projects will bring together physicians, engineers and scientists in collaborative research.

The fund was a joint initiative of Technion President Professor Uri Sivan and Rambam General Director Dr. Michael Halberthal, as the strong partnership between the two institutions intensified during the recent COVID-19 outbreak in Israel. As part of the cooperation during this period, joint research was carried out by Technion researchers and Rambam medical teams. These collaborations yielded innovative developments that have already had an impact on treating patients, reducing infection, and protecting medical staff.

Rambam General Director Dr. Michael Halberthal: “In recent months, the world has faced a health crisis which has affected all areas of life. A crisis of such proportions also presents opportunities. In our case, the situation boosted the collaboration between physician, researcher, inventor, and engineer in their shared fight to curb COVID-19 and was based on a longstanding partnership between Rambam and Technion. This is how connections and solutions were created for all aspects of diagnostics and therapeutics during this crisis – this is the strength of our partnership.”

Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan: “Following the outbreak of the Corona pandemic, the Technion has taken steps to tackle the situation on all fronts – diagnosis, exit strategy, personalized therapies, reducing the spread of infection, and protecting medical staff. This was done by pooling our expertise, from artificial intelligence and mathematical modeling to immunology, chemical engineering, robotics, and so on. The close ties between Technion and Rambam—as well as between medicine and engineering—is of enormous benefit in the war against COVID-19.”

The disinfection process occurs when a layer of carbon fibers in the mask is heated using a low current source, such as an electric mobile phone charger. A patent application for this invention has been submitted in the United States.

The Mask Prototype

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, demand for protective face masks has sky-rocketed in recent months, as wearing masks is now a requirement along with social distancing and hygiene measures. A wide range of masks is available, with the leading model being the N95. The authorities insist on the correct usage of masks, which means replacing it daily even if it kept clean and dry during the day.

These regulations, along with the urgent need to provide masks for the medical staff caring for coronavirus patients, has led to a surge in demand for these masks and a search for manufacturers and suppliers. In the U.S., for example, approximately 3.5 billion masks are required in order to protect against an acute epidemic – 100 times more than the number of masks readily available. An immediate shortage of masks also occurred in Israel and was accelerated when the Ministry of Health announced that mask-wearing is mandatory. 

Prof. Yair Ein-Eli

Prof. Yair Ein-Eli, Dean of the Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering, developed a reusable face mask that can be heated in a controlled manner – a process that destroys viruses that accumulated on the mask and renders it reusable. The new technology is based on an inner layer of carbon fibers spread within the mask in a homogeneous manner. When the layer of fibers is heated using a low current (2 amps) from a readily-available source – such as a mobile phone charger, USB connection or other mobile electronic device chargers – the viruses are destroyed. 

Prof. Ein-Eli’s research group created the mask prototype and tested it together with Prof. Debbie Lindell and Prof. Oded Beja from the Faculty of Biology. A patent was submitted in the U.S. on March 31 and the research group is currently discussing commercialization with industrial companies.

Infra-red heat map of masks of the proposed variety, at various temperatures. The hot areas (yellow and red) indicate that the carbon fibers provide complete coverage.

Blocking the infection cycle: Technion scientists have developed effective and long-lasting disinfectants

Unlike household bleach and similar products used for disinfecting surfaces, the new substances target the virus infection mechanism and remain active for longer 

Scientists from Technion’s Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering have developed smart disinfectants that destroy the coronavirus infection mechanism and remain active over time. These products are expected to replace household bleach and other chorine-based products whose disinfecting powers diminish rapidly. 

Asst. Prof. Shady Farah, head of the research group, has been awarded an European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) Health COVID-19 Rapid Response grant in order to accelerate its development process and market launch. This is the first time that a Technion scientist receives a prestigious EIT Health grant alone. “We are currently producing potential substances and testing them. We plan to select the optimal substance and begin mass production in the next few months,” says Farah.

Asst. Prof. Shady Farah holding his polymer

The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus belongs to an extensive family of viruses that the world has been aware of for many years, some of which can also infect humans. The novel coronavirus closely resembles one of its predecessors, SARS-CoV, which also originated in China and spread to many other countries; however, the steps that were taken to fight SARS-CoV are not effective enough against the current epidemic. To date, there is no approved “knockout” treatment for SARS-CoV-2 and there is no vaccine against it. 

Given the situation, efficient disinfectants are crucial for blocking the spread of infection via contaminated surfaces. The novel coronavirus can survive on various surfaces for extended periods of time, depending on the type of surface and other conditions. Findings from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, where there were numerous cases of coronavirus, revealed that the virus can survive on surfaces for as long as 17 days. This fact increases the probability of infection from touching contaminated surfaces, in addition to person-to-person infection.

Asst. Prof. Farah’s research group develops innovative polymers for medical use and smart drug delivery technologies. When the Covid-19 epidemic broke out, the research group immediately devoted itself to developing special anti-viral polymers that act on the virus in two ways: by altering and damaging its structure so that its infection capability is impaired; and by attacking and destroying the virus’s envelope. No less important, the disinfecting substance is released in a controlled and continuous manner so that the new technology’s effect is long-lasting.

Disinfectants have been used since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in order to prevent infection from contaminated surfaces – mainly by applying hypochlorite solutions, more commonly known as household bleach. This method has several significant disadvantages: it evaporates quickly, and breaks down rapidly when exposed to sun/UV light. Consequently, its effectiveness is limited and short-term, requiring surfaces to be disinfected several times a day.

The new disinfectant technology developed by Farah’s research group is based on low-cost and readily available raw materials. The development was made possible thanks to interdisciplinary knowledge which combines the fields of combinatorial chemistry, polymer engineering and controlled release. “The materials we developed will be a gamechanger because they will block the cycle of infection from contaminated surfaces,” says Farah. “Infection from touching surfaces is a serious problem, especially in public places such as hospitals, factories, schools, shopping malls and public transportation. Our polymers will make these places safer. Although this development was accelerated due to the current coronavirus crisis, in the future it will also be effective against other microorganisms. We are enriching the arsenal of tools available to us and adding a new family of disinfectants that release the active substance in a controlled manner. In this way, they remain effective for long periods of time.”

Asst. Prof. Shady Farah completed three academic degrees at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, including a direct-track PhD in Medicinal Chemistry. He then pursued postdoctoral research at MIT (with Prof. Robert Langer and Prof. Daniel G. Anderson) and at the Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School. He is currently Assistant Professor in the Technion’s Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering, where he holds a Neubauer Chair, and is a fellow of the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute (RBNI). He received a Maof Fellowship for Outstanding Young Researchers and his lab received generous funding from the Neubauer Family Foundation.

For the EIT Health website click here

Technion scientists have developed an unprecedented method for 3D imaging of nanometric processes inside living cells while they are moving

Technion researchers have developed a method for 3D imaging of nanometric processes, such as those in live flowing cells. The group, headed by Asst. Prof. Yoav Shechtman of the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering re-engineered an existing imaging machine worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. A result is a machine that produces 3D images of 1,000 cells per minute.

The research was led by postdoctoral researcher Dr. Lucien E. Weiss. The team’s findings were published in Nature Nanotechnology.

Experiments using the new system were carried out on DNA molecules of live yeast cells and white blood cells with engineered nanometric particles in collaboration with Prof. Avi Schroeder’s lab of the Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering.

iagram of the unique machine constructed by the research group. Photo by courtesy of Nature & Lucien Weiss

“This success can have important applications in basic science, such as understanding DNA’s 3D structure in a living cell, and also in the field of nanomedicine, meaning medical treatment based on engineered nanometric particles such as those created in Prof. Schroeder’s lab,” explained Shechtman. “For example, the new technology will enable us to measure the absorption rate of therapeutic particles in live cells, track their dispersal in the cell, and monitor their effect on the cell. Today there are techniques for mapping and measuring cells, but those that provide high throughput only show a partial and 2D picture. Our technology combines the advantages of the various techniques and provides a 3D image at a high rate.”

Asst. Prof. Yoav Shechtman of Technion Faculty of Biomedical Engineering

The innovative technology is based on the reengineering of ImageStream―a sophisticated imaging machine that was bought by the Lorry I. Lokey Interdisciplinary Center for Life Sciences and Engineering at Technion. This machine combines two different technologies―flow cytometry and fluorescent microscopy―making it possible to analyze cells at a rapid rate. 

“The sampling rate and the number of cells sampled are very important in the biological context, since biology is typically ‘noisy’ and not precise, and in order to reach a conclusion it is necessary to have statistics for large quantities,” said Shechtman. “In certain cases, due to low sampling rates, it is impossible to collect this type of statistical information. By the time you finish collecting the data, the interesting phenomenon has already changed. Therefore, it is important to use a technology that enables high rates of sampling.”

ImageStream serves many purposes, including defining population attributes, diagnosing medical conditions, and testing new drugs. According to Shechtman, “It’s an excellent tool, but until now, it has only been used to record 2D images or projections of objects. For many applications, however, it is important to collect 3D data. For example, even if we just want to determine the distance between two particles, a 2D measurement is not sufficient, since the depth dimension also contributes to the distance.” 

This was the main technological challenge in this research: transforming ImageStream into a 3D imaging system.

Dr. Lucien E. Weiss

“To that end, we needed to ‘open the hood’ and assemble our unique optical system inside. Keep in mind that this is a machine that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, and we couldn’t take for granted that the Lokey Center’s Imaging Unit would agree, but from the moment that we opened up the machine and looked inside, it was obvious what we needed to do it (without causing damage),” said Shechtman. 

The research group installed the technology it has developed in recent years on the ImageStream ―technology for localization microscopy based on wavefront design. This is actually controlled distortion of the optical system so that the position of particles in 3D space can be mapped. This technology is based on imaging colored molecules embedded in the sample that mark important locations, such as cell nuclei. Using the shape obtained from the camera after it has passed through the distorted optical system, the machine analyzes the 3D location of the object being examined. To date, this technology has been used for 3D imaging of one or a few cells at a time, and connecting it to the cytometry instrument renders it capable of mapping flowing cells. This connection, which is in itself an enormous technological challenge, accounts for the successful sampling at an extremely high throughput―thousands of cells per minute. 

The scientists expect that this technological achievement will lead to important scientific developments and applications in the fields of biological and biotechnological research, medical diagnostics, and the development of new medical treatments.  

Asst. Prof. Yoav Shechtman and Dr. Lucien Weiss are both supported by the Mortimer B. Zuckerman STEM Leadership Program.

Dr. Onit Alalouf, Dr. Sarah Goldberg, and Ph.D. students Yael Shalev Ezra, Boris Ferdman, and Omer Adir also took part in this research.

For the full article in Nature Nanotechnology click here