2022 - Technion - Israel Institute of Technology

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Maintaining the integrity of the genome is essential for the function and survival of all organisms. However, it is threatened by a broad spectrum of endogenous and environmental factors that create thousands of daily DNA damage events in every cell. The most severe of these events are the double-strand breaks (DSBs), which can cause deleterious mutations and cell death. In response to these events, cells have evolved sophisticated repair mechanisms. In bacteria, DSB repair is initiated by RecBCD, an enzyme that uses the energy supplied by ATP molecules to forcibly “unwind” the double-helical structure of DNA in the region of the damage, in preparation for subsequent steps required for complete repair of the DNA.

בתמונה הקבוצתית, מימין לשמאל: פרופ' אריאל קפלן, ד"ר ראני זננירי ופרופ׳ ארנון חן

L-R: Prof. Arnon Henn, Rani Zananiri and Prof. Ariel Kaplan

RecBCD unwinds DNA at an exceptionally rapid rate of ~1,600 steps per second, which requires thousands of ATP molecules every second. How RecBCD achieves this rate – and in particular how ATP molecules are able to reach their specific catalytic sites in RecBCD at such a rapid rate – has not been well understood. Now, however, a paper just published in Nature Communications by the research groups of Professors Arnon Henn and Ariel Kaplan, both from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology Faculty of Biology, sheds light on RecBCD’s exceptional catalysis mechanism. Using a wide range of biophysical tools combined with live cell experiments, Dr. Rani Zananiri, Dr. Sivasubramanya Mangapuram, and Dr. Vera Gaydar discovered the existence of additional ATP binding sites in RecBCD, to which ATP binds and from which it is transferred to the canonical catalytic sites. These new sites effectively create a “funnel” for ATP, which serves to increase the flux of ATP to the catalytic sites, despite the low levels of ATP present in cells during DNA damage.

Dr. Sivasubramanya Mangapuram

DNA damage repair plays a central role in the physiology of cells and exhibits profound similarities across evolution. Hence, the newly discovered mechanism may have implications not only for enzyme catalysis per se, but also for DNA repair in our own cells, and its disruption in various pathophysiological states.

Click here for the paper in Nature Communications

The Technion recently held a conference titled “AI: From Hype to Productivity,” at the Elma Hotel in Zichron Yaacov. The 350 attendees included leading figures from the Technion, local AI industry, and the governmental sector.

Technion President Professor Uri Sivan said at the opening of the event: “We have recently finished formulating the Technion’s strategic plan for the coming decade. One of the main pillars of the program is the Technion’s academic-industrial relations coupled with the need to adapt to the changes this axis implies. Nowadays, the traditional line between academia conducting basic research and industry focused on development no longer exists; the current ecosystem is brand new, so academia as a whole, and technological universities in particular, must adapt to this new reality. In the coming years, relations between academia and industry will become even stronger, and whilst this isn’t something new, it is expected to intensify. This changing relationship will include Artificial Intelligence – one of the “hottest” topics today positioned at the forefront of research. This forms the backdrop to this conference, which brings together research personnel from the Technion and industry to create a cooperation essential for both sides. For me, this is an opportunity to take pride in the many achievements of the AI community at the Technion.”

The conference was led by Professors Assaf Schuster and Shie Mannor, who co-lead the MLIS – Machine Learning and Intelligent Systems Center at the Technion. Prof. Mannor’s lecture dealt with Reinforcement Learning (RL) and its limitations. As he explained: “In this area, there have been impressive successes mainly in the field of games, with computers gaining victory over expert humans in backgammon (as early as 1992), as well as in checkers, chess, and Go. While this is a significant success, and the victory of Alpha-Go is one of the great achievements of AI, one must understand that there is a big leap between successes in this field and successes in other fields such as autonomous driving. Unfortunately, many researchers and companies are sugar-coating reality, making promises without real scientific basis. And at the end of the day, it’s a game. So why haven’t we yet solved the challenge of self-driving vehicles or even managing traffic jams at big roundabouts? The answer is that some things are very difficult to identify by computerized means. By way of example, a human driver, with all his limitations, knows how to recognize a pedestrian, and understands that if a plastic bag flies in front of the car there is no reason to swerve into the nearby lane to avoid it; computers still don’t know how to make these distinctions. I’m not saying these missions aren’t possible. I’m just saying we’re still a long way off. In fact, we’re just scratching the surface.”

Prof. Assaf Schuster’s lecture dealt with Stream Mining – monitoring huge data flows in real time. Tens of thousands of events are sometimes created during these processes and the technological challenge is to analyze them quickly, reliably, and automatically.

The conference lectures dealt with a wide range of topics, including the Interface Between Computational Learning and the Human User (Dr. Nir Rosenfeld, Henry and Marilyn Taub Faculty of Computer Science), the Importance of the Deep Learning Revolution in Image Denoising (Prof. Michael Elad, Taub Faculty of Computer Science), the Robotics Revolution that is Still Waiting to Happen (Dr. Aviv Tamar, the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering), Learning/Creating Images from a Single Example (Prof. Tomer Michaeli, Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering), the Gap Between the Human Brain and AI Models when Dealing with Challenges Such as Vision and Speech Recognition (Prof. Daniel Soudry, Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering), How to Explain Computer Systems in the Human-Behavioral Context (Prof. Ofra Amir, Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management), Selective Focus within Artificial Intelligence Systems (Prof. Tamir Hazan, Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management), and The Role of Urban Analytics in Planning and Policy (Prof. Pnina Plaut, Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning). Prof. Orit Hazzan of the Faculty of Science and Technology Education spoke about the Use of Data for Regulation and Planning in the K-12 Educational System.

The conference was created by three Technion bodies: MLIS, the Center for Machine Learning and Intelligent Systems, TCE – the Technion Center for Computer Engineering, and TDSI – the Technion Data Science Institute. The conference was moderated by Professor Lihi Manor-Zelnik of the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

For a video from the conference click here

To read our latest AI Brochure, click here.

What enables cancer to metastasize – to spread to different parts of the body, with their different environments – and grow there? How do tumors become resistant to drugs? In an opinion piece recently published in iScience, Technion researchers Aseel Shomar, Professor Omri Barak, and Professor Naama Brenner propose a novel explanation, in the hope that better understanding should lead to better treatment. The three propose that cancer cells are able to learn and adapt to changing environments, through actively searching for solutions that would enable them to survive. They suggest that studying cancer with the approach and tools of this learning theory will advance our understanding of these phenomena.

It is commonly thought that both drug resistance and the ability to metastasize appear in cancer cells as random mutations. Since such a mutation is advantageous to cancer cells, enabling them to survive in an environment that attempts to fight them, these mutations become dominant. However, mounting evidence from research groups around the world does not seem to match this hypothesis, and treatment plans based on it did not significantly increase patients’ life expectancy. Now, Aseel Shomar, Prof. Barak, and Prof. Brenner propose a new hypothesis that matches the evidence at hand: cancer cells learn and adapt to their environment, enabling them to develop drug resistances and conform to the new environments of metastasis locations.

Prof. Naama Brenner

A cell has no brain, so how does it learn? Sensing stress, Prof. Brenner explains, the cell seeks to reduce that stress. It embarks on a trial-and-error process within the gene regulatory network, changing the way existing genes are expressed. An interaction that reduces the stress gets strengthened. Even so, considering the number of possible configurations the cell can try, it can seem unlikely that the process would work. However, using computer simulations based on learning theory, the group showed that cells could in fact learn and adapt in this fashion. One element of what makes this feasible is that more than one solution may be found to solve the same problem the cell faces. Another element is the way the gene regulatory network is structured, with regulatory “hubs” that control parts of it.

Cancer cells are not unique in their learning ability. Previous studies by Prof. Brenner, Prof. Erez Braun, and others have shown that yeast cells can adapt to new environments and develop abilities they did not initially possess. The Technion lab is among the few labs around the world that has succeeded in demonstrating this effect in simple organisms. Learning theory provides the framework and the mathematical tools to study these phenomena. The Technion’s Network Biology Research Lab aims to explore the way various biological systems adapt – a process that is not fully understood. The Lab’s researchers, coming from varied faculties including Physics, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Medicine, work on connecting the evolving theoretical models to complex and dynamic biological systems.

While tumors that learn and adapt might sound like a nightmare, Aseel Shomar, Prof. Barak, and Prof. Brenner also found reason for hope. There is perhaps a key to the problems cancer continues to pose. While the capacity for learning is there in the cells, normally something holds it back. In fact, the same mutations found to promote cancer in our body, can be carried by cells that still remain healthy. Even cells from active tumors, transported into healthy tissue, were in some experiments “cured,” reverting to their non-cancerous state.

Aseel Shomar

“There is an interaction between the individual cell and the tissue,” Prof. Brenner explains. “The cell has the capacity to explore, but the tissue imposes order and stability. We propose that using the approach and methods of learning theory will help investigate this interaction in greater depth. Cancer could perhaps be treated through strengthening the tissue’s ability to calm and control the pre-cancerous cell.” A better understanding of the system, such as the three provide, is a crucial step towards developing more effective treatments.

Most scientific studies add a titbit of data to an existing framework. This is one of a rare category of studies that re-examine existing data and propose a novel framework, offering answers to questions that had hitherto remained unanswered, and opening up new avenues of exploration.

The study was led by Ph.D. student Aseel Shomar, under the joint supervision of Profs. Omri Barak and Naama Brenner. It was supported by the Israeli Science Foundation (ISF) and the Adams Fellowship Program of the Israel Academy of Science and Humanities.

Prof. Barak

For the full article in iScience, click here.

Four young researchers from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology recently won European Commission for Research (ERC) Consolidator Grants. This is a record number of winners in one year for the Technion in this track. The prestigious Consolidator Grants encourage excellence in science under the Horizon European Research and Development Framework Program, and are designed to support researchers who come up with pioneering, groundbreaking research ideas in the formative stages of the research team and workplan. Each grant is approximately €2 million per researcher.

The grant winners from the Technion are:

Professor Anat Levin from the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering received the grant for SpeckleCorr – a new technology for characterizing materials, and for fluorescent imaging in biological tissue. This technology is expected to influence medicine and the analysis and creation of materials.

Professor Moran Bercovici from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering received the grant for Fluidic Shaping – a new concept that leverages the fundamental physics of interfacial phenomena to rapidly fabricate complex optical components of any size (from millimeters to meters) with sub-nanometer surface roughness, without the need for any mechanical processing such as grinding or polishing.

This innovative approach has the potential to revolutionize the fabrication of optical components both on earth and in space.

Professor Gal Shmuel from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering received the grant for EXCEPTIONAL – a theory for developing novel metamaterials: engineered materials exhibiting properties not found in natural materials. Prof. Shmuel focuses on dynamic metamaterials, aimed at controlling elastic and acoustic waves. These metamaterials have far-reaching potential applications such as noise reduction, energy harvesting, ultrasonography, camouflage, and more.

Professor Eitan Yaakobi from the Henry and Marilyn Taub Faculty of Computer Science received the grant for DNA Storage, an innovative approach that is expected to revolutionize information storage while dramatically reducing storage volume, maintaining long-term information, and significantly reducing the energy and economic cost. Prof. Yaakobi’s developments are expected to accelerate the achievement of this important technological goal.

ERC Consolidator Grants are given to prominent researchers of all ages and nationalities, who have accumulated between 7 and 12 years of experience after receiving their doctorate and who show achievements that testify to their promising future. The research must be conducted through a public or private research body operating in one of the EU countries or one of the countries associated with the program. Funding is up to €2 million per grant, and sometimes an additional €1 million – to support the purchase of unique equipment or the use of dedicated infrastructure – is provided over five years, mainly to cover the cost of hiring the winning researchers and other staff to form research teams.

“This is a new Technion record for a single year, and an impressive academic achievement, especially in light of a 25% increase in submissions in 2021,” said Technion Vice President of Research, Professor Koby Rubinstein. ERC grants are competitive grants designed to support pioneering research and development. The winners demonstrate excellence in a wide range of fields – biological and medical imaging, innovative optics, material engineering, and information storage in biological molecules. The current news comes hot on the heels of a further nine ERC wins by Technion researchers this year, bringing great pride to the Technion. These achievements will promote both the winning researchers and the Technion’s international prestige.”

The Technion and Rambam Health Care Campus are setting up a new joint Technion-Rambam Center for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare (CAIH) that will signal a revolution in medical decision-making. The CAIH, the first joint academic-hospital AI center in Israel and one of the first in the world, will develop advanced artificial intelligence systems to analyze a patient’s condition. The center will focus on developing tools that will help physicians select, in real time, the most appropriate and accurate medical treatment for a patient. These tools will be based on a complex and rapid analysis of all the relevant medical information that has accumulated in big medical databases over the years. In the words of Assistant Professor Joachim Behar, co-director of the center, the aim of the CAIH is to “create the leading Israeli academic center for medical AI committed to advanced medical and clinical research, resulting in significant and actionable benefit to patient care.”

The Center’s opening conference, “Technion-Rambam Hack: Machine Learning in Healthcare,” which was held at Rambam Health Care Campus on March 9, was attended by about 250 people, and featured leading researchers from the Technion, Rambam, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Ministry of Health, Clalit Health Services, GE Healthcare, and Roche. Scientists, healthcare practitioners and policy makers from all around the world shared their knowledge on the fascinating topic, while student teams attempted to tackle salient issues in healthcare by technological means. The opening remarks were delivered by Technion President, Professor Uri Sivan and the CEO of Rambam, Professor Miki Halberthal. A roundtable on the topic of data stakeholders was moderated by Professor Rafi Beyar, former director of Rambam Health Care Campus, and one of the visionaries behind the new center.

“It is very exciting to be here,” said Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan. “When I took office as President of the Technion more than two years ago, we built a strategic plan. The first initiative that came out of the program was the ‘Human Health Initiative,’ of which the new Center for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare is a part. The connection between the Technion and Rambam is a key element in this vision of cooperation and connection between science, engineering, and medicine, and it combines two strong and important forces. 170 faculty members at the Technion are currently working on issues related to the life sciences, and I have no doubt that there is enormous potential here.”

President of the Technion, Prof. Uri Sivan, at the conference [photo courtesy of Rambam Health Care Campus]

“It is a great privilege to open this event that connects Rambam, the Technion, and MIT,” said Rambam CEO Prof. Miki Halberthal. “I would like to thank all the organizers as well as all the guests who have come from abroad. We have many big challenges that we have not yet solved medically – infections, deterioration of corona patients, improved treatment of heart failure, and more – and I believe that cooperation with the Technion will lead to significant breakthroughs.”

The first part of the conference dealt with current trends in machine learning in healthcare, the second part on access to medical databases in Israel, and the third part on the prospective evaluation of machine learning models in the clinical environment. The conference was organized by Dr. Joachim Behar from AIMLab, Dr. Danny Eytan, Dr. Ronit Almog, and Prof. Leo Anthony Celi, who delivered the keynote address.

Prof. Leo Anthony Celi, is a senior researcher and director of the MIT Laboratory of Computational Physiology (LCP), the organization behind SANA, which supports technological innovation for the benefit of all mankind, including developing countries. Prof. Celi is a founder of MIMIC – a database serving more than 2,000 researchers in around 30 countries, creating a global community of medical researchers in the field of medical data science.

Prof. Ran Balicer is Chief Innovation Officer at Clalit Health Services, founding director of the Clalit Research Institute, a member of the Management Team for Epidemics in the Ministry of Health, and Head of the National Covid-19 Experts Advisory Team. He spoke at the conference on ways to harness data science to improve medical care. “Data science is expected to revolutionize the medical world,” said Prof. Balicer, “and there is no doubt that big data is a huge opportunity; however, as information accumulates, we understand that the key question is not how much information you have but how much knowledge it gives you, what significant insights you can gain from it and how you can incorporate it into improving medical care. In a nutshell, this revolution has taken responsive medicine for a single patient to predictive, proactive, and preventive medicine for everyone. This is no longer science fiction and we started working on it more than a decade ago. Today we are already making such predictions, and the COVID pandemic has accelerated this, of course.”

Prof. Shie Mannor is from the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering and considered one of the world’s leading experts in artificial intelligence. He is also co-director of MLIS – the Center for Machine Learning and Intelligent Systems at the Technion – and a senior scientist at NVIDIA. Prof. Mannor said, “in general I am a pessimist and skeptical of the promises made in the context of artificial intelligence, but in the medical world I believe that there is, and will be, significant progress based on AI. Of course, I also have warnings: it takes time to apply artificial intelligence, and the big challenge is not writing articles but bringing real applications to the field. In this sense, doctors have a significant role to play, and only they know what is really needed, and we researchers need to help develop systems that will work in the real world.”

The Technion-Rambam Center for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare is the brainchild of the two institutions and jointly funded by both. It will operate initially in the Meyer Building in Rambam and will later be transferred to the newly built Discovery Tower on the western campus of the hospital. “The Center will start running five flagship projects, and its directors are Assistant Prof. Joachim Behar (head of the group), Assistant Prof. Uri Shalit, Prof. Shie Mannor, Prof. Lior Gepstein, Prof. Shai Shenn-Orr, Assistant Prof. Danny Eytan, Dr. Ronit Almog, and Dr. Oren Caspi.”

Conference speakers (photo courtesy of Rambam Health Care Campus)

The Center is expected to bring about a dramatic change in the way patients are diagnosed and treated in real time. According to Assistant Prof. Uri Shalit of the Technion, “The Center will serve as a significant collaborative platform that will connect doctors and researchers from Rambam with scientists and engineers from the Technion, with the aim of promoting diagnosis and medical treatment through artificial intelligence. We, as data scientists, need large amounts of curated data – Big Data – and the clinical world needs experts who will analyze this data and derive useful insights from it. For us as scientists, this is an important connection to the field and a significant means of influencing human well-being.”

Prof. Rafi Beyar (left), Prof. Lior Gepstein, Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan, and Prof. Joachim Behar (right) – photo courtesy of Rambam Health Care Campus

“This is the great innovation,” said Dr. Oren Caspi, Director of the Heart Failure Unit at Rambam, a researcher at the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion, and one of the leaders in establishing the Center. “We all know the usual procedure – the patient is hospitalized, undergoes diagnostic tests, and receives treatment to the best abilities of the medical staff. The new vision presented by the Center is one of diagnosis and treatment based on extensive information from a huge number of patients. As a result, the doctor will be able to ‘tailor’ the patient’s treatment to be optimal, accurate, and customized. The Center’s uniqueness will help us convert academic achievements in artificial intelligence and big data into therapeutic tools that are immediately available at the patient’s bedside in the spirit of personalized medicine.”

The conference summarized the results of a “Datathon,” an information-based competition held last week at the Technion Faculty of Biomedical Engineering. The conference was attended by around 50 students and alumni from various Technion faculties who developed different technologies related to the analysis of medical data in solving important challenges in cardiology, fetal monitoring, intensive care, and stem cells. The students were accompanied by 20 mentors from the Technion, Rambam, and industry.

Click here to read the Technion’s AI Brochure

New technology that allows for very high-resolution medical imaging (close to 10 µm) is expected to lead to the development of tiny and effective ultrasound systems and other medical applications. The innovative technology, SPADE, is based on research led by Professor Amir Rosenthal and Ph.D. student Yoav Hazan of the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Their findings were published in Nature Communications.

Prof. Amir Rosenthal (left) and Ph.D. student Yoav Hazan of the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Medical ultrasound is an accepted and common tool for monitoring various physiological conditions in internal tissues. Its great advantage is that unlike CT scans and x-rays, it is not based on ionizing radiation, which is considered dangerous in high doses. The main component of ultrasound systems is the transducer – an electro-mechanical device that transmits and receives ultrasound waves.

One of the technological challenges in the world of ultrasound is the development of endoscopic transducers – miniature transducers inserted through a tiny hole in the skin, or from one of the body’s natural orifices in a minimally invasive procedure. Such transducers are essential because the scan of deep tissue regions often requires a small transducer that comes close to the target tissue.

The challenge in developing these transducers stems in part from the fact that miniaturization impairs their sensitivity, making it difficult to create high-quality images. The SPADE (Silicon-Photonics Acoustic Detector) technology developed by the Technion researchers is based on optical components instead of electrical components that literally alter the image. It provides the possibility to perform ultrasound tests in resolutions not previously achieved. The researchers stress that the new technology could dramatically improve the resolution of additional diagnostic methods such as vascular imaging using optoacoustics. In this regard, the article in Nature Communications presents mapping of blood vessels in a mouse’s ear at an unprecedented resolution (about 10 microns).

תמונה של מיפוי כלי דם באמצעות שיטת הדימות האופטואקוסטית שפיתחו חוקרי הטכניון

Optoacoustic image acquired with the new technology.

The study was supported by the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute (RBNI), the National Science Foundation, the Polak Foundation, the Israel Innovation Authority, and the Ollendorf Minerva Center.

Click here for the paper in Nature Communications.

Professor Emeritus Moussa Youdim of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology is the recipient of the 2022 Israel Prize for Life Sciences. The Prize Committee noted that the prize was awarded to Prof. Youdim “for his pioneering, groundbreaking scientific achievements in the field of neuropharmacology. He has placed generations of undergraduates and graduates, many of whom hold key positions, in Israeli academia and in the biotechnology industry. His publications have received wide international acclaim and have won him many awards.”

Technion President Professor Uri Sivan said: “It is my honor to congratulate Professor Moussa Youdim on being awarded the Israel Prize for Life Sciences in recognition of his transformative contributions to science and medicine. The applicative and far-reaching nature of his achievements make him a member of an elite group of scientists privileged to see their research applied to benefit humankind. Prof. Youdim’s brilliant work has brought about a dramatic change in the understanding of neurodegenerative diseases and literally transformed the quality of life of Parkinson’s patients the world over.”

The President added “This is the third Israel Prize awarded this year to Technion researchers, a record for us, and it makes us so proud to see the Technion recognized for its important contributions to Israel and the world.”

Prof. Youdim was born in Tehran, Iran to a family with 5 children. The synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of Tehran belonged to his family and they ran all the community services relating to religion. The family was scholarly, passing on knowledge and giving advice to members of the community; hence their surname “Youdim (from the Hebrew word for knowledge).”

At the age of 12, Youdim was sent to England. He has never returned to Iran. In England, he was educated at a Jewish boarding school in Brighton ,and in 1959 was accepted to study medicine at McGill University Medical School in Canada. There, he was exposed to the world of brain biochemistry (neurochemistry), and as a result decided to pursue a doctorate in biochemistry and psychiatry. From Canada he returned to England, where he worked at the University of London, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Oxford.

In 1972, he first heard about selegiline – a drug developed by Hungarian Holocaust survivor Joseph Knoll – whom he later visited in Budapest to collect a sample. In 1975, Prof. Youdim visited Israel, where he heard from his friend, Professor Raphael Meshulam, that the Technion Rappaport Faculty of Medicine was looking for a pharmacologist to establish and head a pharmacology department. Prof. Youdim did not know that a faculty of medicine even existed at the Technion, but he responded positively to the request of the faculty’s first dean, Professor David Erlik, and took up the position. In 1977, he immigrated to Israel with the decision to continue his selegiline research here.

In the Faculty of Medicine, Prof. Youdim and his colleague Professor John Finberg began developing the Parkinson’s drug together with Teva. By 1981, they knew they had an effective drug to treat Parkinson’s, but it wasn’t until 2006 that the drug Azilect® (Rasagiline) was approved by the FDA for treating Parkinson’s patients. A chronic and steadily disabling disease, Parkinson’s is afflicting younger populations as its average onset age continues to drops. It is now known that “Azilect” is effective in treating various stages of Parkinson’s disease, both as a single drug and in combination with the drug L-dopa. Azilect was selected by the NIH, the American National Institute of Health, as a major research topic in the study of neurodegenerative diseases and is the first drug that not only eases the symptoms of the disease but actually slows down their progression, especially when given in the early stages of development.

For decades, Prof. Youdim managed the Eve Topf Center for the Study of Neurodegenerative Diseases at the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, as well as the U.S. National Parkinson Foundation Centers of Excellence for Neurodegenerative Diseases Research. He has published about 800 articles on various topics related to the brain, brain diseases, and the nervous system. In recognition of his work, Prof. Youdim has twice won the Hershel Rich Prize from the Technion as well as the Henry Taub Prize. He also received the EMET Prize for Brain Science and close to 50 other important international awards, and now the Israel Prize.

In addition to Professor Youdim, two other Technion professors will receive the Israel Prize this year: Prof. Emeritus Joshua Zak of the Faculty of Physics will be awarded the 2022 Israel Prize in the Field of Physics and Chemistry Research; Prof. Emeritus Yoram Palti of the Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine will receive the Israel Prize in the Field of Entrepreneurship and Technological Innovation.

(Photos by Miki Koren)

To mark the occasion, the faculty inaugurated a faculty council room in memory of former dean, Professor David Gershon and his wife, Professor Harriet Gershon, and awarded excellence awards for research in their name.

The Faculty of Biology kicked off their Jubilee celebrations with the unveiling of the faculty council room named after the late former dean of the Faculty Prof. David Gershon and his wife, the late Prof. Harriet Gershon. Afterwards, a ceremony was held to award excellence scholarships to postdoctoral fellow Dr. Sergei Rudnizky for his research entitled “optical tweezers reveal the dynamic nature of genome packaging” and to Ph.D student Ofri Levi for her work on “a new role for an old family of enzymes.” The event was attended by Yishi Gershon, David and Harriet’s son, and David’s sister, Ruti Brody. David and Harriet’s daughter Tami Gershon-Hayon watched the event online from the U.S.

Prof. David Gershon led the transformation of the department of Biology into a faculty and recruited most of the scientists who led the faculty in its early years. He came to the Technion as a faculty member in 1967 after completing his doctorate at Cornell University and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Weizmann Institute. In 1975, he was appointed head of the department of biology which later became an independent faculty, where he served as dean for two more terms. His vision shaped the faculty and led its focus in the field of molecular biology.

The focus of Prof. Gershon’s studies was the molecular processes in cells during aging. He pioneered many aspects of the research, including the emphasis on understanding molecular and intracellular mechanisms. His wife, Prof. Harriet Gershon, joined his laboratory at the end of her doctorate and worked there for years until she moved to the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, where she was one of the founders of the Department of Immunology and later head of the department. She was a pioneer in characterizing the biological basis of the decline of the immune system in old age.

The event was attended by Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan, Executive Vice President and Director General Professor Boaz Golany, Vice President for External Relations and Resource Development Professor Alon Wolf, Chairman of the Friends of the Technion Association in Israel and former Technion President Professor Peretz Lavie and many faculty researchers and staff.

Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan said that “The track the faculty has taken over the last 50 years is very impressive, and I am curious about what the next 50 years will bring. Life sciences will continue to be a major research field in the coming decades, and the faculty is a key component in this process. Today, we understand that in order to excel in multidisciplinary research in the life sciences, we must blur the inter-faculty boundaries and encourage collaboration. We are currently working on a joint program between the six Technion faculties related to life sciences, including the Faculty of Biology for finding unique, Technion-specific ways of collaborating.”

“I can’t think of a more appropriate and exciting way to start the 50-year celebrations” said Faculty Dean Prof. Yael Mendel-Gutfreund during the ceremony. She noted that they were also officially inaugurating the new entrance to the faculty and the impressive wing where the ceremony was being held. “On behalf of myself and all the faculty, I would like to thank the Executive Vice President and Managing Director of the Technion Prof. Boaz Golany and Deputy Director of Operations Ms. Zehava Laniado who helped and supported us along the way, the construction and maintenance department personnel who worked hard, and in particular Alon Katz, the project manager, and of course a huge thank you to the maintenance personnel of the Faculty of Trustees, the administrative personnel and our head of management Nir Blitz.”

“I congratulate the faculty on the jubilee of its founding,” said Executive Vice President and Professor Boaz Golany. “Yigal Allon said, when a people does not honour its past, it lives in a present of little substance and faces a future clouded in doubt.. Indeed, it is important to tie the future to an understanding of the past. Today, we invest heavily in promoting the faculty’s growth, both through establishing laboratories for new faculty members and through improving the new computational center at the Technion, which is essential to your work.”

Chairman of the Friends of the Technion, Professor Peretz Lavie: “I had the privilege of getting to know Prof. David Gershon, his laboratory and its activities. He was a true Zionist and a Technion patriot. And he once wrote an article for the editor of Nature in which he expressed resentment towards their anti-Israel sentiment. There is no better way of honoring him than by naming the heart of the faculty after him, and the family deserves all the credit for the effort to commemorate them both.”

Professor Michael Glickman, a faculty member: “I am the last staff member that Prof. Gershon recruited to the faculty, and he taught me that only one person can interfere with my path – me. It was David who led the department’s transformation into a faculty, and it was he who recruited most of the scientists who led the faculty in its early years. His vision shaped the faculty and led to its focus on what is now called molecular biology, at a time when the biological community was more concerned with ecology and systemic biology. After his retirement he continued to work hard and publish articles in leading journals. In the latter period of his life, he was a key partner in the project to develop innovative immunotherapeutic technology for the treatment of breast cancer.”

On first impression, the connection between boxing and industrial engineering is not obvious. While boxing conjures up associations with raw energy and flexed muscles, industrial engineering recalls drawn-out processes, neon-lit offices, and long meetings. Despite the marked differences, Or Zuckerman, a student in the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management at the Technion and a Thai boxer, finds common ground between the two pursuits, mainly in approach. Her experience as an athlete helped her in her studies and vice-versa. “The same mantra guides me in both areas,” she said. “You don’t give up even when things are hard, you don’t run away from struggles; you get up and fight all over again.”

Or Zuckerman

Zuckerman began practicing martial arts as a 10-year-old, encouraged by her father. She went along with the idea out of her admiration for him, and only after he was killed in a car accident when she was 18, did she discover that her father wanted her to be able to defend herself (she was small). She started with karate, and then moved on to taekwondo and finally found her place in Thai boxing. “I was looking for an aggressive sport that would allow me to compete – and that’s where it all came together.”

In contrast to her early start in sports, she only discovered her interest in industrial engineering and management after finishing her army service, when she was working as a product coordinator at a dental implant company. “I was a dental consultant in the army, and after I was released, I started working in dental design using computer imaging technology, creating unique products for each customer. As a coordinator, I worked with the manufacturing supervision team and the engineering department. I became interested in the organization of the interface and connections between the different divisions in the company and I realized that that’s what I wanted to do.”

During her studies, she became particularly interested in courses in finance and statistics, but the combination of intensive training with her engineering studies meant she had to make compromises. “The load was challenging, and I didn’t want to give up on the things that were important to me – my studies and my training – so I mostly made compromises in my social life. I have friends from school, but I had to give up on the parties and going out in the evenings.”

The final exam for her degree will take place at the end of the month, and Zuckerman makes it clear she has not yet thought about what will happen next. “I know that after the exam I’ll go and train in the evening. I’m thinking about continuing my studies, but right now I’m also focusing on my work both inside and outside the institute.”

Zuckerman has an important message for all those just starting their graduate studies, one that she would have liked to hear when she was starting out: “You have to understand that everyone has a hard time. It’s not only you that doesn’t understand – most of the students in the room don’t understand either and it’s okay to find things difficult at the beginning. Take it all in proportion and keep going. In the end you’ll finish your degree.”

The Nano Bible is the smallest, most innovative copy of the Bible. Technion scientists engraved the 1.2 million letters of the Bible on a gold-plated layer of silicon (on a surface the size of a grain of sugar) by means of a focused ion beam

Astronaut Eytan Stibbe will take with him to the International Space Station a copy of the Nano Bible, developed at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The unique item was lent to him by the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, where it is currently on display in the Shrine of the Book alongside the Dead Sea Scrolls. Stibbe will take off into space in early April as a member of the Ax-1 crew and as part of the Rakia mission.

Technion’s Nano Bible

The Nano Bible is the smallest, most innovative copy of the Bible in existence. Technion scientists engraved the 1.2 million letters of the Bible on a gold-plated layer of silicon (on a surface the size of a grain of sugar) by means of a focused ion beam. The ancient text on the chip can only be read using a microscope capable of 10,000 times magnification. While creating the Nano Bible, Technion researchers sought to demonstrate the wonders of miniaturization and how this ultimate modern-day miniaturization can be used.

The idea of miniaturizing the Bible was conceived in 2007 by Professor Uri Sivan, now President of the Technion, and Dr. Ohad Zohar of the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute (RBNI), as part of an educational program intended to increase young people’s interest in nanotechnology. The production of the chip and development of the software that allows engraving to be carried out was performed by engineers in the Zisapel Nanoelectronics Center (MNFU) at the Technion.

“The Bible is the oldest and most important text for the Jewish people, and one of the most important for the entire world. It’s a cornerstone of human culture,” said Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan. “Taken into space, the Nano Bible connects distance and time, the past and the future, and ancient human culture with modern technology.”

Eytan Stibbe: “The Nano Bible that I’ll take to the International Space Station symbolizes harmony between groundbreaking technology and respect for our heritage as humanity. Creating a copy of this ancient text, using innovative technology, allows us to look into the future with hope while remembering our past. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to look at this technological marvel as I float in space.”

איתן סטיבה עם נשיא הטכניון פרופ' אורי סיון

Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan (left) with Eytan Stibbe

To mark the jubilee celebrations of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, held in 2015, Technion engineers prepared a special copy of the Nano Bible, which was presented in the Shrine of the Book – the home of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the renowned Aram Tzova Crown from the 10th century. The exhibition first presented the 21st century Nano Bible against the backdrop of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Additional copies were prepared at the Technion and awarded to Pope Benedict XVI and to the Dibner Library in the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., which is part of the Smithsonian Institution.

The Rakia mission is led by the Ramon Foundation in cooperation with the Israel Space Agency and the Ministry of Science and Technology. The underlying goal of Rakia is to recognize the prospective benefits of space exploration. Its purpose is to draw on the curiosity associated with human space travel and to unleash its creative potential by raising awareness to the importance of preserving Earth’s limited resources and fostering a commitment to international collaborations and the advancement of space research. As an educational endeavor, students, educators, researchers, intellectuals, and the general public will be stimulated by their exposure to the many scientific experiments conducted on board the space station and equally by the demonstrations of the use of Israeli technology. The mission’s educational goals will be furthered by the live transmission of educational content to Israeli children and the unique opportunity to see Israeli art being made and exhibited. Because no dream is beyond reach.

A video showing the Nano Bible: