Category Archives: כתבות אמצע

Researchers at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine have deciphered a mechanism that plays a key role in control of the immune system, preventing it from “going haywire” following a false alarm. The study was published in the Journal of Immunology and was recommended by the editorial board as a top read.

L-R: Dr. Debbie Yablonski and Enas Hallumi

Authors Assistant Professor Debbie Yablonski and doctoral student Enas Hallumi focused on the role of the adaptor protein Gads in controlling the activity of T cells, which are an essential part of the immune system. Their main finding was that this protein serves as a kind of gate or barrier that prevents the immune system from launching an unnecessary attack. T cells are the “foot soldiers of the immune system.” When the body is attacked by an infection, tumor, etc., these cells multiply rapidly, attack the invader, and even mobilize other cells in the body to help them in the attack.

T cell function can be impaired in two main ways: as a result of hypoactivity or hyperactivity. As the term implies, hypoactivity causes a situation in which the body fails to attack the invader, and thus, the development of disease will not be prevented. By contrast, hyperactivity is liable to lead to a chain reaction that is harmful to the body, for example by creating an autoimmune disease or a cytokine storm – a term that rose to prominence during the current pandemic.

The researchers found evidence that an adaptor protein called Gads may be able to prevent a chain reaction of this kind from being initiated. In this sense, Gads serves as a gate that prevents an immune response for as long as the T cells have not been activated. The researchers also found that when the cells are activated by an invader – a virus, tumor, etc. – Gads is “tagged” by the addition of a certain chemical group. This occurs only when two other proteins (LAT and SLP-76) bind to Gads simultaneously to form a multimolecular complex. This binding action opens the gate and activates a T cell so that it may attack the invader. If, on the other hand, only one of the two proteins binds with Gads, the attack will not be launched. According to Prof. Yablonski, “In the present study, we discovered a mechanism that developed in the course of evolution to prevent false alarms, meaning a situation in which the body’s immune response spirals out of control and is liable to harm the organism itself by creating inflammation and other disorders.”

Research combines biochemical, biophysical and genetic approaches.

About the Authors

Dr. Debbie Yablonski is a faculty member at the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine (preclinical staff) and a member of the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute at the Technion. She was born in the U.S. and completed her bachelor’s degree and Ph.D. at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California at San Francisco.

Enas Hallumi grew up in Kafr Manda, completed her bachelor’s degree at Ben-Gurion University and her master’s degree at the Technion, under Dr. Yablonski’s supervision. Dr. Yablonski is also Enas’s supervisor as a Ph.D. student.

The research was sponsored by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF), the Colleck Research Fund, the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute at the Technion, the Volkswagen Foundation, and the United States – Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF).

Click here for the paper in Journal of Immunology

During the ceremony, Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan said that “leadership and personal accountability are the most effective and important responses to the challenges and difficulties that the events of recent days have repeatedly highlighted.”

On May 24th, the Technion awarded Ph.D. diplomas to 199 graduate students in a festive and moving ceremony at the Kellner Amphitheater. The ceremony was attended by the new graduates, their families, Technion management, Faculty deans, and staff.

Approximately 43% of new Ph.D. graduates are women, a new record, and a significant increase over previous years. Most of the graduates (124) are native Israeli, and the rest are from all over the world, including the U.S., Canada, France, Austria, Ukraine, Uruguay, Italy, Belgium, Brazil, Germany, India, and China. 

The faculties with the highest number of graduates are the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine (27), Civil and Environmental Engineering (19), and Physics (16); 205 supervisors oversaw the doctoral candidates throughout their studies. Overseeing the supervisors is Head of the Faculty and Dean of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, Prof. Marcelle Machluf whose five students were among those receiving a Ph.D. degree during the ceremony.

Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan: “This is a celebration for all of you, who today can add ‘Dr.’ to your name, a celebration for your families who have accompanied you along the way, and a celebration for us, your teachers. We’ve accompanied you on the long road, taught you what we know, and just as importantly, we’ve learned from you. We have no doubt that you have acquired the best professional tools here. If you also know how to deal with the professional dilemmas you come across in social, environmental, and ethical contexts if you are a beacon of tolerance, equality, and empathy, and if you continue to ask questions – then we have done our job.”

Dean of the Graduate School Prof. Dan Givoli: “I have always believed that the two most important factors that impact the Technion’s prosperity are faculty members and doctoral students. You and your supervisors are the research foundations of the Technion.” 

In addition, Prof. Givoli presented some data related to the current cohort: “One-third of the graduates took the direct Ph.D. track; three of the graduates are new immigrants, who immediately began their Ph.D. research at the Technion, in 2016; two graduates are a married couple – Dr. Ekhlas Homede Abo Jabal and Dr. Mohammad Abo Jabal, who completed their studies at the Technion and now teach at the Guangdong Technion-Israel Institute of Technology (GTIIT) in China. The ratio of supervisors to students was very high because many of them had more than one supervisor – a result of blurring boundaries between the disciplines and strengthening the interdisciplinary nature of scientific research.”

This trend is reflected in the research of Dr. Gil Wang of the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, who gave the valedictory speech on behalf of the new graduates. Dr. Wang completed his Ph.D. under the supervision of three Technion faculty members: Prof. Yiska Goldfeld, Prof. Nitai Drimer, and Prof. Yehiel Rosenfeld. “At the Technion, I was exposed to the heterogeneous, diverse, Israeli society, rich in colors and beliefs,” he said at the ceremony. “I look at the Technion – at us – and it gives me hope and fills me with optimism. The Technion model, which emphasizes perseverance, hard work, and the constant pursuit of excellence, makes any polarization in Israeli society irrelevant.”

Dr. Wang added that some of his peers “will continue their research here and overseas, some will go into the industry, others will go into teaching, and others to consulting, management and startups; but all fellow graduates will continue to lead and excel because this is their way, this is the Technion way.”

“Leadership and personal accountability are the most effective response”

Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan said: “In recent weeks, we’ve learned that the Technion plays a major role in dealing with both external and internal threats. The external crisis highlighted the extensive technological role Technion graduates played, and still play. But I want to focus on the other role of the Technion, as a factor in the healing of society’s divisions. Since its inception, the Technion has championed equality and tolerance. For 100 years, it has maintained an apolitical identity and has given male and female students the opportunity to live and learn in an atmosphere of tolerance, equality, and mutual respect, as part of our social commitment. We expect you to continue in this way. Leadership and personal accountability are the most effective and important response to the challenges and difficulties that the events of recent days have repeatedly highlighted.”

Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan

Technion’s youngest new Doctor is Arik Girsault, who completed his Ph.D. at the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering under the supervision of Prof. Amit Meller. Arik, 28, holds dual French and Swiss citizenship and is likely to soon be granted Israeli citizenship as well. 

He was born in Paris, the son of a Swiss businessman and a French lawyer, and spent a large part of his childhood and youth moving from city to city due to his parents’ work. He studied at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, from which he received his BSc and MSc in Life Sciences and Bioengineering. As he neared the end of his MSc program, “some of my professors recommended that I continue studying toward a Ph.D. at the Technion, which fitted in perfectly with my Zionist sentiments,” he says. “I wanted to spend time in Israel.”

Dr. Arik Girsault

Arik arrived at the Technion and met with some of the staff members at the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering. He based his decision on his impression of the supervisor and the students in the lab. For four and a half years, he worked on his major project, under Prof. Amit Meller’s supervision: the development of an advanced microscope for monitoring intracellular biomolecular processes at high temporal resolution. According to Prof. Meller, “Arik was an outstanding multidisciplinary student. He developed high skills in building a STED (Stimulated Emission Depletion) optical microscope, in preparing complex biological samples, and in computerized information processing using software that he himself developed.”

Arik devoted the little free time he had during his research to playing on the Technion tennis team and to reading books on Jewish thought. After completing his degree, he returned to visit his parents in Switzerland, but this is by no means his final destination. Arik decided to make Aliya and has already completed most of the formal arrangements. And what will he be doing here? “For the time being, all options are open – academia, industry, everything – but I have a feeling that I will be deciding in favor of the startup world, which seems challenging and interesting, and there is nowhere better than Israel to do this.”

The oldest new Doctor is Dr. Tirza Lauterman, 58, who completed her thesis under the supervision of Prof. Rakefet Ackerman of the Davidson Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management. Dr. Lauterman first came to the Technion as a soldier-student in 1981, and after completing a BSc in Information Systems Engineering at the Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management, she enlisted in the Navy, where she served for many years. Over the years, she advanced through the ranks, and her last position was Head of the Information Systems Branch of the Navy. In 2007, she retired with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. 

Dr. Tirza Lauterman

In 2010, nearly 30 years after she began her undergraduate studies, she began studying toward her master’s degree that continued into a Ph.D. Her research was in the field of problem-solving, and specifically the first impressions of people on encountering a problem and the consequences of this impression on coping with the problem. “After much research, we have come to the conclusion that first impressions determine a lot, just as they do with meeting people, and it significantly affects the time and effort that they will invest in solving the problem, as well as the final answer that comes after deep thought,” she says. “Acknowledging the existence of primary judgment is important for understanding engineering problems, and it also affects how tests and challenges are designed. If we design them in a way that will create confidence in the person’s ability to solve the problem, we will improve the person’s chances of solving it, and on the other hand, if we transmit an exaggerated impression of ease, the person might waste time trying in vain.”

Dr. Lauterman currently teaches at the Technion and at the Open University, and in the coming academic year, she will also begin teaching at Bar Ilan University. She is married, a mother of three, and a grandmother.

 

In a recent breakthrough, scientists from the Technion Faculty of Biomedical Engineering were able to achieve recognition of specific geometric patterns – for example, letters – by engineered microbe colonies imitating an artificial neural network. The scientists’ method relies on a modification of the way communication occurs within microbe colonies in nature. The study, led by Dr. Ximing Li and Assistant Professor Ramez Daniel, was published in Nature Communications.

L-R: Assistant Professor Ramez Daniel and Dr. Ximing Li

The interest of Prof. Daniel’s lab lies in synthetic biology, specifically in generating biological circuits, in essence combining the principles of biology and electronics. Like electronic switches that can be turned on and off, cells are engineered to “turn on” and perform a function, for example, fluorescence, in response to a particular stimulus. Using this technique, the group has already engineered biological sensors that recognize the presence of arsenic and other poisons in water or the presence of blood in urine.

But cells are capable of more complex functions than a simple yes/no switch. Microbial colonies in nature are capable of communication within the colony. For example, they may respond differently when they are alone and when there are many of them together. This phenomenon, called “quorum sensing,” is also at play for example when our immune system mobilizes against an infection – information is passed regarding what the pathogen is, how much of a response is required, and more. One cell alone might be “dumb,” but the colony is “smart.” It is this phenomenon that Prof. Daniel’s group utilized in order to increase the algorithmic complexity of the task by a factor, and, for the first time, generate a biological circuit acting as an artificial neural network, capable of performing the relatively complex task of pattern recognition. Its building blocks: engineered E. coli bacteria.

Geometric patterns are a proof of concept of what biological circuits acting as an artificial neural network can do. In the future, we might see bioengineered systems monitoring toxins, diagnosing cancer, and being used in tissue regeneration. We might even have biological computers. It is interesting to observe how synthetic biology, seeking to imitate electronics in biological systems, has come a full circle, creating a likeness of an artificial neural network, which is of course inspired by the human brain – itself a biological system.

Prof. Daniel started working on biological computing during his postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), initially on analog computation. Biological circuits acting as an artificial neural network are a novel development and a conceptual advancement in the same field. It was made possible with the assistance of Associate Professor Netanel Korin, also from the Technion Faculty of Biomedical Engineering. Dr. Li is a postdoctoral fellow in Prof. Daniel’s laboratory. She completed her Ph.D. in computational neuroscience at the University of Ohio.

Click here for the paper in Nature Communications 

 

 

 

Technion and Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein, one of Latin America’s largest hospitals, sign MOU to support student exchange, collaborative research, and clinical trials

The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein in Sao Paulo, Brazil, establishing a three-year collaboration between the Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and the Brazilian hospital, one of Latin America’s largest. The MOU will support student exchange, clinical trials, and collaborative research projects between the two institutions. 

The ceremony took place via video conferencing on May 6, and the MOU was signed by Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan and President of the Albert Einstein Hospital, Dr. Sidney Klajner. 

(L-R) Shaul Shashoua, a member of the Friends of the Technion in Brazil, Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan, and Technion Vice President for External Relations and Resource Development Prof. Alon Wolf

Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein specializes in cardiology, oncology, orthopedics, surgery, and neurology. The hospital, which was founded by the Jewish community of Brazil 66 years ago, was named as the best hospital in Brazil in 2020 by Newsweek. As part of the collaboration, students studying at the Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine will go to the hospital each year for clinical rounds – which most students typically do in hospitals in Israel; similarly, students studying at the hospital in Brazil will be able to do the clinical rotation in the affiliated hospitals of the Technion Faculty of Medicine. In some cases, graduate students studying at the Albert Einstein Hospital will be allowed to spend an extended period at the Technion Faculty of Medicine and its affiliated hospitals.

The connection between the Technion and the hospital was made through Shaul Shashoua, a member of the Friends of the Technion in Brazil. The ceremony was also attended by Technion Vice President for External Relations and Resource Development Prof. Alon Wolf; President of the Friends of the Technion Society in Brazil Salomao Ioschpe; Prof. Dr. Luiz Vicente Rizzo, VP of R&D at the Albert Einstein Hospital; and Prof. Alexandre Holthausen Campos. From the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion attended: The Dean, Prof. Elon Eisenberg; Prof. Yaron Har-Shai, Vice Dean for Strategic Development; Prof. Simone Engelender, senior researcher; and others. 

Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein representatives after signing the agreement

“The Technion and Albert Einstein are two institutions focused on the betterment of people’s lives, no matter where they live, no matter which language they speak, and no matter what their beliefs are,” Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan said at the signing ceremony. “The essence of our collaboration agreement is bettering the lives of people by promoting and disseminating knowledge.” 

President of the Albert Einstein Hospital, Dr. Sidney Klajner: “Our hospital symbolizes the value of saving lives, which is so important in Jewish tradition. Albert Einstein was founded on four Jewish precepts: mitzvah, refuah, chinuch, and tzedakah (good deeds, healing, education, charity). It is very exciting to be here at this moment of signing an agreement between two institutions that share a common aspiration to improve human life in Brazil and Israel.” 

Dean of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Prof. Elon Eisenberg: “The hospital fully understands the importance of inter-institutional cooperation in promoting science and education in medicine. I look to the future with hope and am confident that this is the beginning of an important scientific and educational relationship.”

Prof. Yaron Har-Shai, Deputy Dean of Strategic Development at the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine: “In science, it is impossible to move forward without cooperation, including international cooperation. Therefore, we established an international center in the faculty a few years ago that deals with the faculty’s global relations. Over time, thanks to the support of the deans and the hard work of Matan Raz and Stephanie Schneor, we have partnered with more than 10 leading university hospitals in the U.S., Germany and Australia, mainly for student exchange.  I have no doubt that the exposure of our students to hospitals abroad gives them not only a great deal of knowledge but also a richer view of health systems overseas and makes them better doctors. In addition, the professional relationships that are forged with the medical staff abroad will accompany them during their medical careers.”

Prof. Simone Englander, a faculty member originally from Brazil, played an important role in creating the collaboration with the hospital. “Shortly before the outbreak of coronavirus, a large team of doctors from the hospital in Brazil came here and introduced us to each other… paving the way for future scientific research and collaboration,” she said. 

“There is nothing more satisfying in a president’s post than unleashing the creativity of young people. I look forward to seeing the fruits of your innovation and free spirit,” said Prof. Uri Sivan, President of the Technion, at the opening of the EuroTech Innovation day, hosted by the Technion on April 28, 2021. 

Indeed, Innovation Day was all about creativity and entrepreneurship. Students from the six universities that constitute the EuroTech Alliance enjoyed a rich program jampacked with informative talks, a biomedical engineering hackathon, and a startup competition. Some 850 students from all six participating universities joined the lectures online; 3,000 people were present to vote on the winners of the startup competition; and 49 students were selected out of numerous applicants to participate in the BioMed hackathon.

The full-day online event program was clustered into 30 short lectures, spanning five different themes: Boosting Entrepreneurship, Students on the Forefront of Academia Innovation, From Product to Market, On the Critical Role of Supporting Environments, and Startups & Ventures – with representatives of all universities speaking on each subject. Keynote Speaker Gilad Japhet, Founder & CEO of MyHeritage, shared practical tips for beginning entrepreneurs from his own experience in establishing and expanding Genetic Ancestry Research company MyHeritage.

Startup competition features wearable device, robotic catheter

The day culminated with a startup competition, presenting budding startups (founded in 2020) born in each of the six institutions. The audience could cast a vote to pick their favorite project. The winner of this popular vote was Technion startup Harmony, a FemTech initiative developing a wearable, continuous, and non-invasive tracker to monitor women’s hormonal levels, aiming to ease the process of IVF, but also relevant for avoiding pregnancy, or alternatively for increasing the chances of getting pregnant. Second place was taken by another Technion startup – Robotip Medical, developing a flexible steerable robotic catheter for vascular catherization. Third place went to the Technical University of Denmark startup USOR Design, which is developing a harvest fire prevention system. 

Parallel to the Innovation Day, Technion’s Faculty of Biomedical Engineering hosted the “BME-HACK,” an online hackathon. Approximately 50 students from participating universities and from different scientific fields got a taste of establishing a biomedical startup: they chose medical challenges to focus on, examined what already exists to tackle those challenges, consulted physicians, proposed novel solutions, and worked with mentors from the scientific and the commercial fields to design a product and plan a business model. 

In the end of a long day of ideation and development, after each team presented its solution in a Facebook Live event, four winning teams were chosen to receive a total prize of 2,800 Euros, sponsored by NGT3-VC, Philips and Biosense Webster (J&J). The winning team proposed a solution for the topic of at-home dental caries detection, two teams shared the second place, proposing solutions for the prevention of pressure ulcers and for drug repurposing, and the audience favorite was a proposed treatment for Multiple Sclerosis. The hackathon was organized and supervised by Dr. Yael Rozen, applied research consultant, and Lilach Lorber, Director of External Affairs at the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering.

At-home dental monitoring – one of the winning innovations.

Celebrating the alliance’s 10th anniversary 

The EuroTech Innovation Day hosted by the Technion marks an important part of EuroTech’s 10th anniversary events. The EuroTech Universities Alliance is a partnership of leading European universities of science and technology, which includes the Technical University of Denmark, the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, the École Polytechnique, the Eindhoven University of Technology, the Technical University of Munich, and the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. It aims to foster both research and entrepreneurship, combining the complementary strengths of its partner universities to jointly achieve multilayered, large-scale initiatives, as well as raising awareness of the opportunities offered by science and technology.

The Innovation Day was organized and managed on behalf of the Technion by Gady Paran, Director of Marketing at t-hub, the Technion’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center, and produced by Meital Gotfrid, Head of the Conferences Department at the Technion’s Unit for Continuing Studies.

The Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Technion will henceforth be known as the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering – in light of evolving world trends and recent developments in the field 

The Technion Faculty of Electrical Engineering will change its name to The Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The addition of the term “Computer” to the title reflects a long process of expansion of the traditional electrical engineering discipline into numerous, diverse spheres related to computer engineering. The Technion Senate recently approved the change of name of the long-standing faculty, which is the largest in the Technion alongside the Henry and Marilyn Taub Faculty of Computer Science.

Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan (on the right) and Faculty Dean Prof. Nahum Shimkin unveiling the new sign

The Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Technion was established 86 years ago, in 1935. In 1949, when the State of Israel celebrated its first birthday, the Electrotechnical Department was established under the leadership of Professor Franz Ollendorff, a world-renowned scientist and later recipient of the Israel Prize. In 1956, the faculty was relocated from the historical Technion building in the Hadar neighborhood to today’s campus, and in 1965 it was renamed the Faculty of Electrical Engineering.

Since the faculty’s inception, its alumni have been driving the development of Israeli high-tech. In the words of its Dean Professor Nahum Shimkin, “The title ‘electrical engineering’ has accompanied us for more than five decades. We look back on our past achievements with pride and look ahead to the future and the technological advances yet to come. The present change is designed to reflect the broad fields of research and teaching at the faculty. As a modern, leading academic electrical and computer engineering department, our areas of specialization and research encompass most high-tech related disciplines, including microelectronics and nanoelectronics, electromagnetics and photonics, quantum technology, energy and power systems, electronic circuits and computer chip design, signal and image processing, machine learning and intelligent systems, robotics and control, communication engineering and information theory, computer communication networks, computer systems engineering, and more. Renaming the faculty and expanding its areas of activity are in line with the global trend, and particularly with the U.S., where most of the leading electrical engineering departments have already changed their names similarly.”

Distinguished Prof. Shlomo Shamai (on the left) and Distinguished Prof. Emeritus Jacob Ziv

Technion President Professor Uri Sivan praised the decision and said, “This is a day of celebration. The change of name reflects the faculty’s most important feature – the ability to innovate and keep abreast of the latest trends and developments. By recruiting outstanding staff members, the faculty has succeeded in continuously broadening its fields of research and teaching, in maintaining its leading position in research in the global arena, and in making a great contribution to the Israeli economy. I know the faculty will not rest on its laurels but will continue to expand its areas of research and teaching into new and future worlds of technology.”

In a video greeting broadcast at the ceremony, Dr. Andrew Viterbi, after whom the faculty is named, said, “I am always happy to congratulate the Technion community – students, professors, and staff, and especially those in the faculty whose name is changing today.” Dr. Viterbi, one of the founders of Qualcomm, inventor of the Viterbi algorithm and past recipient of the IEEE Medal of Honor, made many major contributions to the faculty, the largest of which was $50 million in 2015.

“Electrical engineering and computer science could not exist without each other,” he said. “It’s clear that without the breakthroughs of the electronic engineers and physicists of the 1940s and 50s, there would be no computers in the 19th century, and on the other hand, Professor Charles Begge of Cambridge tried – and failed – to build a computer without electricity, so, today let us rejoice with a Shehecheyanu [prayer] at the recognition of the union between Electrical and Computer Engineering.”

Distinguished Professor Emeritus Jacob Ziv, recipient of the Israel Prize and the EMET Prize for Art, Science and Culture, who recently won the IEEE Medal of Honor – the highest recognition of the International Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers – said, “The faculty’s quality is grounded in three foundational pillars that provide reciprocal feedback: a rich study and research program that not only helps graduates to find jobs in industry, but also cultivates their ability to survive in a world of technological innovation; recruitment of the finest students, some of whom will want to progress to graduate studies and pursue research; and recruitment of excellent staff who will conduct future innovative, cutting-edge technology research.”

Faculty Dean Prof. Shimkin added, “This faculty, under its former name, which is proudly borne by more than fifteen thousand alumni, has a privileged standing in the development of the Israeli high-tech industry, and is world-renowned as a center of excellence in research and teaching. Under our new name, we will continue to aspire to carry out world-class cutting-edge research, providing our graduates with the finest engineering education available in all spheres of electrical engineering, electronics and computer engineering.”

Chairman of the Faculty Students Committee Elad Paritzki said, “We students at the faculty love the change of name because it represents the expansion of the faculty’s activities. This is a faculty that is characterized by a young, entrepreneurial spirit and a broad range of disciplines, and when I look back, I know that I made the right choice. On behalf of the students and alumni, I thank the faculty, which is a second home to us all.” 

Associate Professor Omri Barak of the Technion has won a prestigious grant for an international research project on memory in biology, computing, and materials

Associate Professor Omri Barak

Associate Professor Omri Barak, a member of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and a partner in the Network Biology Research Laboratories at the Lorry I. Lokey Interdisciplinary Center for Life Sciences & Engineering at Technion, has won an HSFP research grant. The grant will support a collaborative research project between Prof. Barak, who will be responsible for the theoretical aspect, and two experimenters: Prof. Nathan Keim of the Department of Physics at the University of Pennsylvania and Prof. Mathew Diamond of the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste, Italy.

The goal of the project, which is entitled “Memory – from Material to Mind”, is to find common and connecting properties between different memory systems: biological memory, computational memory, and physical memory (shape-memory materials). According to Prof. Barak, “In our joint research, we will be looking for principles that repeat themselves in these different disciplines, and will examine whether insights from one discipline, physical memory, for example, can be applied to another discipline, such as computational memory.”

The three-way collaboration will be based on the input in physics (materials with memory) provided by the American partner, Prof. Keim, and in biology (memory experiments with rats), provided by the Italian partner, Prof. Diamond, with Prof. Barak’s expertise in neural networks serving as a bridge between the two. “In a certain sense,” he explains, “I will be trying to create a common language between the disciplines. The prevalent approach to theoretical research into neural networks is based on complex connections between simple parts. On the other hand, it’s a known fact that neurons themselves are far from simple. Translating the properties of materials with memory into this network language will provide an understanding of the effect of building blocks of greater complexity on the memory capabilities of neural networks. By carefully examining what is common to the different kinds of memory and how they are different, we will attempt to further our knowledge of all three.”

HFSP – The Human Frontier Science Program – funds international frontier research in the life sciences under the umbrella theme “Complex mechanisms of living organisms”. The program mainly funds risky projects of the kind that are unlikely to be supported by the industry, which are executed by researchers who have not collaborated previously.

This year, grants totaling 33 million dollars were approved to support a small minority (4%) of the 709 groups that applied for a research grant. Each of the recipients will receive around 120,000 dollars per year over the three coming years. According to the announcement by the International Human Frontier Science Program Organization, “The 2021 HFSP investigators display remarkable depth in approach and innovative thinking.”

There is much talk about green energy throughout the world. The Paris Agreement incentivizes switching to renewable energy sources, and indeed, green energy appears very attractive, with its promises of no pollution and no need to extract fossil fuels. The sun and the wind are there, and all we need to do is harness them to produce electricity. On the face of it, those same factors should also make green energy cheaper to produce.

What then stands in the way of shifting our energy production to these sustainable sources? And why hasn’t the world already shifted to renewable energy?

Pioneering efficient batteries for green energy, Technion Prof. Matthew Suss.

One of the challenges of switching energy production to sun and wind is their irregularity: wind rises or dies down. The sun rises and sets, or it is obscured by clouds. At times, energy production using these sources is effective, but at other times, production falls while consumption does not. A power plant that only provides electricity during the daylight hours, for example, cannot answer a population’s needs. It follows that energy must be produced when it can be, and stored, to be released when it is needed. In essence, a solar power plant would need to charge big batteries during the day, to be used during the night. Batteries of such scale, however, are very expensive, both in initial costs and in maintenance.

Understanding why batteries are so expensive requires a closer look at how they function. For commercial use, flow batteries are used. They differ from dry batteries (commonly used in home devices) and lemon batteries (familiar from school experiments) in that the two electrolytes (liquids with dissolved positively and negatively charged particles) are not static, but pumped through the system. A selective membrane separating the two liquids prevents self-discharging. The interacting chemicals on two counter electrodes produce the electric current. 

The membrane, unfortunately, is the most expensive element of the battery stack. Its price accounts for up to 40% of the initial costs of the battery stack. Furthermore, the membrane requires maintenance and must be replaced continually due to wear. The electrolytes, in contrast, can last 20 years or more. Reducing the price of the membrane, or else finding a way to eliminate it, would provide a significant boost to the cost-effectivity of sustainable energy.

Technion M.Sc. student Lihi Amit

This is exactly what Technion M.Sc. student Lihi Amit set out to achieve, under the supervision of Technion Faculty of Mechanical Engineering Professor Matthew Suss from The Nancy and Stephen Grand Technion Energy Program, and working together with Danny Naar, Dr. Robert Gloukhovski, in collaboration with Dr. Gerardo Jose la O’ from Primus Power Inc. Their recent article in ChemSusChem was featured on the journal’s cover.

The researchers’ approach was to entirely eliminate the membrane. If the two electrolytes could flow together without intermixing, in a similar way to how oil and water can share a container without mixing, and only interact with each other in a controlled manner to produce an electric current, the need for the membrane would be eliminated. The team constructed a flow battery using bromine and zinc – cheap and readily available materials — and used a non-propriety complexing agent. The complexing agent trapped the bromine in bubble-like droplets, producing an oil-and-water effect, and releasing only as much bromine as was necessary at any given moment for maintaining the electric current. In effect, the expensive membrane of the battery was replaced with the cheap and fluid membrane of each individual droplet.

The study proved the feasibility of this novel approach to flow batteries and characterized its performance – a necessary step on the way to commercial use. One can hope that in the future cheap membrane-less flow batteries will permit the widespread use of sustainable but inconstant energy sources.

Click here for the paper in ChemSusChem

Illustration: A single-flow battery with multiphase flow

 

DIAGNOSTICS

  • Creating an Open and Safe Campus. Monitoring the sewage system for COVID-19 residue to track the spread of the virus, Prof. Eran Friedler, Civil and Environmental Engineering*
  • Diagnostic test for pre-symptomatic COVID-19 carriers: Prof. Hossam Haick, Chemical Engineering 
  • Using AI to evaluate a patient’s condition, Profs. Shie Mannor, Uri Shalit, Joachim Behar, Electrical Engineering, Industrial Engineering and Management, Biomedical Engineering
  • Saliva-based microscale diagnostics, Prof. Moran Bercovici, Mechanical Engineering*
  • Monitoring the sewage system for COVID-19 residue to track the spread of the virus, Prof. Eran Friedler, Civil and Environmental Engineering*
  • Mathematical model with user interface for epidemiological analysis of COVID-19 epidemic, Prof. Nir Gavish, Mathematics*
  • Rapid testing kit for COVID-19 diagnosis , Prof. Naama Geva-Zatorsky, Medicine*
  • Diagnostic test for pre-symptomatic COVID-19 carriers, Prof. Hossam Haick, Chemical Engineering
  • Pooling method for accelerated testing of COVID-19 , Prof. Roy Kishony, Biology*
  • Genetic changes in COVID-19 patients over time as a tool for predicting disease progression, Prof. Yael Mandel-Gutfreund, Biology
  • Using AI to evaluate a patient’s condition, Profs. Shie Mannor, Uri Shalit, Joachim Behar, Electrical Engineering, Industrial Engineering and Management, Biomedical Engineering
  • Identifying and quantifying RNA using nanopores, Prof. Amit Meller, Biomedical Engineering
  • Sensor for rapid COVID-19 diagnosis using CRISPR technology, Prof. Daniel Ramez, Biomedical Engineering
  • Thermal imaging camera for remote measurement of vital signs, Prof. Yonatan Savir, Medicine*
  • Advanced microscopy techniques to detect COVID-19 antibodies in the blood, Prof.  Yoav Shechtman, Biomedical Engineering
  • Monitoring the immune status and identifying high-risk patients, Prof. Shai Shen-Orr, Medicine*
  • Diagnostic testing based on throat cultures and blood and urine samples, Prof. Tomer Shlomi, Computer Science
  • Non-invasive blood test to diagnose COVID-19 patients, Prof. Dvir Yelin, Biomedical Engineering
  • Rapid and accurate diagnostic techniques,Prof. Gilad Yossifon and Prof. Yehezkel Kashi, Mechanical Engineeing, Biotechnology and Food Engineering
  • AI powered smart stethoscope, Prof. Yehoshua Zeevi and Prof. Rafael Beyar, Electrical Engineering, Medicine
  • Virology collaborative research lab, Prof. Yotam Bar-On, Medicine

 

VACCINE DEVELOPMENT

 

THERAPEUTICS

  • ACE-2 receptor based therapies for COVID-19, Prof. Zaid Abassi I Medicine*
  • Ointment COVID-19 infections, Prof. Roee Amit, Biotechnology and Food Engineering
  • Respirators using microturbines, Prof. Beni Cukurel, Aerospace Engineering
  • Drug development, Prof. Zeev Gross, Chemistry
  • COVID-19 patient breathing patterns: Interaction between respiratory, heart and cardiovascular systems, Prof. Amir Landsberg, Biomedical Engineering
  • Trapping COVID-19 using existing nano-ghost technology I Prof. Marcelle Machluf, Biotechnology and Food Engineering
  • Characterizing cannabinoids to inhibit the cytokine storm and suppress the ACE-2 receptor I Prof. David Meiri, Biology
  • Targeted drug delivery for ARDS, Prof. Avi Schroeder, Chemical Engineering
  • Direct drug delivery to the lungs, Prof. Dror Seliktar, Biomedical Engineering
  • Drug development for rapid healing of damaged tissue, Prof. Yuval Shaked, Medicine
  • Liquid Foam Therapy (LIFT) for ARDS I Prof. Josué Sznitman I Biomedical Engineering*
  • Heparin-like drugs to inhibit COVID-19 infection and its progression, Prof. Israel Vlodavsky, Medicine

 

AIDES FOR MEDICAL TEAMS

 

Browse the online archives of press releases from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology for the past five years