Israel was plunged into war on October 7, when Hamas terrorists from Gaza launched an unprecedented attack on the country’s southern border communities, killing 1,400 people, abducting hundreds and wounding thousands more. 

And for the more than 1.5 million people in Israel living with disabilities, it has been a time of quiet suffering, frequently isolated and struggling to ask for the practical and emotional help they need. 

Determined to aid this often overlooked community, an organization that supports autistic people has created a new online service to help them get that assistance. 

The ESNA Initiative (short for Emergency Special Needs Assistance) acts as a universal portal for disabled people who have a specific need or request, but feel unable to search for it themselves. 

A screenshot from the ESNA website. The text in yellow reads: “You are not alone”

The platform brings together specialist organisations, helplines, professionals and volunteers in one place, in order to ease the process of finding the best response to a disabled person’s specific need from a potentially overwhelming maze of resources. 

Once the person has completed a simple online form, the volunteers staffing the ESNA platform reach out to help them make contact with the relevant body or professionals. 

“Our volunteers make the match, contact an organization, ask them if they can help this specific person, make that connection and ensure that the problem has been solved,” Ilana Mushkin, one of the creators of the initiative, tells NoCamels. 

The initiative was born out of Hackautism, an organisation encouraging startups that ease the daily lives of people with autism. Following the events of October 7, Hackautism co-founder Mushkin brought together women connected to that organization to find a way of supporting Israel’s disabled community.

These women included Hackautism spokesperson Karin Tamir and Moria Barak, the founder of StellarAI, a startup to train autistic people in the field of AI data classification. 

Hackautism co-founder Rimon Tubin, left, with his son Yuval, who inspired him to create the organization (Courtesy)

There are many resources for people with disabilities, says Mushkin. The problem is that narrowing it down to which hotline or organization is best suited for the individual can be daunting, especially in times of war when people are under extraordinary stress. 

“I would guess that there are hundreds if not thousands of organizations and hotlines out there,” she says. “There are so many of them right now, but you have to know how to reach them and make sure your request gets processed.”

The ESNA initiative began as a WhatsApp group, which was almost instantly flooded with requests for help.

“We realized that if we wanted to be able to really give help on a large scale, we needed a system that was much more sustainable,” says Mushkin. 

Using technology donated by monday.com, a NASDAQ-listed project management software company based in Tel Aviv, ESNA was able to create a bespoke platform that handles both incoming requests and its many points of contact for assistance. 

ESNA began as a WhatsApp group, which was almost instantly flooded with requests for help (Courtesy Porapak Apichodilok/Pexels)

“The system lets us receive a large number of requests for help and deal with them very efficiently,” she explains.  

Volunteers use a triage system, categorizing each request in order of urgency and dealing with the most time-sensitive issues first.

And for the people in need of assistance, says Mushkin, the site is as simple as it can be. 

The webpage includes just five links. The first four links are: for individuals seeking help, which leads to the simple request form; for urgent cases, which leads to a WhatsApp chat with an ESNA volunteer; for would-be volunteers; and for organizations and operation centers wishing to participate in the initiative. 

The final link leads to a Zoom meeting room, which is open every day from 8am to 10pm and is also staffed by ESNA volunteers.

“It’s for the people that need to talk to somebody,” says Mushkin of the Zoom feature. 

“Maybe they can’t fill out a form, maybe they’re too frazzled to even wrap their heads around it.

“They can go into our Zoom room where someone will talk to them, help them fill out the form, and connect them to an expert in the field in real-time if need be.”

Illustrative: For individuals who feel to frazzled to fill out a form, there is an ESNA Zoom room that is open from 8am to 10pm (Courtesy Anna Shvets/Pexels)

The hundreds of people who have already used the platform have sought assistance with a wide range of issues. 

One case, shares Mushkin, was of a mother with two children on the autism spectrum who came under fire from Hamas terrorists while evacuating their community in the south of the country. Israeli soldiers saved them at the very last minute, and the family managed to reach the safety of Even Yehuda, a town in central Israel. 

ESNA was able to quickly find volunteers from the same city to bring them food and provide them with psychological support. 

Another case was of a blind woman who was evacuated from Nahariya on the Lebanese border, and had been forced to leave her home without her cane. She found refuge at a hotel in Tel Aviv, but was unable to replace her cane unaided. 

ESNA volunteers helped buy and deliver a replacement cane for a blind woman who was evacuated from northern Israel (Courtesy Eren Li/Pexels)

ESNA was able to contact a center for the blind to open their shop for one of the organization’s volunteers to buy a replacement cane and deliver it to her. 

“No bot, no AI, nothing like that could have answered these kinds of cases,” says Mushkin. 

ESNA is not the only initiative offering services to disabled people in need. Other initiatives include Shavvim (Hebrew for equals), an online media outlet for people with disabilities, which has collaborated with former member of Knesset and deaf activist Shirly Pinto to open a 24/7 situation room. 

This project also aids individuals who need help with essential requests such as finding psychological assistance, refilling prescriptions and buying groceries.  

ESNA’s partners include the National Israeli Society for Children and Adults with Autism (ALUT), which provides a range of services for people with autism of all ages nationwide; Access Israel, whose main mission is to promote accessibility and inclusion among all sectors; and Brothers in Arms, an organisation of IDF reservists who provide full-time aid and relief to those in need. 

A Hackautism volunteer (Courtesy)

The platform also has 15 other initiatives created through Hackautism that are available to assist with specific requests. “We are proud to offer innovative solutions to the challenges we now face,” says Rimon Tubin, co-founder of Hackautism. 

The entire ESNA platform is managed by a team of around two dozen volunteers and ESNA is actively seeking more help to address the growing number of daily requests. 

“People can volunteer in an impactful way from their home or from their office,” says Mushkin.

“All it takes is to go into our system and connect these people with the organizations that could best help them,” she explains. “It’s very gratifying.”

To donate to Hackautism, click here.

Kfar Aza resident Neta Portal woke up to the sound of warning sirens in her apartment with her partner Santiago on the morning of October 7. Despite hiding out in their safe room, terrorists penetrated the door with bullets before throwing a grenade that forced Neta and Santiago to flee from the apartment through a window. While escaping, Neta retained seven gunshot wounds to her legs while Santiago suffered from a gunshot to his back. The couple was ultimately rescued and treated in the hospital, but both still have a long way to go to heal.

Now, Neta is back on her feet – literally – thanks to Assistant Professor Dana Solav of the Technion Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Dr. Amir Haim, director of the Biomechanical Rehabilitation Unit and senior physician at the Loewenstein Rehabilitation Center. The two created a unique orthotic device tailored specifically for Neta based on 3D scans of her leg to aid her in walking while her injured ankle is unable to bear weight. They developed the technology under the guidance of Professor Alon Wolf during their studies at the Technion and have maintained a rewarding professional relationship since.

The device’s purpose is to enable the recovery of mobility while practicing natural and symmetrical walking under the requirement that the ankle is entirely or partially offloaded. It effectively transfers weight to the healthy part of the leg above the injury, allowing walking without causing pain. It features an adjustment mechanism that allows for a gradual and measured increase of weight-bearing of the affected part of the leg, according to the level permitted by the clinical condition.

Credit: Chen Galili, Technion Spokesperson’s Office

According to Prof. Solav, the device allows the knee and hip joints to move and function normally, which helps prevent muscle atrophy and bone density reduction – especially in long-term rehabilitation processes. The 3D scanning technology eliminates the need for a traditional plaster cast, and the computational design process facilitates the fabrication process, which combines a lightweight aluminum frame and 3D-printed parts.

Along with her research team of students and engineers, Prof. Solav is continuing to develop and improve the device for other uses, such as assisting diabetic patients who cannot walk due to pressure ulcers on their feet. The team is also planning to conduct clinical trials in collaboration with Loewenstein Rehabilitation Center and hopes to see how the orthosis can aid in walking rehabilitation.

In an interview with Ynet, Neta shared her gratitude and optimism: “Before the operation, thanks to the Technion’s device, I already managed to take several steps and jump on my right leg. It’s important for me to say that the work carried out by the team is amazing, and it has become an integral part of my rehab. They were very attentive and responsive. I was in a wheelchair for almost three months, and thanks to them, I went back to walking on my feet, even if not completely. They don’t know yet whether I will fully recover, but I hope so.”

Researchers at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa have developed a new tool to determine whether a cancer patient is predisposed to an advanced kind of treatment called immunotherapy. 

The immune system contains “checkpoints” to prevent it from attacking cancer cells too strongly, as this would also potentially damage nearby healthy cells. 

Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) suppress this action and allow the immune system to attack the cancer cells, but they are only effective in less than 40 percent of patients and tools currently being used to predict the drug’s efficacy are not completely accurate. 

Now, according to Prof. Keren Yizhak and Ofir Shorer, how well a patient responds to ICI therapy can be predicted by the metabolic activity in their immune system cells, as they battle any cancer cells in their environment for nutrients and other resources. 

The two are members of the Technion’s Bruce and Ruth Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and the Rappaport Family Institute for Research in the Medical Sciences. 

To make sure of the accuracy of the tool, Yizhak and Shorer analyzed some 1,700 metabolic genes taken from over one million immune cells of cancer patients receiving ICI. 

The study was recently published under the title “Metabolic predictors of response to immune checkpoint blockade therapy” by the US National Center for Biotechnology Information. 

An Israeli startup that uses artificial intelligence to diagnose cancer has unveiled a new solution that will help pathologists detect the specific treatments that will benefit breast cancer patients most. 

Ibex Medical Analytics’ Galen Breast HER2 platform can accurately determine the expression in cancer slides of the protein HER2, which is responsible for the proliferation of breast cancer cells. 

The platform uses AI to analyze the slides, identify the tumor cells and rapidly calculate the HER2 score of the tissue. The results are highlighted for the pathologist, who can review them and make a final decision as to what cancer treatment is best for each patient. 

Traditionally, pathologists evaluate HER2 in tumor samples visually, which may result in varied interpretations. The Galen Breast HER2 scoring system quantifies the sample’s expression of the protein into four standard categories to help the pathologist make a more accurate decision.

The technology was developed and validated by Ibex in collaboration with AstraZeneca, the British-Swedish multinational biotechnology company, and Daiichi Sankyo, a Japanese pharma company. 

“We are committed to providing pathologists with the most comprehensive AI platform as they implement digital pathology,” said Issar Yazbin, VP Product Management at Ibex Medical Analytics.

“In addition to HER2, we are now able to support full review of breast biopsies and excisions, distinguish between multiple types of invasive and non-invasive cancer, detect more than 50 malignant and non-malignant morphological features, and provide the underlying technology for automated quantification of additional prognostic and predictive breast biomarkers such as Ki-67, ER and PR.”

Advanced technology identifies pairs of drugs that can fight disease together, in microscopic doses.

Researchers have developed a pioneering AI “matchmaker” that pairs together existing cancer drugs for use in nanomedicine.

Prescribing a combination of two or more medications is already an established practice – known as combination therapy — that can prove highly effective.

But a team at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa, has gone beyond simply identifying separate medications that will work well together.

These scientists have developed technology that singles out drug pairs whose molecular structure allows them to join together chemically as nanoparticles, measuring just a millionth of a millimeter. Their findings are published in the Journal of Controlled Release.

Administering medicines as nanoparticles – or nanomedicines – has many advantages, allowing doctors to use lower doses, target specific cells and minimize side effects.

The artificial intelligence tool developed at the Technion trawls published articles on existing cancer treatments, gathering information that allows it to predict pairs of drugs that will work well together and, crucially, that are able to chemically assemble into combined nanoparticles.

PhD student Dana Meron Azagury and Prof. Yosi Shamay. Photo courtesy of Technion Spokesperson’s Office

Prof. Yosi Shamay describes the new approach as a “synergy of synergies” or a “meta-synergy.”

The first synergy is the combination of two drugs so that their combined effect is greater than using each of them in isolation.

The second synergy is identifying which of these drugs pairs can be used in nanomedicine, bringing a whole array of new benefits.

The AI tool has so far proposed 1,985 possible nanomedicine drug combinations to treat 70 types of cancer.

One example is combining Bortezomib (a blood cancer drug) and Cabozantinib (a liver, kidney and thyroid cancer drug) as treatment for head and neck cancer. This combination has proven effective and caused fewer side effects than using either of the drugs individually.

Drug synergy prediction produced by the model. Photo courtesy of Technion Spokesperson’s Office

Standard drug combinations combat a tumour more effectively than they would do individually and may prevent the tumour from developing resistance to treatment.

Above and beyond

Master’s student Ben Friedmann. Photo courtesy of Technion Spokesperson’s Office

Nanomedicine combinations go above and beyond. They target cancer cells more precisely, are more successful at fighting tumors, require smaller doses, are less toxic, and minimize side effects.

“The development of meta-synergy on the nanometric level is a very complex challenge,” said Shamay.

“It necessitates the introduction of [at least] two drugs simultaneously into the same delivery system that would lead them to the desired destination in the body,” he said.

“Our research has shown, both in a computational demonstration and in live experiments, that the combination we proposed indeed leads the drugs to the tumor and releases them there — and that this therapy is very effective in treating the disease.”

The study, conducted at the Shamay Lab for Cancer Nanomedicine and Nanoinformatics, was led by PhD student Dana Meron Azagury, whose focus was on the biology and chemistry side of the research, and master’s student Ben Friedmann, who developed the AI model.

Bacteria can be found everywhere, and some are bad and cause illnesses, but some do more good more than harm.

There are thousands of kinds of bacteria – microscopic, single-celled organisms that are among the earliest known life forms on earth and live in every possible environment all over the world. They might be airborne or found in water, plants, soil, animals and even humans, where some cause dangerous diseases such as salmonella, pneumonia, meningitis, tuberculosis, anthrax, tetanus and botulism.

However, many bacteria, including the ones that comprise the human gut microbiome, do good rather than harm. Bacteria can even be turned into tiny factories that manufacture needed products.

Now, researchers at the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa have developed “bionic bacteria” that have many potential applications in industry.

Among those applications are the targeted release of biological drugs in the body using external light and other precise medical uses, sensing hazardous substances in the environment and the production of better fuels and other compounds. 

The study was led by Assistant Prof. Omer Yehezkeli and doctoral student Oren Bachar, and co-authored by doctoral student Matan Meirovich and master’s student Yara Zeibaq. Their work has just appeared in the international edition of Angewandte Chemie under the title “Protein-Mediated Biosynthesis of Semiconductor Nanocrystals for Photocatalytic NADPH Regeneration and Chiral Amine Production.” The journal, which is published by the German Chemical Society, officially described it as a “hot paper.”

“My research group deals with the interface between engineering and biotechnology at the nanoscale level,” said Yehezkeli. “Our goal is to blur the current boundaries between the different disciplines, and mostly between nanometer materials and biological systems such as bacteria. In our research, we use the unique properties of nanoscale particles on the one hand, and the tremendous selectivity of biological systems on the other, to create bionic systems that perform synergistically.”

Nanoscale semiconductor particles are usually produced in chemical processes that demand high temperatures and organic solvents. In the new Technion study, the researchers were able to create – using engineered proteins – an environment that makes possible the growth of nanometer particles under biological conditions and at room temperature. In turn, the grown nanoparticles can lead to light-induced processes of biological components.

“The use of engineered proteins for the self-growth of nanomaterials is a promising strategy that opens up new scientific horizons for combining inanimate and living matter,” added Yehezkeli. In the current study, the researchers demonstrated the use of engineered proteins to grow cadmium sulfide (CdS) nanoparticles that are capable of recycling nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) with light radiation.

“This is an essential electron donor in all organisms that provides the reducing power to drive numerous reactions, including those responsible for the biosynthesis of all major cell components and many products in biotechnology with light radiation. NADPH is crucial in many enzymatic processes and therefore its generation is desired,” Yehezkeli explained.

CdS nanoparticles have applications as an excellent photographic developer for the detection of cancers and other diseases, and in the treatment of cancer cells. The antibacterial and antifungal biological activity on various foodborne bacteria and fungi can also be studied with the use of CdS nanoparticles.

Enzymes are a common biological component involved in all living cell functions. Billions of years of evolution have led to the development of a broad spectrum of enzymes responsible for the many and varied functions in the cell, said Yehezkeli.

In their study, the researchers showed that NADPH could be produced (recycled) using the genetically modified protein made up of 12 repeating subunits that form a donut-like structure with a three-nanometer “hole” (three-billionths of a meter in diameter).

“This is a preliminary demonstration of the direct connection of inanimate matter [abiotic] with living matter [biotic] and a platform for its operation in a way that does not exist in nature,” concluded Yehezkeli.

“The technology we have developed enables the creation of hybrid components that connect these two types of materials into one unit, and we are already working on fully integrated living cells with promising initial results.

We believe that beyond the specific technological success in the production of NADPH and [various other] materials, there is evidence of the feasibility of a new paradigm that may contribute greatly to improving performance in many areas including energy, medicine, and the environment.” 

“There is evidence of the feasibility of a new paradigm that may contribute greatly to improving performance in many areas including energy, medicine, and the environment.”

Professor Omer Yehezkeli

About one person in 50 – equally in men and women –will suffer from alopecia areata at some point in their life.

Haifa researchers have found a non-genetic cause for alopecia areata baldness, which triggered the surprising incident at the the 94th Academy Awards in which actor Will Smith slapped comedian Chris Rock after he joked about Smiths wife’s shaved head because of the autoimmune disease.

About one person in 50 – equally in men and women – will suffer from alopecia areata at some point in their life. The condition can develop at any age, although most people are diagnosed for thefirst time before the age of 30. In recent years, more and more research evidence has accumulated on the source of the autoimmune disease in an inflammatory process caused by cells that develop in patients with genetic predisposition that attack the hair follicle at its growth stage and results in the collapse of the immune system that characterizes it.

But a new study at the dermatology department at the Rambam Healthcare Campus and the skin research lab at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine has found evidence of another source – involvement of innate lymphoid cells-type 1 (ILC1) – that can cause its outbreak among people who do not belong to the high-risk group.

It has just published in the online journal e-Life under the title “Involvement of ILC1-like innate lymphocytes in human autoimmunity, lessons from alopecia areata.”

Hair loss caused by alopecia areata. (credit: Wikimedia Commons)

A common skin disease that breaks out when the immune system attacks and harms the hair follicles, after accidentally recognizing the body’s tissue as a foreign tissue, it causes baldness on largeareas of the scalp, and in more severe cases, there is body-hair loss on larger and other places, as well as itching and a feeling of burning in the affected areas. There is no cure, but last June, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a first drug to treat severe cases of the condition – baricitinib (Olumiant).

Olumiant is a Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitor that blocks the activity of one or more of a specific family of enzymes, interfering with the pathway that leads to inflammation. It restored hair growth in 25% to 35% of patients but also causes side effects.

Rambam and Technion researchers found evidence of another source

In recent years, more and more research evidence has accumulated on the source of the autoimmune disease in an inflammatory process caused by cells that develop in patients with genetic predisposition, which attack the hair follicle at its growth stage and results in the collapse of the training that characterizes it. However, a new study common to Rambam and the Technion has found evidence of another source, which can cause the outbreak of the disease among people who do not belong to the risk group.

The conventional hypothesis is that CD8 cells are responsible for the disease. But in a study conducted by a team led by Prof. Amos Gilhar and in collaboration with researcher Dr. Aviad Keren and Professor Dr. Rimma Laufer- Britva , another group of cells was found that so much was unknown to its involvement in the disease. LC-1 constantly secretes a variety of proteins that usually attack external factors that invade the tissues they are in,” explained Gilhar.

Thus, the classic lymphocyte cells, those that used to be regarded as solely responsible for the onset of the disease, are not alone.

As part of the research experiments, the team transferred these cells to a healthy scalp and then transplanted on unique mice. Exposing hair follicles from a completely healthy source to ILC-1 cells caused the secretion of a high level of interferon gamma, a material known as a major part in causing hair loss leading to alopecia areata – so there is not a single route, in which genetics and classical immune cells play an exclusive role, but several pathways, said Gilhar.

The journal editor commented that the study provides “compelling evidence that injection of ILC1-like cells induces alopecia in a mouse model grafted with human hair follicle-containing skin and will be of interest to immunologists, skin biologists, and scientists interested in autoimmune disorders” and eventually leading to better treatment of alopecia areata.

Israel’s ophthalmologists are getting a boost from innovators developing solutions for eye diseases and eye health. 

“I think we can see how this industry has matured in Israel, both on the management side, and in the sense of understanding what to develop, and how to develop it,” says Dr. Barak Azmon, a pioneering entrepreneur in the country’s ophthalmology industry. 

Azmon is chair of the ophthalmology session at next week’s annual Biomed Conference in Tel Aviv, which showcases the latest developments in healthcare, and will be exhibiting some of these new ocular technologies.

Israel’s ophthalmologists are getting a boost from innovators developing solutions for eye diseases and eye health. (Courtesy Maksim Goncharenok/ Pexels)

“In Israel, there are around 70 startups in the ophthalmologic space. It’s probably more than in the Silicon Valley or any other region alone,” says Azmon.

“As we will show in this conference, we have a unique year where nine companies in the ophthalmology space have already launched new products or are expected to do so by the end of the year.”

NoCamels takes a look at some of the most innovative solutions in the field of eye health in Israel: 

Orasis: Eyedrops For Better Vision

Many people over the age of 45 who have always had 20/20 vision find themselves suddenly needing reading glasses as their eyes age – a chronic inconvenience whose long-term solution is an invasive medical procedure. 

But now new eyedrops developed by Orasis will be able to correct farsightedness (presbyopia) – albeit for a few hours. 

Orasis’ eye drops will enable people with farsightedness to see clearly without reading glasses for several hours at a time. (Courtesy Yaroslav Shuraev / Pexels)

“We aspire to make near vision clear again for people with presbyopia by empowering them with an unparalleled solution, an eye drop that will provide them with comfort and control of their near vision,” said Elad Kedar, CEO of Orasis. 

The eyedrop improves patients’ vision by constricting the pupil, resulting in a “pinhole effect” and increasing their depth of field and ability to focus on nearby objects. 

Presbyopia is a result of the natural aging process, and there are almost two billion people living with it globally. They experience blurred vision when performing daily tasks like reading a book, a restaurant menu or messages on a smartphone.

Existing treatment options for farsightedness include invasive treatments like LASIK eye surgery, pictured. (Courtesy Senior Airman Brian Ferguson/ Wikimedia Commons)

It cannot be prevented or reversed, and it continues to progress gradually. All existing treatment options are either inconvenient, like reading glasses and contact lenses, or invasive, like refractive surgery that changes the shape of your cornea and lens implants, which replace the lens in each eye with a synthetic one.

Orasis’ eye drops will be sold in the US by the end of the year. 

CorNeat Vision: Synthetic Sight 

Over two million people lose their vision every year due to a group of eye diseases known as corneal blindness.

The only effective treatment available is a cornea transplant – the clear, front part of the eye that absorbs light, which is later translated by the retina into the images that we see.

Problem is, there’s a shortage of cornea donors worldwide. In China, for example, there are five million patients with corneal blindness, but only 5,000 possible transplants a year. 

An animation showing CorNeat Vision’s synthetic lenses. (Courtesy)

Furthermore, artificial corneas are not effective for more than a few months as the immune system sees them as something foreign that needs to be dissolved or expelled. 

But startup CorNeat Vision says it has developed a synthetic cornea that can fully rehabilitate corneal blind patients and integrate into their eye tissue. 

The “skirt”, or rim of the lens, is made of a patented plastic that stimulates the cells to accept it and incorporate it into the eye tissue. 

“There’s no other material that seamlessly embeds itself with live human tissue for life,” says Almog Aley-Raz, CEO.

“When you implant anything, it triggers a foreign body response, and our immune system will work to degrade and eventually absorb it or, in case it is non-degradable, it will encapsulate it with a granuloma (a cluster of white blood cells and other tissue), isolating it from the body.”

The CorNeat KPro. Courtesy

It uses the electrospinning technique – an existing method of creating tiny polymers and metals – to fabricate a rim for an artificial lens, which until now has been seen as an engineering challenge. 

The CorNeat KPro is currently undergoing clinical trials, and is expected to be approved for marketing late in 2024.

NovaSight: New Way of Testing

We are all familiar with the ubiquitous eye chart to test our vision, and while it may be effective for adults and adolescents, that isn’t the case for children. 

They often don’t cooperate or are simply incapable of taking the test because they’re too young. 

NovaSight has developed an eye exam that tracks the position and gaze of the eye to assess their vision.

All the patient needs to do is watch a video on a tablet that is mounted with an inconspicuous eye tracker called the EyeSwift.

Children are often incapable of taking a traditional eye exam because they’re too young. (Courtesy National Library of Medicine – History of Medicine / Wikimedia Commons)

The video shows dots that are constantly moving across the screen, and its resolution gradually reduces over time, becoming more and more foggy. 

The company’s algorithms then determine the patient’s level of eyesight once their eyes can no longer follow the target. Its creators say it is simple, accurate and more accessible for both children and adults than traditional eye exams. 

“We see when the kid or the adult is not able to track this moving target anymore, just by looking at their eyes,” says Ran Yam, CEO of NovaSight. “We know exactly what their threshold vision is without asking them anything, and without them saying anything.” 

Until now, eye tracking has mostly been used for gaming or in expensive medical devices such as those used for people living with ALS (an incurable disease of the nervous system) and not in eye care. 

NovaSight will be releasing its treatment for lazy eye, which is also powered by the EyeSwift, later this year. (Courtesy)

“The technology became more affordable over time, so we took that opportunity in order to integrate it into medical devices for vision care,” Yam explains. 

The EyeSwift also offers a variety of vision tests, including for color blindness, reading performance, stereoacuity (a person’s ability to detect differences in distance) and more. The same technology also powers the company’s treatment for lazy eye. 

NovaSight is this month launching a commercial pilot with Opticana, one of Israel’s leading optical chains. 

Notal Vision: Speedy Home Diagnosis

Worsening eyesight is an unfortunate part of aging. For 200 million people worldwide, it comes in the form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a treatable but recurring disease where the central part of a person’s vision becomes blurred or distorted over a period of days or weeks. 

If the condition worsens, the person may struggle to see anything in the center of their field of vision, and a lack of regular oversight by a physician could mean that their eyesight has irreparably deteriorated. 

A simulation that shows what a grocery store aisle looks like to someone with age-related macular degeneration. (Courtesy National Eye Institute, NIH / Wikimedia Commons)

Notal Vision provides these patients with a daily home monitoring device using artificial intelligence that within three minutes identifies the onset or reactivation of AMD, thereby offering better, faster and more personalized care. 

“The patient puts their head into a viewer where they watch stimuli, and use a computer mouse to click on a location where they spot distortions,” explains Dr. Kester Nahen, CEO of Notal Vision.

“After our AI algorithm analyzes the data, their physician is notified through our monitoring center that provides the service, and a decision can be made to bring the patient into the office for further imaging.” 

A patient using the HomeOCT device, which will be available in the US later this year. (Courtesy)

Notal Vision says a study showed that 81 percent of patients whose AMD progressed and were using their ForeseeHome device maintained 20/40 (or better) vision, compared to only 32 percent of patients whose diagnosis was at a routine eye exam or a medical consultation triggered by symptoms.

The company’s new device, the Home OCT system, will help physicians monitor the symptoms and progression of patients with wet AMD, a more serious form of the disease, and offer personalized treatment. It is expected to be in use in the United States by the end of the year. 

The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology is teaming up with Toronto University on the use of artificial intelligence in the field of medicine. 

The collaboration sees the faculty and students from Technion’s Artificial Intelligence Hub (Tech.AI) and the Canadian university’s Center for AI in Medicine (T-CAIREM) teaming up to develop working practices for “the medicine of the future,” based on commonly shared challenges.

The new partnership was inaugurated this week in a joint tree-day workshop in Ein Gedi in southern Israel, which was attended by dozens of scientists and research students from the two schools. On the agenda were existing capabilities in the field of AI medicine, avenues for growth, advancing education on the subject and joint projects. 

The partnership was welcomed by the two institutions. 

“The Temerty Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research and Education in Medicine (T-CAIREM) of the University of Toronto is very excited to work with the excellent clinicians and researchers from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology on this highly collaborative and interdisciplinary initiative,” said Prof. Muhammad Mamdani, director of T-CAIREM. 

“Our goal is to advance innovative research in AI in medicine that will serve as the foundation for transforming medicine and delivering the best possible care for the patients we serve.”

Prof. Shai Shen-Orr of the Technion said: “We are laying down another broad foundation for the Tech.AI.BioMed activity that promotes the use of AI in medicine. We are certain that this collaboration will add depth and richness to our toolbox for creating new responses that will shape the medicine of the future.”

Last month the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology synthetic biology team took off for theInternational Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition, held in Paris. The students in the group were engineering special bacteria that will produce an industrial substance that deters hair loss, and which can be added to regular shampoos and other haircare products.

Illustrative: A chemotherapy patient lying in a hospital bed. (iStock via Getty Images) 

This year, the iGEM team from the Technion included 12 students from across the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, the Henry and Marilyn Taub Faculty of Computer Science, the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, and the Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine. The team recently received a special Impact grant given to only a small number of the teams participating in the global competition based on their projected benefits to humanity.

Every year, the team chooses an innovative project in the field of synthetic biology, and this year, it involves substances that inhibit hair loss caused by chemotherapy. One of the most common cancer treatments, chemotherapy causes damage to healthy, living tissues and oftentimes hair loss, among other severe side effects.

The Technion team set to compete in iGEM worked on proving the feasibility of lab production of Decursin, a hair loss deterrent, and its possible incorporation into preparations including shampoo, cream, and more. Decursin is a major component of Angelica gigas Nakai (AGN) root extract. It has many beneficial properties including the abilities to suppress inflammation, repress cancer, and prevent apoptosis – or programmed cell death, which includes hair cells.

Today, the molecule is produced from a rare seasonal flower grown in Korea in an expensive and inefficient process. The student team is engineering bacteria that will produce Decursin industrially.

The prestigious iGEM competition was founded in 2004 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to give students, mainly undergraduates, a chance to experience scientific and applied research in the world of synthetic biology. Since its inception, the competition has been held in Boston. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was held online for the past two years.

This year, more than 300 teams from around the world will participate in the competition, including three Israeli teams – one from the Technion, one from Tel Aviv University, and one from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. The first Israeli iGEM team was established at the Technion in 2012 under the guidance of Professor Roee Amit, a faculty member in the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering. He guides the Technion team to this day.

Over the years, teams from the Technion have won multiple gold medals in the competition. But according to Prof. Amit, “Beyond participation and winning, it is important to understand that some of the developments by the Technion teams have already been turned into applied and commercial tracks and have a real impact in the world. One of the most prominent examples is Koracell, which was founded on the basis of the technology developed by our students in preparation for a competition iGEM ​​in 2019. The group developed an innovative technology for the production of honey without bees using a genetically engineered bacterium. This technology allows the honey’s texture and taste to be precisely designed, and it is also a platform for simulating other natural metabolic processes.”