For generations, observant Jews accepted certain culinary boundaries as fixed. Butter on a burger? Impossible. A creamy cappuccino after a meat meal? Out of the question. Cheeseburgers were perhaps the most famous symbol of what Jewish dietary law forbids.

Today, science is quietly dismantling those assumptions.

In laboratories and food technology start-ups across the world, researchers are reimagining the foods we eat. Plant-based milks, precision-fermented dairy proteins and cultivated meats are no longer futuristic curiosities; they are appearing on supermarket shelves and restaurant menus, reshaping both the food industry and religious practice.

At the heart of this revolution is Israel, the world’s original start-up nation. In 2024, Israel became the first country to approve the sale of cultivated beef to consumers. By 2026, it ranked second only to the United States in alternative protein investment, attracting more than $1.3 billion in venture capital.

One of the scientists helping to drive this transformation is Professor Uri Lesmes of Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, where he is training a new generation of food engineers to tackle problems others consider impossible.

Milk Without a Cow

Among the innovations that excite Lesmes most is Remilk, a company co-founded in part by two of his former students.

“It’s a proper alternative to cow’s milk,” Lesmes explains. “And quite distinct from soy milk, which isn’t dairy.”

Remilk’s product is made through precision fermentation. Scientists identified the genes responsible for producing milk proteins in cows and inserted them into yeast. As the yeast ferments and multiplies, it produces proteins that are biochemically identical to those found in conventional milk.

The result is genuine dairy protein, but without the cow.

According to the company, the milk contains no cholesterol, lactose, hormones or antibiotics. Yet its molecular structure is the same as that of traditional dairy.

In Israel, Remilk and its competitor Cow-Free are already being produced at scale. Their absence from European shelves is not due to scientific limitations, Lesmes says, but regulatory ones.

“Many regulations in Europe are yet to catch up on such rapid innovations.”

For observant Jews, however, the implications are extraordinary. Because these products are not derived from animals, rabbinic authorities have ruled them to be parev – neither meat nor dairy. Suddenly, the once-forbidden cheeseburger becomes a halachic possibility.

Teaching Through Beer

While Lesmes’ research is transforming global food systems, he is equally passionate about teaching.

One of his most imaginative projects combines food science, entrepreneurship and rehabilitation. Working with Beit Halochem (House of Warriors), Lesmes developed a course in which students are paired with wounded veterans and given 1,500 shekels – roughly £360 – to brew 25 litres of beer.

The teams use Technion’s facilities to create their own recipes, brands and production processes. At the end of the course, a professional panel judges the beers in a blind tasting.

“It’s a huge celebration,” Lesmes says with a smile, “with a lot of beer.”

One group attracted national attention when they created a beer called HEROES. The label featured the faces of four fallen friends and family members, transforming a scientific exercise into a moving act of remembrance.

Feeding Soldiers in Wartime

Like every Israeli, Lesmes’ life changed after the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023.

Though exempt from military service since 2015, he felt compelled to contribute.

“Like everybody, I wanted to chip in,” he recalls.

He contacted friends in the Israel Defense Forces and offered his expertise in nutrition and food engineering. The army accepted, and Lesmes became a consultant tasked with improving meals for frontline soldiers.

The outcome was a range of sterilised pouch meals that could withstand battlefield conditions while providing comfort and nutrition. Menu options included shawarma, mujaddara – a Middle Eastern rice and lentil dish – and tofu-based meals.

In wartime, food becomes more than sustenance. It becomes a source of morale, familiarity and resilience.

Nutrition for an Ageing World

Lesmes is also focused on another pressing challenge: global ageing.

“One cannot avoid the fact that the world is ageing,” he says.

At Technion, this demographic shift is treated as a grand challenge. Lesmes and his colleagues are redesigning everyday foods to meet the nutritional needs of older adults, many of whom struggle to consume enough calories and protein.

One product he highlights with particular pride is a reformulated breakfast cereal.

“We’re giving it a higher protein content and a higher calorific content, and we cut down on sugar by almost five times to make space for the other things,” he explains. “You have to make every bite count.”

He describes this approach as “health by stealth” – improving nutrition without requiring consumers to change their habits or preferences.

The concept has proven effective before. In the United States, the fortification of bread with folic acid dramatically reduced neural tube defects in newborn babies. Lesmes believes similar strategies can enhance quality of life for ageing populations around the world.

A Culture of Solutions

What distinguishes Technion, Lesmes says, is its mindset.

“We’re trained to think about what other people are missing, or what they think is impossible – and then we try to do it.”

It is a philosophy rooted in practical optimism.

“I was taught not to talk about problems, but to talk about solutions,” he says. “And we’re looking for solutions to things that people are yet to identify as problems.”

That ethos has helped turn Israel into a global centre for food innovation. From dairy without cows to meat without slaughter and cereals designed to combat malnutrition, scientists are redefining what food can be.

Science in Service of Humanity

For Lesmes, the ultimate goal is not novelty for its own sake, but human wellbeing.

“My responsibility is to make more products which contain everything, so that people have better choices,” he says.

Then he offers a reflection that captures both his humility and his ambition.

“Life is not perfect. But through science, we can try to shed light on things we don’t understand, so that we can make them better for everyone.”

It is a sentiment that resonates far beyond the laboratory.

In an era defined by environmental pressures, health challenges and changing traditions, the foods of the future are being shaped by people willing to question what is possible.

And sometimes, that future tastes remarkably like a cheeseburger.

Deciding whether to administer chemotherapy after surgery is one of the most challenging questions in early-stage breast cancer care. While chemotherapy can reduce the risk of recurrence, most patients do not benefit from it and may experience significant short- and long-term side effects. The central challenge is identifying, at the time of diagnosis, which patients are likely to benefit and which are not.

Researchers from the Technion—Israel Institute of Technology, together with collaborators from leading medical centres in the United States and Europe, have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) model that predicts both the risk of breast cancer recurrence and the likelihood that a patient will benefit from chemotherapy. The model analyses routine pathology slides taken at diagnosis, offering a fast, widely accessible alternative to costly genomic tests.

The study was recently published in The Lancet Oncology and presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) conference. It is the first AI model of its kind to be validated in a large, randomized clinical trial.

Addressing a global clinical need

Each year, approximately 2.3 million people worldwide are diagnosed with breast cancer, including about 300,000 in the United States and 5,000 in Israel. Today, genomic tests such as Oncotype DX are commonly used to guide chemotherapy decisions, but these tests are expensive, can take weeks to return results, and are unavailable to many patients globally. Their predictive accuracy is also limited, leading to both unnecessary chemotherapy and missed treatment opportunities.

The Technion-led AI model aims to address these limitations by using information already available in standard pathology samples.

How the model works

The system analyses high-resolution digital images of tumour tissue stained and examined as part of routine pathology. Using deep learning, it evaluates multiple regions of the tumour and its microenvironment, identifying visual patterns associated with cancer behaviour, including cell division, tissue structure, immune response, and features linked to treatment sensitivity or resistance.

“These are complex biological signals that the human eye cannot consistently quantify,” said Dr. Gil Shamai of the Technion’s Geometric Image Processing Laboratory, who led the study. “The model integrates many subtle cues to generate a score that reflects both recurrence risk and expected benefit from chemotherapy.”

Prof. Ron Kimmel, head of the laboratory in the Henry and Marilyn Taub Faculty of Computer Science, explained the concept: “Instead of testing genes, we look directly at the tissue. Just as eye color can be determined by looking at the eyes rather than analyzing DNA, our system extracts a visual signature from pathology images that informs optimal treatment.”

Clinical use and validation

Clinically, the process is straightforward. After diagnosis, the existing tissue sample is digitally scanned and securely analyzed by the AI system. Within minutes, the model produces a numerical score that supports shared decision-making between oncologist and patient.

While the system’s internal decision-making cannot be fully explained in simple rules, its performance has been rigorously validated. The researchers were granted rare access to tissue samples and clinical data from the TAILORx trial—one of the largest randomised breast cancer studies, involving more than 10,000 patients who were randomly assigned to receive chemotherapy or not.

“Using data from a randomised trial allowed us to test whether the model truly predicts benefit from chemotherapy, not just recurrence risk,” said Dr. Shamai.

According to Prof. Dvir Aran of the Technion’s Faculty of Biology, a co-leader of the study, “This is the first AI model shown to predict treatment benefit in breast cancer directly from pathology samples.”

The model was further validated on thousands of patients from hospitals in Israel, the United States, and Australia, including Carmel, Emek, and Sheba Medical Centres, demonstrating consistent performance across different populations, equipment, and health care systems.

Fast, affordable, and globally scalable

Unlike genomic tests, the AI-based assessment requires no additional tissue, laboratory processing, or waiting period. It can be performed in minutes in any pathology lab equipped with a digital scanner and internet access.

“In developing countries, where genomic testing is largely unavailable, this tool could dramatically expand access to personalised cancer care,” said Prof. Aran. “In high-income countries, it could reduce costs, shorten diagnosis time, and improve decision accuracy.”

Looking ahead

The research team is now advancing steps toward clinical implementation in Israel and preparing clinical trials in Brazil and India, where the potential impact is particularly large. The researchers are also working to further improve the model and extend it to additional treatments and cancer types where aggressive therapy decisions are made under uncertainty.

Based on these impressive results and the knowledge accumulated over years of groundbreaking research, the researchers now intend to establish a company that will develop tests making them significantly more accessible, accurate, and faster compared to those currently in use worldwide.

The study was led by Dr. Gil Shamai, Prof. Ron Kimmel, and Prof. Dvir Aran, in collaboration with oncologists and pathologists from institutions including Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Mount Sinai Medical Center, the University of Chicago Medical Center, and IPATIMUP Medical Center in Portugal.

In addition to fatigue and increased hunger, living with constant sleep deprivation and stress has other effects, some long-term. Experts explain the risks – and how to limit the damage, or at least some of it

By now, this has become a daily challenge: how many hours of sleep can one get in a night riddled with air-raid alerts, racing to shelter and attempts at shuteye before being woken up again. And not just how many hours in total, but also how long one can sleep uninterrupted. All this comes before the real challenge – staying awake during the day, functioning as normally as possible and perhaps even forgetting – until the next siren – that this is an open-ended state of emergency. 

This reality has direct and indirect health implications, some immediate and clearly felt in the ability to function and in planning and concentration. In the longer run, this stressful reality, marked by constant alertness and sleep deprivation, could have a cumulative effect on other bodily systems, including the immune and cardiovascular systems, as well as mental health. 

“The professional term for what has been happening now is ‘sleep deprivation’ due to air-raid alerts,” says Prof. Yaron Dagan. “This deprivation harms two main things: one is cognitive – that is to say, everything related to thinking, perception, problem-solving, concentration and memory; the other is emotional – people are gloomier, less patient, and generally in a worse mood, which sometimes results in reckless decision-making.”

Dagan, director of the Institute for Sleep Medicine at Assuta Medical Centers, explains that healthy sleep is crucial for waking life, particularly for our cognitive system, “which reboots brain memory in order to clear it for the next 24 hours. This activity takes place in several areas in the brain, and without uninterrupted or adequate sleep – the processes served by sleep are impaired.” One stage of sleep, he emphasises, is crucial for emotional processing, learning and memory formation. “This stage occurs in 90-minute cycles, and with sleep deprivation it’s disrupted, affecting our thinking and behaviour when awake.”

Is there anything that can be done, considering that it is entirely unclear how long this routine will continue? Perhaps a nap here and there? “In principle, sleep is not a bank – you cannot not sleep for a week and then fill the deficit by sleeping for a week,” says Dagan. “What we recommend is what’s called a ‘combat nap’ – a planned 30-45-minute nap to replenish your batteries. Even if someone can’t doze off, simply lying down, closing one’s eyes and relaxing is enough. This is the best way to deal with this sleep deprivation. It cannot fully replace nighttime sleep, but it certainly helps you feel refreshed.” 

Proper or healthy sleep is not just a matter of quantity; uninterrupted sleep is just as important as getting enough hours. “Sleep that is too short or interrupted – both have the same effects and cause the same harm as sleep deprivation,” explains Prof. Giora Pillar, head of the sleep clinic in Clalit Health Services’ Haifa District and sleep researcher at the Technion’s Faculty of Medicine. “There have been studies on this. In one, students were allowed to sleep for eight hours, but their sleep was interrupted. The damage was found to be the same.” 

A vicious cycle

The immediate effects are not limited to fatigue and exhaustion. Along with sleep deprivation, unending stress is not only mental but also physiological, affecting many bodily systems. When a person remains alert for an extended period, high levels of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline are secreted. Chronic exposure to these hormones can harm the immune system, increase inflammation and blood pressure and impair cardiovascular function. In addition, stress has been linked to sleep disorders (creating a vicious cycle) and to the worsening of chronic diseases such as asthma and diabetes, as well as to an increased risk of heart disease. Over time, this condition may erode physiological systems and cause an overall deterioration in health. 

Over the past two and a half years, with one operation following another and one air-raid siren after another, stress has become a familiar term. In general, it refers to a physical and emotional reaction to threatening or dangerous situations – not just wartime or physical danger, but also everyday pressures such as work overload, mental overload or difficulties in other aspects of life. In today’s reality, however, it’s almost impossible to isolate stress from sleep deprivation. “Stress is a mediating factor,” says Prof. Pillar. “It causes sleeplessness in itself, as well as many other complications.” 

In many respects, the symptoms of stress and sleep deprivation overlap or reinforce one another. In part, this connection is evident in eating patterns. Like stress, sleep deprivation is a risk factor. When sleep is reduced, levels of ghrelin (the hunger hormone) soar, while levels of leptin (the satiety hormone) fall. The result is increased hunger, especially for high-calorie, sugary and fatty foods. A 2004 study released by researchers from the University of Chicago demonstrated this clearly. The researchers hypothesised, based on their findings, that the body interprets sleep deprivation as a state of energy deficit – even if that’s not exactly the case.

Chronic overeating under such conditions can lead to weight gain, increased insulin resistance and a higher risk for type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and other metabolic disorders. In addition, ongoing caloric excess, driven by fatigue, also hinders the body’s ability to regulate metabolism and balance energy. 

And the list of risks does not end there. According to Pillar, sleep deprivation also affects the immune system. “Sleepless patients or patients who sleep poorly, that is to say: people who suffer from chronic sleep disorders, are already suffering from irreversible complications,” he warns. “We will see higher rates of high blood pressure, more cases of metabolic syndromes, more diabetes, more obesity, more strokes and more cancer.” 

To a certain extent, these symptoms are reversible, as reality has proven. “Soldiers who sleep too little and then sleep through the weekend are not at risk in the long term,” Pillar illustrates. “Medical interns who sometimes work two 26-hour shifts a week make up for lost sleep and don’t develop long-term complications. That is to say, it’s reversible – up to a point.” 

However, given the current reality, which has already lasted more than a week and even a fortnight, the question becomes where the line lies beyond which the damage becomes irreversible, or only partly reversible. This is a crucial question. “We are already seeing patients whose diabetes is no longer balanced,” he says, “or who have high blood pressure.” 

A 2016 study published in the International Journal of Cardiology found a clear link between sleep duration and coronary heart disease. The findings indicate that people who sleep seven to eight hours per night are at low risk, with every one-hour reduction associated with an 11 percent increase in the risk of heart disease. These findings were reaffirmed last November in another study, published in BMC Cardiovascular Disorders, which indicated that people who sleep six hours or less are at almost twice the risk of dying from kidney or heart disease compared with those who sleep longer. 

An immune system out of balance

Over the past two decades, many studies have examined the link between sleep quality and immune system function. Among other findings, people who sleep less than six hours a night produce fewer antibodies after vaccination; on the morning after a sleepless night, a significant increase is seen in the production of inflammatory cytokines – proteins secreted by immune cells in response to infection or injury; and, in general, proper sleep strengthens anti-inflammatory and anti-viral reactions, while inflammatory signals from the immune system affect the structure and depth of sleep.

According to a 2019 study published in Nature Reviews Immunology, sleep deprivation increases activity in the sympathetic nervous system (responsible for the body’s response in situations of threat and danger), which in turn raises stress hormone levels and releases inflammatory cytokines. It was found that in chronic sleep disorders, the overall level of inflammation in the body increases, while antiviral responses grow weaker. 

“Sleep deprivation is documented as one of the main biological factors affecting the immune system (when not diseased),” says Prof. Cyrille Cohen, head of the laboratory of immunology and immunotherapy and dean of Bar-Ilan University’s Faculty of Life Sciences. “In principle, conditions such as stress and sleep deprivation do not weaken every component in the immune system but rather cause an imbalance in its function.” He says this may manifest in several ways. “For instance, you’re at a slightly higher risk of certain infections, mainly respiratory – and the recovery process may also be slower.” However, Cohen emphasizes that “the effect is usually mild, and varies greatly from person to person.”

In 2011, Cornell entered into an academic partnership with the Technion — Israel Institute of Technology to compete for an ambitious goal: build an innovative New York City campus to educate a new generation of tech leaders, conduct breakthrough research and development, inspire startups and propel the city to becoming a global hub for the tech industry. Beating national competitors in the bidding process, Cornell and the Technion won the opportunity to create Cornell Tech on Roosevelt Island. Without the Technion, there would be no Cornell Tech.

Nearly 15 years later, Cornell Tech has educated more than 2,700 students and undertaken groundbreaking research on AI and other new technologies.

Critical to this mission is the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, created through the unique academic partnership between Cornell and the Technion without a financial obligation from either university to the other. The Jacobs Institute brings together engineers, computer scientists, designers, clinicians and entrepreneurs to develop new technologies, launch startups and generate real-world impact through three research hubs focused on health, media and urban challenges. As is the case at most American universities, all of this research is supported through private philanthropy and competitive grants from U.S. government agencies. At the Health Tech Hub, faculty and students are building machine-learning systems that predict disease progression and assist clinicians with diagnosis and treatment, particularly in areas like cardiology, radiology and emergency care. In the Connective Media Hub, researchers study how digital platforms shape the way information spreads, communities form and public conversations evolve. Within the Urban Tech Hub, researchers explore how advanced data science can improve infrastructure — from housing and transportation to energy systems and climate resilience. Through programs like the Urban Innovation Fellows initiative, researchers work directly with agencies across New York City on challenges ranging from sanitation and procurement to transportation and housing policy.

Celebrate Pi Day and read about how this number pops up across math and science on our special Pi Day page.

For more than two millennia, mathematicians have produced a growing heap of pi equations in their ongoing search for methods to calculate pi faster and faster. The pile of equations has grown into the thousands, and algorithms now can generate an infinitude. Each discovery has arrived alone, as a fragment, with no obvious connection to the others. But now, for the first time, centuries of pi formulas have been shown to be part of a unified, formerly hidden structure.

Divide any circle’s circumference by its diameter and you get pi. But what, exactly, are its digits? Measuring physical circles won’t tell you—your tools are too clunky to discover pi’s endless numerals. Uncovering its true value requires something much more powerful: a formula.

It all started with Archimedes, who developed the world’s first known mathematical proof for pi’s value. He thought of a circle as an infinite-sided polygon with sides of zero length. The math to handle infinitesimals (calculus) wouldn’t arrive for another 1,900 years, so instead he circumscribed 96-sided polygons on the outside and inside of a circle and used geometry to calculate their perimeters. He was able to determine that pi fell somewhere between 3.140845… and 3.142857…, trapping it in a range. His rigour stood for 1,600 years.

Then, around the 14th century, Indian mathematician Madhava of Sangamagrama provided the first exact formula, expressed as an infinite series—a sum of endlessly many terms that, if you could somehow add them all up, would yield pi exactly. The catch: his series converged agonizingly slowly, requiring hundreds of terms just to nail down a few decimal places. More than three hundred years later Leonhard Euler discovered another series that converged faster. And in the early 1900s, the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan produced formulas that are still revered for their efficiency today.

Graphic shows four examples of formulas for pi and lists each formula’s associated author, the author’s country of origin and the year in which the formula was first discovered or published.
Amanda Montañez; Source: “From Euler to AI: Unifying Formulas for Mathematical Constants,” by Tomer Raz et al. Preprint posted November 16, 2025 to https://arxiv.org/pdf/2502.17533 (reference)

Each equation seemed unrelated to the others. But in late 2025, a team of seven AI researchers at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology found a previously unknown mathematical structure underlying hundreds of pi formulas, including those of Archimedes, Euler and Ramanujan. “It’s not every day that you get to cite Archimedes,” says Ph.D. student Michael Shalyt, part of the team. The structure, called a conservative matrix field, or CMF, acts as a kind of mathematical common ancestor, showing how formulas that look nothing alike turn out to be different expressions of the same underlying object.

The project grew out of group head Ido Kaminer’s 2019 Ramanujan Machine, an AI bot that seeks out new conjectures for calculating mathematical constants. Anyone can download the software for free, and many have used it to find new pi formulas to join the heap. The bot’s unconventional approach was a viral success, if not taken entirely seriously by mathematicians. “When we started doing AI research in this area of math,” Kaminer says, “it was seen as a fringe idea.”

But as the machine and other mathematicians kept churning out formulas, eventually the question became unavoidable: Were any of them connected?

The group, who also have backgrounds in areas such as physics and math, approached the problem like experimentalists and decided to gather a dataset. Tomer Raz, then a master’s student at Technion, wrote code to download every math paper that had ever been uploaded to the preprint server arXiv.org, running his laptop seven days a week, 24 hours a day, for six weeks to download 455,050 papers at a slow enough rate to respect the website’s limit.

The group then deployed GPT-4o in combination with specialized algorithms to detect pi-related equations, translate them into executable code, and remove trivial duplicates. From nearly half a million papers, they extracted 385 unique formulas, including about 10 percent that originated from the Ramanujan Machine.

For the next step, they recast the 385 equations into the same format—a special type of infinite series. But the expressions still all converged to pi, leaving no obvious way to compare them. Something deeper was needed.

That something was the CMF, which some members of Kaminer’s group had introduced in 2023. Shalyt calls it a Swiss army knife for mathematics. “It can unify 2,000-year-old formulas [and] give hierarchy for constants in math, and we hope to [use it to] prove some properties of irrationality related to the Riemann hypothesis,” he says.

Think of the CMF like gravity defined on a grid. Each pi formula traces a different path across the grid. Just as a gravitational field guarantees that the energy difference between two points is the same, regardless of route, the CMF guarantees that only the destination matters. From this single constraint, something remarkable emerges: when two pi formulas trace parallel paths through the same CMF grid, they are equivalent (one can be transformed into the other), however mismatched they appear on the surface.

The group derived the CMF of pi, then used algorithms to see where each formula fit inside the grid, finding clusters of similar equations. An algorithm formally proved whether a cluster of equations belonged to the CMF. The result: 43 percent of all known pi formulas descend from a single CMF. Another 51 percent belong to broader clusters. (The researchers are still working out their precise relationships.) Only 6 percent of the formulas remain orphans, with no proven connection to anything else.

It’s an open question whether a more complex CMF could capture the entire set, Kaminer says. Another open question is whether every single equation generated from the CMF is a pi formula—so far, all the equations the team has tried have worked.

David Bailey, a retired computer scientist formerly at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who wasn’t involved in the study (though a pi formula bears his name and the group used one of his algorithms), says the project’s results are as if 17th-century chemists had been discovering atomic elements one by one “and then all of a sudden, someone let loose a computer program that constructed the whole periodic table automatically.”

Mathematician George Andrews, a professor emeritus at the Pennsylvania State University (who famously uncovered a lost trove of Ramanujan’s notes) had previously criticised the group for naming their machine after Ramanujan. But he had nothing but praise for the current work. “This is serious mathematics done in a serious way,” he says. “More and more surprising things should emerge.”

Belgian-born Technion scientist Dr. Katrien Vandoorne leads research tracking inflammation in the body and says Israel’s collaborative science culture and wartime resilience convinced her to build her lab and raise her family here

When Dr. Katrien Vandoorne first arrived in Israel to pursue her PhD at the Weizmann Institute of Science, she was struck by something that went far beyond laboratories and research facilities. “The people were very collaborative and warm and inspiring,” she recalled. “The science was really great for me, but also the Mediterranean climate, the food, all those things.”

Originally from Belgium, Vandoorne said the country’s scientific culture felt very different from the academic environment she had known in Europe. “In Belgium it’s very hierarchical,” she said. “The professor is very high up, and you should always be very polite and never question anything that is written in the book.”

How did you find Israel’s scientific culture in contrast?
“What I really like about Israel is that, as a master’s student, you can question the whole theory of your professor, and there is no problem with that,” she said. “Your professor will actually like it that the student is engaged and wants to make your theory fall.”

For Vandoorne, that openness was transformative. “No one will ever say, ‘That’s a stupid question,’” she said. “Everybody will say, ‘Hey, that’s a good question,’ and take it as a sport.” She believes this atmosphere encourages creativity and innovation. “The young people, they’re the ones with the, maybe, crazy ideas, but maybe also really solving things that the previous generations couldn’t solve.”

Building a life in Israel

Although Vandoorne later had opportunities to work in Europe and the United States, she and her family ultimately decided to build their future in Israel. “It was really a package deal,” she said. Her husband, an Israeli, had long hoped to return. But Vandoorne said the decision was not only personal. “For me it was really the scientific culture and the unique combination of very good science that wants to make an impact and solve problems, together with a really human environment,” she said.

Dr. Katrien Vandoorne
Dr. Vandoorne having breakfast with her students on the grass next to the faculty building: coffee, ideas, and a little team-buildin (Photo: Private album)

Family considerations also played a central role. The couple moved to Israel in the summer of 2018 with their three young children. “They were 3, 5 and 7,” she said. Starting over in a new country while raising a family was not simple. “Becoming an immigrant means that you have to learn the language, find new friends and also professionally grow,” she said. “It’s been a journey.”

Despite the challenges, she says the experience has been enriching. “Instead of making myself smaller by being only an immigrant, I expanded myself by learning Hebrew and also being part of the Israeli culture,” she said.

Mapping inflammation in the body

Today Vandoorne is head of theIn Vivo Multi-Scale Imaging Lab at the Technion’s Faculty of Biomedical Engineering in Haifa. Before joining the Technion, she worked at leading research institutions in Europe and the United States, including Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, and conducted research at the Weizmann Institute of Science, where she completed her PhD.

Her team studies how inflammation spreads through the body and how immune cells travel between organs. “When the body faces any stress like infection, chronic disease or heart attack, the immune system is activated,” she explained. “Most of these immune cells come from the bone marrow. It’s like a factory inside the bones where blood and immune cells are produced.” Her work focuses on how inflammation contributes to diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and neurological disorders, conditions in which the immune system plays a key role.

Dr. Katrien Vandoorne

Using advanced imaging technologies including MRI, PET-CT and intravital microscopy, her team tracks immune cells as they move from the bone marrow through the bloodstream to organs such as the heart and brain. “Our goal is really to visualize these inflammatory processes so we can measure them, monitor them and ultimately also treat them,” she said. “Or even diagnose them earlier and be more precise with therapies.”

Vandoorne’s work sits at the intersection of biology, medicine and engineering, reflecting the Technion’s approach of combining technological innovation with medical research.

A unique research ecosystem

Vandoorne says the Technion’s strength lies in its ability to bridge engineering and medicine. “It combines engineers on the technical side and clinicians on the medicine side,” she said. “You have Rambam Hospital, a great medical school and all the engineers needed to solve problems.” Biomedical engineers often stand at the intersection of those disciplines. “We’re really trying to work on real-world problems,” she said.

Dr. Katrien Vandoorne

Beyond infrastructure, she credits the university’s collaborative atmosphere. “It’s a very warm human environment,” she said. “Everybody is open and supporting. Whatever question I have, people are trying to help.”

Life and work during war

Like many Israelis, Vandoorne’s daily life has also been shaped by the ongoing war. “The war has been a rough pill to swallow,” she said. Without extended family nearby and with many international friends leaving Israel after the October 7 attacks, the experience has been emotionally challenging. “I built up a whole network of friends and most of them left,” she said. “It was very confronting for me to need to start it up again.”

Yet she says both her children and her students have helped her navigate the uncertainty. “My children teach me the most about how to deal with it,” she said. “I worry about them and they tell me not to. They say they are fine.” Her lab community has also provided support. “For me our faculty feels like a small family,” she said. “Everybody is really part of the community.”

Dr. Katrien Vandoorne

During periods of heavy rocket fire from Hezbollah in northern Israel, staff and students often gathered in a large underground shelter inside their building. “We were just all down there trying to ground ourselves by talking science in the shelter while bombs were falling,” she said. “After everything stops everybody gives a hug and we go back up and continue our day.”

Believing in Israel’s scientific future

Despite the difficulties, Vandoorne remains optimistic about Israel’s future in science and innovation. “I think if anywhere there’s going to be biomedical innovation, it’s going to be here,” she said. Part of that belief comes from what she sees as a national resilience. “We are not afraid of anything,” she said. “That lack of fear stops many people in other countries from innovating.”

Dr. Katrien Vandoorne

Facing constant challenges can also fuel creativity, she said. “If you are in a country where everything is good and everything is fine, you don’t want to take a challenge,” she said. “Here we deal with challenges every day.”

For Vandoorne, that spirit continues to shape both her research and her life in Israel. “It really feels like a place where people want to solve problems and help each other,” she said. “That’s why I want to stay.”

Prof. Katrien Vandoorne is head of the In Vivo Multiscale Imaging Lab in the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering in the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.

The Technion claimed the top spot in Europe for AI research according to CSRankings, placing 21st globally, and has fuelled a surge of successful commercial tech spinoffs.

The Technion Israel Institute of Technology was ranked the best university in computer science and artificial intelligence research in Israel and Europe. It was also ranked 21st worldwide, according to an index unveiled by CSRankings on Monday.

The index was created using the number of peer-reviewed conference papers published by Technion researchers between 2005 and 2025 at the world’s leading computer science conferences, highlighting the Technion as one of the leading institutions in AI research and development.

The institute was also ranked among the top ten most important universities when investigating Machine Learning, a subfield of Artificial Intelligence.

The Technion explained that this achievement was possible thanks to its extensive community of researchers, comprising more than 150 professionals from across a range of faculties, working in various areas of AI research and development.

“This international recognition stems from a long-term strategy to advance AI research at the Technion and from substantial investment in this field,” said Prof. Danny Raz, Senior Executive Vice President at the Technion.

Aerial view of the Technion Israel Institute of Technology (credit: TECHNION SPOKESPERSON’S OFFICE)

“Hundreds of our faculty members apply advanced AI-based methods across a wide range of fields, including data science, medical research, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, architecture, and biology, and I am confident this trend will only intensify,” he added.

Technion transforms academic achievements into commercial applications

According to a statement by the institute, the Technion’s AI research achievements have been translated into commercial applications, mainly using the T3, the Technion’s technology transfer arm.

Among the most important are Firefly Neuroscience (brain health), founded by Dr. Shahaf Goded and which went public in 2024; DECI AI (deep learning), founded by Prof. Ran El-Yaniv and acquired by NVIDIA; and Autobrains (autonomous vehicles), founded by Prof. Yehoshua Zeevi.

Other important companies founded by Technion’s alums are Barcode Nanotech (in-body particle transport for therapeutic purposes), founded by Prof. Avi Schroeder, Pickommerce AI Robotics (robotics), founded by Prof. Elon Rimon, Nol8 (data processing), founded this year by Prof. Mark Silberstein, Metasight Diagnostics (bioinformatics), founded by Prof. Tomer Shlomi, and SleepAI (sleep research), founded by Prof. Joachim Behar.

Patent registration involves prestige as well as significant money. Commercial companies file patents and reap major profits, but academic institutions also benefit from the innovations developed by their researchers.

Israel holds a respected position in this arena, and for the fifth consecutive year, the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology ranked among the Top 100 institutions for U.S. patent approvals.

The latest ranking places the Technion first in Israel, second in Europe, and within the list of the world’s 100 leading institutions for U.S. patent approvals in 2025. The Technion ranked 81st globally, with 46 patents approved during the year, and was the only Israeli university to make the Top 100. The top spot went to the governing body of the University of California.

The Technion’s approved patents span a wide range of fields, from artificial intelligence to 3D-printed structures, from smart drug delivery systems to advanced materials and quantum computing technologies.

Prof. Yuval Grofeni, Deputy President for Innovation and Industry Relations, said: “The Technion’s continued success at the forefront of patent approvals is a credit to our faculty members and their students, who constantly strive for excellence. Many invest not only in high-level research but also in translating their work into technologies and products that positively impact quality of life.”

The patent rankings are published by the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). The organization notes that U.S. patent registration enables academic and other institutions to convert original technologies into competitive products in the global market and make a tangible impact on consumers. The NAI ranking is based on data from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for 2025 and includes 100 institutions and approximately 10,000 patents.

Rona Samler, CEO of T3, the Technion’s technology transfer unit responsible for patent evaluation and licensing, added: “Behind every patent stands deep scientific thinking, and behind every licensing decision — responsibility for generating real-world value. T3 is tasked not only with managing patents but also with transforming knowledge into innovation through commercialization and company formation, thereby serving society, strengthening the economy, and contributing to the resilience and prosperity of Israel and the world.”

A research team from the Technion’s Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering has developed an original technology for treating cancer using nanoparticles that carry no drugs at all, and has demonstrated its effectiveness against particularly dangerous and stubborn tumors

An innovative technology developed by researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology could lead to a fundamental shift in the cancer treatment paradigm. They created advanced nanoparticles that successfully halt aggressive triple-negative breast cancer tumours – without releasing a single drug molecule. The particles operate through a sophisticated interaction with the immune system, changing the rules of the game by delivering a biological message to the tumour microenvironment and to immune system cells.

Published in ACS Nano, the study was led by Ph.D. candidate Ofri Vizenblit, with the assistance of Ph.D. candidate Rawan Mhajne, under the supervision of Assistant Professor Assaf Zinger, head of the Bioinspired Nano Engineering and Translational Therapeutics Laboratory in the Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering.

Triple-negative breast cancer is considered one of the most aggressive and difficult cancers to treat. It is characterized by rapid progression and high resistance to conventional therapies. The new paradigm change presented by Technion researchers is based on a revolutionary approach: instead of attacking the cancer cells themselves, it targets the environment in which they exist and develop.

Cancer cells employ a range of “strategies” to evade the immune system, which is supposed to identify and destroy them. One of the central strategies is recruiting immune cells to their side. In such cases, white blood cells known as macrophages –whose role is to protect the body – are “hijacked” by the tumour, support its growth, and prevent the immune system from attacking it effectively.

The nanoparticles developed by the Technion researchers, called MPsomes, act as a biological decoy. They compete with immune cells for binding sites in the tumor microenvironment and block the access of harmful cells to the tumor. The particles were tested in cell cultures and in preclinical mouse models of triple-negative breast cancer. The experimental results showed that the particles accumulate in exceptionally high concentrations around the tumor and inhibit its growth with effectiveness comparable to that of existing treatments.

An additional advantage highlighted by the researchers is manufacturability: the process developed at the Technion enables the production of approximately 20 ml of nanoparticles per minute (about 1.2 liters per hour). Moreover, the particle base is composed largely of materials that are recognised by the FDA as Generally Recognised as Safe (GRAS), a factor that may facilitate the transition to clinical trials and ultimately to medical use.

The results were particularly surprising: in pre-clinical experiments, the particles not only accumulated in the tumor but also inhibited its growth like the effects of advanced immunotherapies currently approved for clinical use, all without drugs, without chemotherapy, and without antibodies.

“This is a conceptual shift,” the researchers explained. “The therapeutic efficacy does not stem from the release of an active substance, but from the biological information encoded on the surface of the nanoparticle.” In other words, it is the interaction with the immune system itself that triggers the therapeutic effect.

Beyond inhibiting tumour growth, the researchers showed that the particles alter the composition of immune cells in the tumour environment: fewer cells that promote tumour development and more cells that attack it. In addition, no signs of toxicity were observed in vital organs.

The research is still at the preclinical stage and has so far been tested only in mouse models. Nevertheless, the researchers hope that in the future it will be possible to advance to clinical trials in humans and perhaps open the door to a new generation of cancer therapies, ones that do not rely on drugs at all.

Assistant Professor Assaf Zinger earned his bachelor’s degree from the Technion Faculty of Biomedical Engineering and his Ph.D. from the Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering. He returned to the Wolfson Faculty as a faculty member in October 2021 after completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Houston Methodist Hospital in Texas. Ofri Vizenblit, also a graduate of the Technion Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, joined Zinger’s laboratory immediately after completing her bachelor’s degree, and the current paper is part of her doctoral research. “Although we focused here on a specific type of cancer,” concluded Dr. Zinger, “this is a paradigmatic breakthrough that can lead to the development of new therapeutic platforms that are more effective and safer. I sincerely hope we will find the path to bring this invention to the clinic.”

The research was supported by the Israel Cancer Research Fund (ICRF), the Israel Science Foundation (ISF), the European Union (ERC Starting Grant), the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology (MOST), the Israel Cancer Association, the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute at the Technion, and the Alon and Seiden Fellowships in nanotechnology and optoelectronics.

Technion and top US universities unveil implantable ‘living pancreas’ that senses glucose, produces insulin and evades immune response, paving the way for self-regulating, long-term diabetes treatment without daily injections

A multinational research team led by an Israeli engineer and involving top U.S. universities has unveiled a pioneering implantable device that could someday eliminate the need for daily insulin injections for people with diabetes.

The study, published Jan. 28 in Science Translational Medicine, describes a living, cell‑based implant that functions as an autonomous “artificial pancreas.” Once placed in the body, the device continuously monitors blood glucose levels, produces insulin internally and releases exactly what the body needs — without external pumps, injections or patient intervention.

The breakthrough centers on a novel protective technology researchers call a “crystalline shield”, engineered to prevent the body’s immune system from rejecting the implant — a major hurdle that has stymied cell‑based therapies for decades. The shield allows the implant to operate reliably for years.

Tests in mice showed effective long‑term glucose regulation, and studies in non‑human primates confirmed that the cells inside the implant remain viable and functional, the researchers said. Those results, they added, provide strong support for future clinical testing in humans.

The work was led by Assistant Professor Shady Farah of the Technion — Israel Institute of Technology’s Faculty of Chemical Engineering, in collaboration with scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Massachusetts. The collaboration traces back to Farah’s postdoctoral work beginning in 2018 at MIT and Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School, under tissue‑engineering pioneers including Robert Langer, a co‑founder of Moderna.

Assistant Professor Shady Farah
Assistant Professor Shady Farah

Farah’s co‑first authors on the paper are Matthew Bochenek of MIT and Joshua Doloff of Johns Hopkins. Other contributors include Technion researchers Dr. Merna Shaheen‑Mualim and former master’s students Neta Kutner and Edward Odeh, who also helped adapt the work for publication.

While the initial focus is on diabetes, the team emphasized that the platform could one day be adapted to deliver other biologic therapies continuously, offering a new approach to chronic conditions such as hemophilia and other metabolic or genetic diseases.

If successfully translated into human treatment, experts say the technology could reshape the management of chronic illness by replacing lifelong drug regimens with self‑regulated, living therapeutics working continuously inside the body.