Since the start of the pandemic, scientists have warned that cancer patients could be at increased risk of serious illness from COVID-19 due to a weakened immune system. But that commonly held belief, reinforced by an early study from China as well as the National Cancer Institute, might be wrong — for certain patients.

Article published at ats.org on September 16, 2020.

In fact, cancer patients, with the exception of those with blood cancers, may not become infected any more than the population at large, and might have the same if not better odds of beating back the most severe symptoms of COVID-19.

Those were the findings of a first-of-its-kind study by scientists at the Technion and Rambam Health Care Campus, who analyzed blood samples from 164 cancer patients undergoing active anti-cancer treatment and 107 healthy Rambam hospital workers to examine changes in the profile of the immune system. They found almost no difference in the rate of developing COVID-19 antibodies. In fact, the rate for the cancer patients was even a bit higher at 2.4% as compared to 1.94% for the healthcare workers. None of the subjects showed symptoms for the coronavirus.

“Our hypothesis is that the different response of cancer patients to the disease is related to the fact that the anti-cancer treatment changes the profile of the immune system,” said Technion Professor Yuval Shaked, head of the Technion Integrated Cancer Center in the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, who worked alongside Professor Irit Ben-Aharon, director of oncology at Rambam. Specifically, myeloid cells, which are vital to the immune system, are more severely damaged by the coronavirus in the general population than in cancer patients.

The team theorized that cancer treatments may limit the ability of the coronavirus to induce severe inflammation, protecting them from COVID’s life-threatening “cytokine storms,” in which the body’s immune system attacks its own cells rather than fighting off the virus.

The Technion-Rambam team cautioned that their study was small and called for further research. Nonetheless, they hope their work allows cancer patients to breathe easier, as many have delayed treatments to avoid hospitals.

When treating cancer, researchers are always searching for ways to remove cancer cells while minimizing damage to the rest of the body. One possible approach is to find processes unique to cancer cells, and which would allow specific targeting. If such a process can be disrupted, only those cells would be affected.

Article published at ats.org on February 4, 2021.

A process (or absence thereof) can be unique to some types of cancer, and not be present in others. In such a case, we would want a simple way to recognize whether a particular tumor possesses the unique trait or not. The implication of this question is whether the tumor would respond to this or that treatment, allowing us to match a treatment to the patient who is likely to be helped by it, rather than going by trial and error.

Professor Tomer Shlomi’s research group discovered just such a process – one that may be targeted in cancer cells without causing damage to healthy ones, findings that have been published in Cell Metabolism.

Prof. Shlomi is a member of the Henry and Marilyn Taub Faculty of Computer Science, the Faculty of Biology, the Lorry I. Lokey Center for Life Science and Engineering, and the Rappaport Technion Integrated Cancer Center.

The folate cycle is a process essential to DNA and RNA production. As a result, it is highly important to both cancer cells and healthy cells. Because DNA production is a critical stage in cell division, and thus in tumor growth, the folate cycle is a common target for chemotherapy. However, for the very same reason, there are significant side effects to attacking it.

Tomer Shlomi
Professor

There are, in fact, two folate cycles – one happening in the mitochondria (an organelle inside the cell), and one in the cytosol (the fluid that fills the cell). A healthy cell can switch from one to the other. A variety of tumor cells, Professor Shlomi’s group discovered, rely on the cytosolic pathway exclusively. The implication is, if treatment were to target the cytosolic folate cycle, healthy cells would switch to the mitochondrial cycle and would not be harmed, leaving tumor cells to die.

It remains to recognize whether a particular tumor is indeed one in which the mitochondrial folate cycle is non-functional, and here too Shlomi’s team provided. RFC is a transporter protein that regulates intracellular folate levels. Low RFC – low folate. Low folate, the group discovered, is devastating to the mitochondrial cycle. So low RFC tumors are the ones that would be affected by cytosolic cycle-blocking treatments.

Both the pathway that may be attacked, and the way to recognize which tumors the attack would be effective against have thus been found.

Technion scientists have developed a novel method for rapid and accurate sensing of coronavirus without the need to rely on PCR amplification, a technique that makes millions or even billions of copies of DNA so that there is enough material to test. The new technique can identify the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in a sample by counting and quantifying the virus’ RNA molecules with single-molecule precision. This method is not biased by PCR amplification errors, allowing researchers to develop a more accurate clinical diagnostic technique. Researchers have also found that the technique can be used to detect metastatic cancer.

Article published at ats.org on October 21, 2020.

The research was led by Professor Amit Meller and carried out by researchers Dr. Yana Rozevsky, Dr. Tal Gilboa, Dr. Xander van Kooten, and staff scientist Dr. Diana Huttner — all of whom are researchers in the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering — and Professor Ulrike Stein and Dr. Dennis Kobelt from the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine and the Charité Hospital in Berlin.

Illustration of DNA molecules passing through a nanopore one after the other

RT-qPRC Testing
The most widely used test for COVID-19 is the RT-qPCR test. It requires first collecting a sample from a patient using a swab, “opening” the virus, and extracting RNA from it. In the next stage, called reverse transcription (RT), specific ‘target’ RNA sequences are copied to the DNA form. Finally, this DNA is amplified by a polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Millions of copies are made so that enough DNA is present to be detected, finally leading to a diagnosis for COVID-19.

RT-qPCR testing requires large quantities of special reagents, expensive laboratory equipment, and highly trained professionals. Recent studies have also shown that test results can change from one day to the next and that the massive amplification process can generate significant errors. For these reasons, worldwide efforts are being devoted to developing faster, more affordable, and more accurate tests. This task is particularly challenging in cases where the “viral load” (the amount of viral RNA) in a sample is low and can evade sensing.

Professor Amit Meller
Faculty of Biomedical Engineering

Using Nanopores to “Sense” COVID-19 and Metastatic Cancer
The new method presented by Prof. Meller’s research group relies on original technologies that the lab has developed in the past two decades, using nanofabricated holes (so-called “nanopores”) to sense single biological molecules. The effectiveness of this technology has already been demonstrated in a number of other biomedical uses.

Unlike conventional molecular diagnostics, which require large volumes of samples containing millions of copies of the same molecule, nanopore sensing analyzes individual biological molecules from much smaller samples. A strong electrical field is used to unfold and thread individual DNA molecules through the nanoscopic hole containing electrical or optical sensors. Each molecule that passes through the hole gives a characteristic “signature,” which enables identification and immediate counting of the molecules. This approach opens up the possibility of miniaturising the diagnostic systems while improving the accuracy and reliability of tests.

In an article recently published in ACS Nano, the researchers present two applications of their new method: identifying RNA molecules that signal the emergence of metastatic cancer and detecting coronavirus RNA.

In the first application, the researchers demonstrated the method’s potential for early detection of metastatic cancer by quantifying the levels of MACC1 — one of the primary genes known to signal the formation of a metastatic state. Thanks to its high degree of sensitivity, the new technique successfully quantified the gene’s expression in cancerous cells at the early stages of illness (known as stages I and II) — a challenge that PCR-based technologies failed to meet. Needless to say, the earlier these genetic biomarkers are discovered, the better the chances of successful treatment.

In the second application, the researchers detected the RNA molecules of the SARS-CoV-2 virus using the same approach. Unlike other tests, the new approach avoids introducing “noise” and errors into the system, obtaining a more precise and accurate analysis method.

Commercializing the Technology
With further work, the nanopore sensing system is expected to become a portable device that will make cumbersome lab equipment unnecessary. Technological and clinical research is continuing at the Technion Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, in collaboration with the BioBank at the Rambam Health Care Campus. At the same time, steps are being taken to commercialize the technology in order to make it available for general use as soon as possible.

Breath test from Technion scientist shows promising early results in sniffing out Covid-19 within 30 seconds.

Article published at www.israel21c.org on August 24, 2020.

Could uncomfortable nasal swabs be swapped for a contactless two-second breathalyzer puff to check for Covid-19 infection? Prof. Hossam Haick thinks so.

Haick, a professor of chemical engineering and nanotechnology at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, first came to our attention in 2011 for his invention of “NaNose,” which can sniff out cancer, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease, gastric ailments and more. (Na-Nose is currently being assessed by medical regulators.)

Prof. Hossam Haick, inventor of a breath test for diseases. Photo courtesy of Technion Spokesperson’s Office

When Covid-19 broke out earlier this year, Haick, together with Technion colleague Dr. Yoav Broza, together with researchers from Wuhan, China, began adapting Haick’s “breathalyzer” technology for the novel coronavirus.

The preliminary results look promising.

In a new peer-reviewed study published in the scientific journal ACS Nano, Haick’s sniffer tech correctly identified all positive patients in a clinical trial in Wuhan. The test detects disease-specific biomarkers in the breath with 92% accuracy, 100% sensitivity and 84% specificity, the researchers reported.

The new device, like the original, uses nanotechnology to identify specific volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from the lung that are in the exhaled breath of coronavirus patients.

The Covid-19 breathalyzer could revolutionize testing for the virus – you just need to blow into the device for a couple of seconds from a distance of 2 centimeters and the results come back within 30 seconds.

Fast identification of Covid-positive patients is crucial for contact tracing and is considered the best way, short of a vaccine, to stem community transmission of the virus that has killed more than 800,000 people around the world.

A less invasive system would also make Covid testing more widespread, enabling health departments to identify pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic carriers.

The tests should cost around $2 to $3 a person, Haick added. The self-contained device does not require any additional accessories.

The clinical trial examined 140 people, of whom 49 had previously tested positive for Covid-19. The test identified all the coronavirus carriers. However, it also told seven healthy people they had the virus.

That may sound like a failure, but up to a quarter of current state-of-the-art PCR tests for Covid-19 return false positives as well. From the perspective of doctors tackling the pandemic, false positives are inconvenient but less concerning than false negatives, which can lead to people to assume they are virus-free and as a result spread the virus by mistake.

Like NaNose Medical’s main cancer testing device, its Covid-19 test will also need to be approved by regulators, but Haick expects that to happen faster given the urgency of Covid-19 testing – perhaps as early as six months from now, he says. Still, a larger cohort study will be needed to validate the results.

Haick’s innovation is not the only Israeli test in emergency development today for Covid-19 testing. A “gargle and spit” method is being evaluated on hundreds of patients at Tel Aviv’s Sheba Hospital and has an even higher accuracy rate than Haick’s – up to 95% – which would make it suitable for mass screening at airports, nursing homes and even screening at home, says Prof. Eli Schwartz, head of the trial for Sheba.

Like the breathalyzer, the “gargle and spit” test would be inexpensive and fast – with results analyzed within just one second.

Haick serves as chief technology officer for NaNose Medical in addition to his position at the Technion.

Article published at ats.org on June 2, 2020.

Soon we may not need to retire our protective face mask after a trip to the supermarket. Technion Professor Yair Ein-Eli is developing masks that can be heated to destroy the coronavirus while maintaining their integrity. Reusable, self-cleaning masks are essential for boosting hygiene, mitigating global mask shortages, and protecting the environment.

The new masks contain a heating element of carbon fibers and a USB port for charging. When connected to a low-current cable for less than 30 minutes, the masks heat to between 149 to 158 degrees Fahrenheit and kill viruses and bacteria. “If you are in your car and take your mask off, you can simply connect it to your cigarette lighter charger, then put it back on as if it’s new,” said Prof. Ein-Eli, dean of the Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering.

An expert in battery technology, Prof. Ein-Eli hit on the idea after considering, and rejecting, the notion of adding a battery, as they would make the masks too heavy. He wanted a mask that was convenient, so it needed to be compatible with phone chargers. He and his team experimented with different carbon fibers until finding the right one.

In collaboration with Technion biologists, they have already filed an application for a U.S. patent and are in discussions with companies about commercialization. Prof. Ein-Eli estimates that masks without ports could be updated with his heating mechanism for just 90 cents.

The Need

One of the major obstacles experienced during the global COVID-19 pandemic has been the accessibility to testing. The inability to test the greater population has kept decision makers relying on statistical probability in the absence of hard numbers.Testing is considered key to an effective exit strategy for countries to return to normal economic activity.

Product

An inexpensive kit that will enable a simple home test for COVID-19 with results available in under an hour. The test only requires a saliva sample, reactive material and a thermal cup. Once the protocol is approved by the Health Ministry, it
can be made widely available to the population at large. The home-test kit does not require any special lab equipment

Technology

Lead researcher, at the Rappaport Medical Faculty, Prof. Naama Geva-Zatorsky, has developed a kit using existing materials capable of identifying the genetic material of COVID-19. The team proved that in medium and high concentrations of coronavirus, the test identifies 99% of the cases. The technology is low-cost, rapid, and does not require specialist equipment or lab expertise. In future the test could be adapted to other viruses and pathogens.
The test was developed with the collaboration of colleagues at the Rambam Health Care Center and Meir Medical Center.

Read here for the latest from the Technion.

High schoolers’ robotic platform shuttles supplies to and from the coronavirus ward while controlled remotely by medical staff.

Article published at www.israel21c.or on April 12, 2020.

The battle against coronavirus in Israel just got a helping hand from an unexpected source: the robotics club at the prestigious Hebrew Reali School in Haifa.

Students and alumni of the robotics club, called “Galaxia 5987 in memory of David Zohar,” answered a call from Rambam Medical Center and the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. In under a week, they developed a robot according to the hospital’s requirements.

The Reali School’s robotics club and alumni with their CoRobot robotic prototype. Photo courtesy of Technion Spokesperson’s Office

The prototype robotic platform, CoRobot, can shuttle supplies to and from the coronavirus ward to minimize the need for medical staff to enter and risk catching the highly infectious virus.

CoRobot can be remotely operated by medical staff using a joystick or a smartphone app. They can see what is happening through the video camera attached to the robot.

CoRobot can transport supplies to patients while minimizing the need for human medical staff to enter infectious wards. Photo courtesy of Technion Spokesperson’s Office

“If the robot will successfully pass its installation at Rambam, in a relatively short amount of time we will be able to build more robots for Rambam and for similar departments in other Israeli hospitals,” says Prof. Alon Wolf, the Technion’s VP for External Relations and Resource Development.

Wolf is also a robotics expert who heads the the FIRST robotics program in Israel. FIRST is an international educational organization that uses robotics competitions to promote entrepreneurship and learning among young children and youth.

FIRST ISRAEL, led by Technion, runs hundreds of groups across the country. According to Wolf, should the robot prove successful, additional FIRST groups across Israel will join the effort.

Technion Prof. Gil Yudilevitch, who leads the Reali robotics program, added that more is in store for CoRobot.

“In the next stage the robot will incorporate a communication system that will include a screen, camera, microphone and speaker, and will be able to move from patient to patient and transmit information to the medical staff in real time. I hope that in the future we will add features that will help with the actual treatment, such as sensors that will check patients’ pulse rates and blood oxygen levels,” he says.

For the first time in over a century, we are faced with a pandemic of unpredictable proportions.

Article published by the president of the Technion April 07, 2020.

A tiny, invisible virus took humanity by surprise, affecting the lives of all of us, causing uncertainty and worry for the wellbeing of our families and friends. Such times remind us of the true value of friendship and solidarity within our closer and wider circles of life. They also underscore the power of science and technology, be it medical care or the information technology that keeps us connected while maintaining social distancing.

The situation in Israel is more or less under control. The rate of infection is still high, but we have started seeing a minute positive effect of the broad lockout. The next days will tell how well we are containing the plague. On March 17th, one day before the opening of the spring semester, the Technion was officially shut down in accordance with government regulations. After taking all necessary steps to secure the health of our staff and students, Technion swiftly moved online. I am proud to report that the semester began on March 18th, on schedule, with a comprehensive program for distance teaching for all our students. All lectures and tutorials are being taught as scheduled, barring lab classes, which are on hold temporarily. Our first online survey reported an overwhelming 97.5% satisfaction by students and faculty alike, which is a credit to the unprecedented mobilization of our devoted staff, faculty members and the Students Association, who worked tirelessly to get the online semester up and running. This achievement also highlights the solidarity, agility, and improvisation skills that many times present themselves in Israel in a time of crisis.

COVID-19 presents a global challenge, which ultimately requires global scientific and technological solutions. The combination of science, engineering and a medical school quickly put Technion at the forefront of this fight. The close cooperation between Technion, hospitals and industry constitutes a unique resource for facilitating speedy healthcare solutions for the benefit of humanity. Within three weeks, Technion researchers in nearly 30 labs, and growing fast, have begun working round the clock to fight the spread of COVID-19 through targeted emergency research projects, while collaborating closely with the health system in order to find immediate solutions. The projects are diverse, including advanced diagnostic techniques, personalized medical treatment, targeted drug delivery, treatment protocols based on machine learning and AI, big data management, and robots for remote medical care. In addition, Technion and Rambam Health Care Campus are collaborating closely on a number of emergency projects that are critical to minimizing the exposure and infection of the hospital’s staff by the corona patients.

The current crisis is also imposing a financial strain on Technion students and employees. Government regulations limited employment to 30% of the workforce, and recently reduced this number to 15%, sending thousands of students and employees to seek support from Social Security. To help our students, Technion, in collaboration with the American Technion Society, has set up an emergency student fund. Simultaneously, to support our employees, the senior academic staff has voluntarily waived part of their salary in the next few months towards the establishment of a solidarity fund. It is heartwarming to witness how united the Technion family is—students, employees, faculty, and supporters.

As difficult as things are, the lessons learned during the present crisis also offer new opportunities. Under the circumstances, we had to switch in one week from traditional teaching in classrooms to fully-fledged online teaching, a feat that would have taken months under normal conditions. This is not to say that online teaching will substitute personal encounters; on the contrary—the limitations of the former have also become evident during this forced large-scale experiment. However, a new hybrid of frontal and online teaching will probably emerge, offering remarkable opportunities for globalization, joint programs with universities abroad, and much more.
The same is true for research. The number of local and international collaborations with academia, industry, research institutes, and hospitals has grown exponentially, confirming the value of partnership and demonstrating that much of the communication can, in fact, be carried out online. Paradoxically, the social distancing imposed on us confirmed the importance of collaboration and the fact that geography no longer presents a barrier. The world has become even flatter, in Thomas Friedman’s words.

Dear friends across the world, our minds and hearts are with you, wherever you are. Next week we will be celebrating an unusual Passover, one of isolation and distancing from our loved ones. This celebration of spring and rejuvenation will be overcast by the present situation, but I’m confident that we will all emerge from this crisis soon, with insight, strength, and even stronger bonds. At these difficult times, I thank you wholeheartedly for your continued commitment and friendship.

Once campuses were shut down nationwide in mid-March, it took a little over a week for all academic institutions in Israel to shift their curriculum, almost in its entirety, to the web.

Article published at www.calcalistech.com on April 03, 2020.

One thing is clear to all academic institutions in Israel: campuses will never be the same following the coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis. This global experiment in remote learning, imposed by lockdowns, will have a dramatic impact on how academic studying is conducted in the future.

It took a little over a week once campuses were shut down nationwide in mid-March for all academic institutions in Israel to shift their curriculum, almost in its entirety, to the web. All these institutions are now preparing for the possibility of finishing the semester without students having met with faculty face to face even once, and, for the first time in Israel’s academic history, no one is doubting the validity of this option.

Technion University campus in Haifa. Photo: Technion

Israeli universities and colleges have known for years that they must prepare for a new era of online remote learning. Both faculties and institutions, however, were more comfortable sticking to what they knew, and transitioning to digital means was done slowly and sporadically. Now, faculty members had to learn to use the technology at light-speed and once this crisis is over, there will not be a single person in academia that does not know how to run a class on Zoom Video Communications Inc.’s platform.

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem went from 30 to 3,000 online courses in a week, President Asher Cohen told Calclaist. Other institutions, including Technion Israel Institute of Technology and the Open University of Israel, report having shifted almost all of their courses to remote digital instruction.

Oren Soffer, dean of development and learning technology at the Open University, told Calcalist he believes this is a turning point for academia. Yaffa Zilbershats, head of Israel’s Council for Higher Education’s planning and budget committee agreed, saying the crisis will bring about the digital revolution way quicker than expected.

It remains difficult to foresee the exact details of this revolution but it is clear that even long after the crisis has passed there will be more classes recorded and published online for students than there were before. Even those lecturers who objected to digital teaching will now be more prone to allow their classes to be filmed, Hossam Hayek, dean of bachelor’s degree studies at Technion, told Calcalist.

One possible change brought about by the digitalization of academic studies is that students will be required to watch a recording of a lesson in advance and arrive in class for in-depth discussions and questions. Soffer’s vision goes even further, to create a Wikipedia-like collaborative online environment in which students can collaborate and answer questions together.

Another issue that can be advanced through online classes is the integration of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) Jewish minority. As classes held with a mixed-gendered audience are considered by many to be against Haredi religious code, eliminating the need to be physically present may encourage more people from this group to take part in academia.

With a lot of the previously frontal classes turning digital, universities could convert the extra space on campus to create a supportive environment for entrepreneurship and innovation, for example by establishing startup accelerators, Zilbershats said. Zilbershats also believes online classes could help different institutions collaborate, especially in fields that are suffering from a shortage of faculty staff, such as natural science.

Remote learning can also make academic studies more accessible to people living far away from the physical institutions and could make them cheaper, University of Haifa President Ron Robin said. Robin, however, believes that it is impossible to turn all academic degrees completely digital. “Creativity is ignited when people look each other in the eye and brainstorm,” he said.

Despite his background in tech, Ami Moyal, president of the Afeka Tel Aviv Academic College of Engineering, feels the same way. “We have no choice but to be online right now, but this cannot be a long term solution for engineering,” Moyal said. Engineering classes are extremely difficult and require a direct link between students and lecturers as well as interpersonal skills like collaboration and presentation, he explained.

One of the main concerns with going digital was that seven universities and 30 colleges did so at the same time, which could have caused the internet or the video platforms to collapse, Robin said. Most issues, however, were isolated, for example, a lecturer whose home internet connection was too weak to sustain the broadcast, he said.

More pressing than technical hurdles, however, are the students’ difficulty in concentrating for long hours of study in front of a screen at home, without the comradery they get with frontal classes. Even though attendance is high—amounting to hundreds of students in mandatory classes, according to Robin—due to people being confined to their homes on government orders, attention deficit appears to be an even bigger issue with remote classes. “Students run errands, we have even seen them mopping the floors during class,” Moyal said.

Of course, not everything can be done online. It seems the only thing academic institutes can do about lab experiments in electronics or chemistry right now is hope the lockdown regulations will loosen before the semester ends.

In bid to protect medical staff during coronavirus outbreak, Galilee Medical Center pilots a facemask sticker to catch and kill virus nanoparticles.

Article published at www.jisrael21c.org on April 02, 2020.

Dr. Samer Srouji, left, and members of his oral & maxillofacial surgery team at Galilee Medical Center testing the Maya sticker on their surgical masks. Photo by Eli Cohen

Israel’s Galilee Medical Center is piloting a virus-neutralizing sticker that attaches to surgical masks to better protect medical staff during the corona crisis.

The 3D-printed “Maya” sticker was developed at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology by a mechanical engineering team led by Prof. Eyal Zussman. The sticker contains nanofibers that capture nanoparticles, and disinfectants believed capable of killing any viruses in those nanoparticles.

he Technion team worked in coordination with Prof. Samer Srouji, director of the medical center’s Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Department and Oral Medicine & Dentistry Institute; and in collaboration with the Directorate of Defense Research and Development of Israel’s Ministry of Defense.

Israel’s Ministry of Health has given initial approval for the 723-bed government-owned hospital to trial the unique sticker.

“This is a fast and available solution, using advanced technologies. We are excited to launch a pilot at the medical center to test adaptation of the sticker by the medical staff,” said Srouji.

Dr. Masad Barhoum, general director of the Galilee Medical Center, said that if the Maya sticker meets expectations in protecting healthcare professionals against infection, the medical center will recommend it to other hospitals in Israel and abroad.

Deputy Director General Dr. Tsvi Sheleg tells ISRAEL21c that the hospital also devised a special transparent PVC box that better protects anesthesiologists when they intubate COVID-19 patients.

“We have a prototype and are building 100 of them. Once it is in medical use we will advise it to other hospitals because I think it is a crucial low-tech application that can help physicians.”