Technion researchers, in collaboration with Japanese and American scientists, have developed an innovative strategy for eliminating cancer cells. The research was recently published in Nature Chemistry by Professor Ashraf Brik of the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion, Prof. Hiro Suga of the University of Tokyo, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry and Distinguished Prof. Aaron Ciechanover of the Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, and Prof. David Fushman of the University of Maryland’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
Article by Kevin Hattori, published on Ats.org on June 25, 2019.
Professor Ashraf Brik
The new study is a dramatic milestone in the application of the discovery of the ubiquitin system that led to the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for Distinguished Professors Avram Hershko and Aaron Ciechanover, and Dr Irwin Rose. The trio of researchers discovered how unique proteins, which they called the “ubiquitin proteins,” label defective proteins with a “death tag” that leads to their breakdown in protease, also known as the “cellular garbage can.”
It is now clear that the proper functioning of the ubiquitin system is essential for the healthy functioning of the organism, not only in the context of the breakdown of used proteins but also in many other functions. Disruptions in this system cause serious diseases, including various cancers, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease), cystic fibrosis, Parkinson’s disease, and other neurodegenerative disorders.
The new strategy, based on a combination of the production of ubiquitin chains (left) and the formation of large libraries of cyclic peptides (center), and the atomic composition of one of the cyclic peptides
The discovery of ubiquitin paved the way for a new field of research, and many research groups around the world have been working on the ubiquitin system and harnessing it for developing innovative medical treatments. To date, four such drugs have been approved for the treatment of cancer in general and multiple myeloma in particular. These drugs have already saved the lives of many people around the world, but according to Prof. Brik, “the progress in the study of the ubiquitin system and the development of drugs based on its understanding are very slow relative to its potential.”
The first stage in the normal natural activity of the ubiquitin system is the creation of chains of ubiquitin (polyUB chains) that later label the proteins to be broken down. The problem is that when cancer develops in the body, cancer cells know how to carry out manipulation in the ubiquitin system and exploit it for survival and proliferation.
The strategy developed by the group headed by Prof. Brik was designed to neutralize the ability of the malignancy to perform the same manipulation. This strategy is based on an unprecedented combination of Prof. Brik’s skill in producing ubiquitin chains using advanced chemical methods and Prof. Suga’s method of creating very large libraries of molecules called cyclic peptides. As part of the collaboration, the researchers discovered how these cylic peptides bind to the ubiquitin chains and thus inhibit the breakdown of proteins that help the cancer to grow and thrive. They believe the strategy they have developed will pave the way for new types of anticancer treatment based on cyclic peptides.
Prof. Ashraf Brik holds the Jordan and Irene Tark Chair in the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry. The current study is supported by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Miriam and Sheldon Adelson Foundation, the Israel Science Foundation (ISF), the Germany-Israel Foundation for Research and Development (GIF), and the Israel Cancer Research Foundation (ICRF).
Does every Jewish mother want her son to become a doctor? Not always. If you’re a member of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Israel, where many young men are expected to spend their days learning Torah full-time, many mothers in these communities would much rather say, “my son the rabbi” than “my son the doctor.”
Article by Sam Sokol, published on Forward.com on July 3, 2019.
Meet Israel’s First Hasidic Med School Student
And while there are ultra-Orthodox doctors, many of whom immigrated from abroad or found religion later in life, a Hasidic doctor who grew up in a local Hasidic community is as rare as a unicorn.
For Yehuda Sabiner, the path to medical school was an unorthodox one. The son of the dean of a Hasidic Gur yeshiva in Jerusalem, Sabiner, now a 29-year-old father of three, said that he has wanted to enter the medical profession since he was four years old when he innocently asked his paediatrician what he would have to do to become an MD.
When he told his parents that he wanted to be a doctor, they saw it “as a cute thing that children say,” he recalled. But when he continued insisting on his chosen profession at age 16, it ceased being amusing and became a source of concern for members of his family.
Sam Sokol
“As I grew up, I saw you can do it as a religious mission, as hesed [lovingkindness], which is very important part of the Jewish tradition. My mother had tears in eyes and said ‘I thought we passed the hard times,’” Sabiner told the Forward. But as he continued in yeshiva, getting high marks in Talmud and appearing to be on track to eventually become a rabbi or a religious court judge, his parents began to relax, although he would occasionally bring up the subject of medicine throughout.
While the ultra-Orthodox world is anything but monolithic, its overall workforce participation is significantly lower than in the national-religious and secular sectors, and many members of the most fervent Haredi communities shun secular studies and higher education.
According to figures released by the Israel Democracy Institute in December, some 45 percent of Haredim live in poverty and just under half of Haredi men are unemployed. Employment figures tend to be lower among members of “Lithuanian” or non-Hasidic Haredim. Despite these figures, however, there has been an increase in the number of Haredim studying for professional careers and the average Haredi monthly income increased by eight percent between 2015-16, “reflect[ing] a rise in ultra-Orthodox salaries among those employed,” according to the IDI. These gains can be credited to the “rise in the number of well-educated members of the ultra-Orthodox community and the advancement of ultra-Orthodox workers in the labor market (as a result of a combination of appropriate skills and education, and government programs).”
Sabiner’s dreams did not fade after his marriage. When he again announced that he intended to become a doctor, his parents replied that it was an issue for him and his wife to handle, while his new bride broke out crying.
“It almost destroyed our marriage,” he recalled, describing how her wife had thought she was marrying a future rabbi.
However, she soon had a change of heart and “came to me with tears in eyes, still upset, and said she won’t be the one to destroy my dream.”
Enrolling in a academic preparatory program run by the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Sabiner worked hard to make up all of the education that he missed attending a Haredi school. “I didn’t know anything, even the ABCs, [certainly] not to write or read in English,” he said. Studying late into the night, his wife helping him, and he gradually began to approach the level of education necessary to undertake medical studies.
After he left the Technion’s Haredi program and integrated into their primary track together with secular students, social life was initially awkward but he was soon accepted by his peers as just another student.
“The beginning was very strange,” he recalled. “It already began in the entrance of the building. The guard stopped me and wouldn’t let me go in: ‘What are you doing here?’ Girls were terrified to sit next to me, but after two weeks the ice melted and I have probably the best fiends of my lifetime here.”
Back in the Hasidic community, Sabiner initially kept his studies secret, but after he let the cat out of the bag he said he was surprised by the response.
“I give classes in my shul about halacha and ethics and medicine,” he said. “I cannot say that I’ve had any problems in the last couple of years.”
And despite their initial reluctance to support his dream, once he had chosen his path, Sabiner said that his parents became his biggest supporters, both financially and emotionally, giving him the breathing room to finish his studies.
Overall, he said, the majority of Gerrer Hasidim are in the workforce so his decision to work wasn’t as surprising to people as his choice of career, and he thinks that there is definitely a desire by many of his contemporaries to enter higher education and the professions.
Sam Sokol
“Almost from the beginning, I received emails and phone calls from the whole spectrum of the Haredi community, asking how to get into medical school,” he said, adding that he believes efforts to force the Haredim to include secular subjects in their school curricula would probably backfire. “Attempts to force change are creating a reaction of negativism and can destroy the willingness for revolution in our community. I really think it’s a process that’s continuing and we must minimize the intervention so that it will be successful.”
And despite their initial reluctance to support his dream, Sabiner’s parents have since become his biggest supporters, both financially and emotionally, giving him the breathing room to finish his studies.
Sabiner, who is in the final stages of his medical degree, has a message for his fellow Haredim.
“We are not cola bottles from the factory, where all the bottles come in the same shape and color. Everybody is an individual and if you want something you should dream the highest [dreams] and do your best to achieve it whether it’s being a rosh yeshiva or doctor or lawyer,” he said.
Sam Sokol is a freelance journalist based in Israel. A former Jerusalem Post and IBA News correspondent, he is the author of ‘Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews: Antisemitism, Propaganda, and the Displacement of Ukrainian Jewry’.
JTA contributed to this report
This story “My Son The Doctor” was written by Sam Sokol.
I want to be a doctor, not a rabbi’: how Israeli ultra-Orthodox are being drawn into work. Traditionally, Haredi men have not joined the labour force. That is starting to change
Article by Harriet Sherwood, published on theguardian.com on September 10, 2018.
Medical student Yehuda Sabiner in class: ‘In the end 99% of people were encouraging me.’ Photograph: Rami Shlush
From the age of three, Yehuda Sabiner harboured a secret ambition to become a doctor. But it seemed unlikely to be fulfilled: he was raised in one of the strictest ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities in Israel.
His education was limited to religious study, first at a private school that barely taught mainstream subjects and later at a yeshiva, a religious school, where he spent 14 hours a day studying Jewish texts. Sabiner, a bright boy and an outstanding student, was earmarked to become a leading rabbi.
But he never forgot his dream. When he was 21 he confessed his ambition to his new wife. She was horrified: she had married him on the understanding that he would be a rabbinical leader. Also, he had no knowledge of science. But Sabiner’s yearning would not go away.
Now 28, Sabiner is embarking on the final year of his medical degree. He will be the first person born and raised in a Haredi community in Israel to become a mainstream doctor, and he plans to specialise in internal medicine.
Sabiner has benefited from a pioneering scheme at the Technion university in Haifa to draw young ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, Jews from largely closed communities into mainstream education and then into the workforce.
The numbers are still tiny – about 60 out of a total student population of 10,000. “But the idea is to bring the number to 200 within five years, and to 400 within 10 years,” said Prof Boaz Golani, a vice-president of the university. “Engaging the Haredi community is important for Israel. Having a civil society where entire segments live in their own world and with little interaction with others is not healthy. It’s a recipe for tension and animosity.”
Sabiner has dreamed since the age of three of becoming a doctor. Photograph: Rami Shlush
In 2017 the number of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel rose above one million for the first time, accounting for 12% of the population. By 2065 they are expected to make up a third of Israel’s population.
Traditionally, Haredi men are not economically active. Many spend their time in religious study, relying on state benefits to support their large families, which average almost seven children. But in recent years the Israeli government and educational institutions have taken steps to integrate the Haredi population into colleges and workforces.
“There was a concentrated effort launched a few years ago by the ministry of transport, which needed more engineers,” said Golani. If the Technion could get Haredi students on to its courses, jobs could be guaranteed.
“We knocked on the doors on yeshivas in Bnei Brak [an overwhelmingly ultra-Orthodox town near Tel Aviv]. We found a few rabbis ready to talk to us. The idea was to take young men who had the brain and intellect to meet the scientific admission criteria, and who were not perceived as chief rabbis of the future.
“We said we would not try to force any change of lifestyle of students, such as [strict] dress codes or praying. We kept a low profile.”
The Technion team identified 37 young men for a pre-university programme run from an anonymous rented warehouse in Bnei Brak. Over the course of 18 months, teachers tried to close a 12-year education gap to bring the Haredi men up to the standard of high school graduates.
They studied from 8 am to 10 pm. “It was like a Bootcamp, very intensive,” said Golani. “But they brought from the yeshivas an ability to study hard, to focus, to apply logic, so we built on these skills.” At the end of the programme, about half were admitted to the Technion; they graduated this summer.
Bringing the students up to the required educational standard was not the only challenge. Gender segregation, a norm in Haredi communities, was a big issue, Golani said. “We told them upfront that we would not allow gender segregation on campus, no way. We suggested they arrive at class 10 minutes early and sit together, and they accepted that. We also told them that we have female professors, and we will not tell them they can’t teach certain students. They accepted that too.”
Another key issue was the use of the internet. “So each [Haredi student] carries two phones: a kosher phone, with no apps, and a regular smartphone. On that, there is an app which tracks the history of all addresses browsed and sends a report of every website visited a designated person in their community.”
Some students have been ostracised by their communities. “One girl was boycotted by her friends. Someone else told me he was hiding for years, lying to his wife and family, telling them he was studying at another yeshiva when he was at the Technion.”
The university also runs programmes aimed at encouraging Arab students to enrol. “That tends to be easier because their communities are eager to see them again top-quality education and so the community resistance is much lower,” said Golani.
It was essential to integrate “untapped resources” – meaning Arab-Israelis and ultra-Orthodox Jews – into the economy, he added. “The economy of Israel is largely based on the hi-tech sector. It’s the locomotive that carries the entire train of the Israeli economy. But we just don’t have enough people. Israel is a small country; we’re not India or China.”
Sabiner is now in the final year of his medical degree. Photograph: Rami Shlush
When Sabiner embarked on the challenge of becoming a doctor, initially he faced scepticism. “I was told it was impossible for me to catch up [academically] and to be accepted, that I would never make it as a doctor,” he said. But staff at the Technion “believed in me when no one else did”.
“I was sure this was the only thing I want to do in life. I studied day and night, with a baby on my shoulder and my wife studying with me. I finished [the pre-university programme] with 99% in every field, and I was accepted [on the medical course].
“In the beginning, I kept it as a secret, only my close family knew. But then it became a known secret and I was under the microscope. In the end, 99% of people were encouraging me.”
Now that the end is in sight, he wants to encourage other Haredim to follow suit. “When I started the journey I said I don’t want to be a single episode. So I opened a group on social media telling other Haredim how they could become a doctor. Now we have 35 more in medical school.”
Attitudes were changing, he said, with more integration and mutual understanding. “People understand we’re not a bottle of Coca-Cola on a production line, we’re individuals. If you want to do medicine, you should do medicine, and if you want to be a lawyer, you should be a lawyer. And if you want to study the Torah, go for it.”
Yehuda Sabiner – Haredi, soon-to-be MD
Article by Shlomo Maital, published on Jpost.com on December 18, 2018.
Yehuda Sabiner: Doctor in training (RAMI SHLUSH / TECHNION)
IN THE world of hi-tech start-ups, especially biotech, “proof of concept” is crucial. It means showing that an idea (device, or drug) does what it claims to do.
My new friend Yehuda Sabiner is a Gur Hasid, in the final year of medical studies at the Technion. In a few months, he will be Yehuda Sabiner, MD. Gur (or Ger) Hasidim is the largest Hasidic group in Israel and originated in Góra Kalwaria, Poland.
Sabiner is proof of concept that Haredim can become doctors, or for that matter, economists, scientists, engineers, or anything. With the ultra-Orthodox now comprising 11% of Israel’s population, and are ultimately projected to rise to one-third within two generations, it is vital we integrate them into productive employment.
Despite his crammed schedule – in addition to his studies, he works as a physician’s assistant in the emergency medicine department of Ichilov (formally known as the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center) – Sabiner took time to answer a series of questions. Here, in his own words, is the tale of his journey:
“I am beginning my final year of medical studies at Technion. I am certainly proud of the divine gift given to me, to reach the end of this long, difficult journey, with many challenges, lots of ups and downs and high uncertainty.
“As a child, young yeshiva student and as a Gur Hasid, I’ve evolved into a successful medical student about to become a medical doctor, one who has retained his Hasidic identity as a family man, father of three, with strong involvement in my Haredi community in health matters and matters related to higher education.
“I recently facilitated a conference on Haredim in Medicine, sponsored in part by Yedidut Toronto (Jerusalem). Prof. Karl Skorecki, head of Technion’s Rapaport Institute, Faculty of Medicine, and head of R&D at Rambam Medical Center, spoke at the conference. Prof. Skorecki was recently appointed Dean of Bar-Ilan University’s School of Medicine. His fascinating presentation focused on Jewish aspects of medical breakthroughs in genetics.
“Following his talk, I gave a detailed lecture about medical studies in Israel and about the role and journey of the doctor and the value-added of medical doctors from the Haredi sector.
“When I was growing up, from about the age of three, every boy dreamed about what he wanted to be when he grows up. Some imagined becoming soldiers and policemen, some wanted to be firemen and contractors. It does not matter that these dreams of small boys are of little consequence because their concept of the world is still not well-formed and they do not yet have the right perspective about the importance of various aspects of life.
“I grew up in the Har Nof neighbourhood of Jerusalem and when ill, I visited the very special children’s clinic run by Dr Jacob Schapiro, a graduate of Yeshiva University, and Dr David Matar (a Harvard graduate). These two distinguished paediatricians, with extraordinary compassion and rare professional abilities, had an excellent research lab, as well as their clinic. For me, from a very young age, they were an inspiration as role models to emulate.
“Except for them, I had no connection with any doctors; in fact, I was the first in my family to gain higher education for generations and perhaps for all time. Only lately did I hear about a distant cousin who recounted that my great-great-grandmother in Poland wanted to study medicine in Vienna, but family matters did not make it possible.
“In the first meeting with my future wife, Rachel (first of two “dates” in the shidduch or matchmaking process), I said I cannot promise to remain in yeshiva all my life, and if not, I will look into other options. I assume that all the information my future wife gathered about me during the early phase of the shidduch ”investigations” – that I was a serious Torah student in a well-known yeshiva, known for producing future rabbinical leaders – dulled the warning lights that should have been lit when I made this statement. To make a long story short, nine months after our wedding, I brought up the subject of becoming a doctor. In any event, for many couples in the Haredi society to which I belong, this revelation could have been a sufficient trigger for breaking up the marriage, especially at such an early stage. And to judge by the intensity of the tears and distress I caused, I think we were not far from it.
“To my good fortune, after the ‘Big Bang’ my dear wife approached me and said that she was impressed by my sincerity and purity of intentions and that she knew I would not relent unless I achieved them. So, she gave her consent to my medical studies, subject to the approval of an important adviser respected by both of us.
“The hardest part of my studies was the machine [preparatory course], and especially, language studies and math. While for physics, every law was explained in-depth, in math, because time was so short, we were bombarded with a multitude of rules without real explanations, and as a former yeshiva student who was accustomed to spending hours debating the logic of laws, this was very hard for me to digest…but in the end, I succeeded in this, too. Half of the machine participants dropped out.
“I was in the first such machine class at the Technion for Haredim, so there was a very little past experience for the Technion to draw on about how to realize their students’ full potential. Many dropped out, after seeing their grades in the first trimester’s exam, the first of three such exams – and they panicked. I don’t know what has become of those who dropped out but I am certain some of them could have completed the machine successfully if they had continued and invested their full effort in it.
“The toughest part of my studies was, as I mentioned, the machine and catching up on math. At the end of a long day of studies, stretching into the wee hours of the morning, my wife would sit with me and help me to understand my homework. Parenthetically, Haredi women finish high school with the equivalent of at least three credits of math, English, history and other subjects.
“At this stage of my studies, while my wife was in the middle of her own intense studies as a practical architectural engineer and interior designer, we became parents of a baby girl. Nonetheless, she was extremely dedicated to actively helping me as I caught up on very basic studies, which were very challenging for me.
“So far, in all my medical studies, in various departments and specialities, I was most fascinated by internal medicine; it ideally combines the anamneses [intake] and diagnosis, a holistic view of the patient and synergy among the various organs of the body. (Note: Every internal medicine department in Israel is severely understaffed.)
“I think one needs to know how to continually learn, and not to try to escape to some super-specific sub-speciality where you lose the unfathomable beauty and major challenge of sleuthing until you find the right diagnosis and help with a cure or relieve the patient’s symptoms.
“I hope internal medicine will be reorganized and that specialities in Integrative Medicine will be created to train ‘case managers’ for multidisciplinary ailments throughout the hospital. In other words, create a different discipline instead of one that at present is unattractive.
“We indeed live in a time of major change in the Haredi community. It’s hard to predict, but we see more and more mainstreamed Haredi men and women, slowly but surely integrating into many quality occupations, as a result of some individual initiatives. It is noteworthy to mention the contribution from two organizations that catapulted the Haredi academics several light years ahead: Keren Kemach (Kemach Foundation) and Yedidut Toronto.
“A few years ago, I myself established an organization called Haredim in Medicine, which aims at increasing awareness and assistance in integrating Haredi men and women in medical studies in Israel. Today, we can safely say that the numbers are growing and the trend is upward. Slowly, I am broadening the organization’s horizons to foster research excellence among future Haredi doctors, to create interfaces and to help solve medical, cultural, and halachic problems of Haredim, through research and awareness.
“There is much more work to be done in this area, but I am certain that with G-d’s help, we will see a better world, where the best of our Haredi boys and girls will join the vanguard of science, economics and medicine, in Israel.
“EIGHT YEARS of intense study poses extraordinary economic challenges to a family of five. Our immediate family helps with preparing food and looking after the children.
“The State of Israel as a nation cannot forego the professional cooperation of 11% of its population (Haredim). It is natural that in such a large population, splendid medical clinicians, great inventors and developers of medicines, successful managers, etc. can emerge.
“The Haredi community, with its halachic and cultural complexity, has developed over time unique medical challenges that demand treatment and solutions. Sometimes increased awareness is needed, and other times, solutions and compromises. But it is clear, all of this will be done far better and more efficiently when there are those closely connected with the two interfaces, medicine and Haredim, through community medicine.”
FOR EXAMPLE, Sabiner provided me with data showing that only half of Haredi women over 40 receive regular mammograms for early detection of breast cancer, compared with 80% of non-Haredi women.
According to Nitza Kasir and Dimitry Romanov, of the Haredi Institute for Leadership Research, Haredim will comprise almost a third of Israel’s population by the year 2065. And unlike other forecasts, demographic projections tend to be accurate. The inexorable conclusion is that Israel cannot afford to neglect Haredi minds – those who do not find their calling in yeshiva but seek secular education.
My S. Neaman Institute colleague Dr Reuven Gal, formerly an IDF chief psychologist, heads a successful program, “Shiluv Haredim,” which integrates Haredim into society and the workforce. In his recent study, Gal observed that some 30% of Haredim said they would be “happy to see, to a greater extent, Haredim studying in higher education” and a quarter of Haredim are not opposed to “core studies” (math and English) in Haredi schools.
For those who say this is still a minority of Haredim, Gal responds that “only 15 years ago those responding positively to similar questions were one in ten, or even less.” Change indeed is underway among the ultra-Orthodox.
Dr Gal told me, “I met Yehuda in the summer of 2012, toward the end of his first year of studies. He was at that time the first Hare- di student aiming at graduating from medical school in Israel. I must admit – I was not 100% sure he would succeed in reaching this goal. But he was. The list of the obstacles and difficulties he had to overcome, just to reach that point, and those he had yet to face was endless. But he was, in his shy and quiet way, so confident!”
“At that meeting – with several other Hare- di students at the Technion – Yehuda made a statement. ‘We shall become a model for much Haredi youths. We are going to speak about the Technion in our synagogues, we’ll tell the others at the Kollel (yeshiva for adults) that by earning an academic degree they will gain a reputable entry-ticket to quality jobs and thus will be able to make a living to support their families – and at the same time, not to forsake their faith and way of life.’
Sabiner poses for a photograph outside the of Rapaport Family Medical Sciences Building (RAMI SHLUSH / TECHNION)
“I salute Yehuda,” Dr Gal said, “for his persistence, his devotion, his faith. He is a Nachshon, a spearhead in front of a huge camp of Haredim who yearn to walk the same road but are frightened. Men like Yehuda give them the courage and the example that they can do it as well.”
In an article about Sabiner in the British daily The Guardian, Technion Vice President Boaz Golany noted how Haredim in the Technion machine studied long hours, from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. “It was like a boot camp,” he said, “but they brought from the yeshivas an ability to study hard, to focus, to apply logic; so we built on these skills.”
It all began with a program called Hala- mish, in 2007, and gradually grew, with financial support. Backed by Iscar CEO and philanthropist Eitan Wertheimer, Halamish supported pioneering Haredi students seek- ing to learn a profession.
Today, after 18 months of machine studies, Haredim who never studied science and English and have only learned rudimentary mathematics are brought up to speed and the majority are accepted to the Technion. Graduates now work as engineers in hi-tech companies and some are pursuing advanced degrees.
I have spent the past 40 years at the Technion and have admired, studied and recounted the amazing hi-tech contributions of its graduates and faculty members, to Israel and the world. But there is a special place in my heart for those bold Technion leaders and instructors who undertook the impossible – taking in ultra-Orthodox men who know no math, English, physics or chemistry, and in 18 months bringing them up to speed sufficiently to enter the Technion. And, of course, it is these bold, pioneering Haredim themselves who aspire to college degrees, who deserve the warmest embrace.
Impossible? For example, I once wrote about A., who graduated from Technion as a civil engineer. In his first machine class, he raised his hand and asked the instructor, what is that cross you wrote on the board? It was an “x” and the teacher was explaining algebra. A. had no idea. Many years ago, the historically black (African-American) colleges in the US raised funds with a powerful slogan: “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” This applies to the growing ultra-Orthodox community. These sharp minds honed on Talmud studies are a priceless resource.
Lately, Yehuda told me about his second day at a family medicine clinic in Bnei Brak, a mostly Haredi city, the start of a monthlong assignment. He was hesitant to be assigned to Bnei Brak, not knowing how the people would react. After all, patients tell doctors their most intimate secrets and issues – and he, Yehuda, is a member of their community – perhaps even someone they meet on the street. But, he said, after their initial surprise at seeing a Haredi physician, patients’ reactions were highly positive and fully cooperative.
Yehuda Sabiner, Gur Hasid, soon-to-be MD, is a precious proof of concept. And many others will follow in his path.
First Israeli-Born Hasidic Doctor Blazes New Trail in Medicine!
Dr. Yehuda Sabiner.
The new doctor wants to encourage other members of the religious world to help their communities by entering the field.
Dr. Yehuda Sabiner is the first Israeli-born member of the ultra-Orthodox community to graduate from medical school. His success, against the odds, is encouraging many religious and non-religious people to reach for their dreams.
He was inspired by two outstanding physicians as a young child, deciding at an early age that he wanted to be like them as an adult, even though there had never been an ultra-Orthodox doctor in Israel before.
“When I was a child, I had in Jerusalem two very special pediatricians…[who] were both very special in their profession but also in terms of being a mensch [a good person], in compassion and empathy to their patients,” he told Jewish Home LA. “But as I grew up, I also understood that the field is very attractive…you have to be very smart to understand this stuff, and you must be curious about it, and it’s one of the fields…you can provide so much help and chessed [kindness] to members of your community, to human beings.”
As a child, Sabiner received an ultra-Orthodox education as a member of the Gerrer Hasidic sect. This meant that he studied Torah full time and did not formally learn math, chemistry, English, or physics. He did, however, learn discipline and how to study intensely for as much as 14 hours a day.
At 16 years old, Sabiner and his peers embarked on a challenge trying to “study[] five hours in a row without going to drink, or to talk, or to the bathroom.”
Sabiner credits his Jewish education for “exercising his brain” with deep Torah studies that taught him to ask questions and find solutions.
“When you see a case of a patient, a medical case, you always try to challenge the first diagnosis, you try to challenge people who said something else, to see, is it still possible? Still true?” he told Jewish Home LA.
In 2011, he was accepted into an 18-month special program at the Technion designed to fill in the educational gaps of intelligent and determined religious students in order to facilitate their rapid entry into conventional degree-track higher education. Sabiner was one of 67 students accepted into the program and one of only 17 who completed the rigorous course.
Today, the graduate of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and doctor of internal medicine says, “I enjoy the big picture aspect of it and how it’s multi-disciplinary.”
The doctor is soon starting his six-year internship at Israel’s largest hospital, Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv, according to the Jewish United Fund. His goal is to give back to his community, which supported him despite his unconventional career path.
Encouraging others to pursue their dreams and potential, Dr. Sabiner said, “There are very, very, very talented people among us—boys and also girls—and they should get the full potential of whatever they want to be. I really don’t care if it’s as a rabbi, a rosh yeshiva [head of a religious institution], a lawyer, a doctor—any way you choose, you should do the best you can.
“I am far from being a genius,” he told Jewish Home LA. “It’s not easy, it’s not easy for anyone, especially someone who has never studied general sciences, but still it is possible, and once you know it’s possible, you can do it.”
In addition to being a doctor, Sabiner, 29, is also founder and chairman of an ultra-Orthodox professional organization called Haredim in Medicine, which helps religious people join the medical field by helping them overcome cultural barriers.
Thus far, 35 ultra-Orthodox Jews are attending medical school in Israel, following in Sabiner’s footsteps.
Israel’s first home-grown ultra-Orthodox doctor in midst of coronavirus fight
Dr. Yehuda Sabiner. (YouTube/N12/Screenshot)
Dr. Yehuda Sabiner started his internship at the country’s first dedicated coronavirus ward.
By Paul Shindman, World Israel News.
Israel’s first home-grown ultra-Orthodox doctor has landed in the trenches of Israel’s coronavirus fight, Channel 12 news reported Saturday.
On the first day of his internship at the Tel Hashomer hospital near Tel Aviv, Dr. Yehuda Sabiner, 29, said a senior doctor called him over and said the department was transitioning to become Israel’s first ward dedicated exclusively to coronavirus patients.
“She said I could refuse,” Sabiner told Channel 12. “I thought once or twice and told her I’m OK with that, let me just ask my wife, who said to me straight out wherever you are, whatever they ask of you that’s your job.”
It turned out that 70 percent of the patients in Ward C, the corona ward, are fellow members of the ultra-Orthodox community from the hard-hit city of Bnei Brak and Sabiner knows some of them personally.
Emerging last Wednesday after spending several days in the ward to minimize exposure to others, Sabiner said his last overnight went well and he was excited to be able get a special short leave to go home for a short time to celebrate Passover with his family.
“There was also a bit of drama during the night,” Sabiner said, during which doctors needed to stabilize some patients and “for the meantime to defeat the angel of death.”
As a young child Sabiner was so impressed with his family doctor he made his mind up to make it his life goal to become a physician.
In his youth, he studied Torah all day, and when he told his rabbi his goal was to be a doctor, the rabbi’s response was he needed to see a psychiatrist, Sabiner recounted.
Sabiner said his rabbi told him, “It’s not realistic, you won’t be accepted, you are unable, you can’t go in opposition to your community.” However, he persevered and became the first ultra-Orthodox Jew to come out of Israel’s yeshiva world and graduate from medicine, getting his degree from the prestigious Technion University in Haifa.
All other ultra-Orthodox doctors in the country got their medical degrees abroad and immigrated to Israel, Sabiner said.
When the coronavirus outbreak turned serious and his children’s school was still holding classes, Sabiner called the principal and explained the gravity of the situation after which the school closed its doors.
As the outbreak worsened and the religious community was still not fully accepting health directives before the Purim holiday, Sabiner arranged to meet Rabbi Yitzhok Zilberstein, one of the more prominent and respected leaders in Bnei Brak.
After only five minutes of explanation, the rabbi issued “a very extreme proclamation” to help keep people at home, Sabiner said. “If that ruling hadn’t come out in time, the catastrophe we are in today would have been much, much, bigger.”
Sabiner will not have much time off in the coming months. With its dense population and tradition of group prayers and large gatherings for both weddings and funerals, total closures were only imposed after Bnei Brak became Israel’s most infected city.
Article by Abigail Klein Leichman, published on Israel21c.org on May 21, 2019.
Tal-Ya’s trays catch every drop of dew. Photo: courtesy
Food security is a critical concern as the global population expands and natural resources dwindle. Smart solutions for more efficient farming, hardier crops, alternative sources of nutrition, and safer food packaging and storage are essential.
No other single country – certainly not one as young and as tiny as Israel – has contributed more breakthroughs to this area than Israel.
Since the 1950s, Israelis have not only been finding miraculous ways to green their own desert but have shared their discoveries far and wide.
Here are 12 major ways Israel helps feed the world.
1. Drip irrigation
Senegalese farmers learning how to install the Tipa irrigation kit. Photo courtesy of MASHAV
While the concept of drip irrigation existed well before Israeli statehood, it was revolutionized by Israeli water engineer Simcha Blass in the 1960s and continues to transform farming across the globe.
Blass’s slow-release tubing formed the basis of the world-renowned Netafim company (sold for $1.5 billion to Mexichem in 2017) and other Israeli drip-irrigation and micro-irrigation businesses whose solutions are used worldwide.
One example of how Israeli drip irrigation has impacted food supply in foreign countries is Tipa (Drop), a kit that enables gravity to irrigate when there is no water pressure in rural areas. The Israeli Foreign Ministry has provided Tipa kits to hundreds of famers in Senegal, Kenya, South Africa, Benin and Niger.
An average of 70% of the world’s water goes toward irrigation, partly because some areas still use wasteful flood irrigation. Israeli ag-tech companies such as CropX, Saturas, Manna and SupPlant help customers across the world implement efficient drip irrigation programs to use less water and produce more and better crops.
Innovation in drip irrigation is constantly evolving. In February 2019, Netafim signed a three-year research collaboration agreement with Bayer and Ben-Gurion University’s tech-transfer company regarding soil research, digital prediction tools and state-of-the-art Netafim technology to establish best practices for using drip irrigation as a precise root-delivery system.
2. Getting more grain to market
Photo courtesy of GrainPro
About one-third of the food produced for human consumption globally is lost or wasted each year. In low-income countries, most of that loss happens in the early and middle stages of the production chain. One problem is that the majority of newly harvested grains and pulses get ruined by pests and mold before reaching the market.
Israeli-designed GrainPro Cocoons provide a simple and cheap way for African and Asian farmers to keep their grain market-fresh.
The huge bags, invented by international food technology consultant Prof. Shlomo Navarro, keep both water and air out. They’re used in about 100 countries including in Africa, Latin America and the Middle and Far East.
Amaizz launching a pilot in Bihar, India, with the Syngenta Foundation. CEO Aviram Tenenbaum is in the purple shirt. Photo: courtesy
Tel Aviv‐based Amaizz solves a problem for sub-Sahara African and Indian farmers when drying grains such as corn, which are subject to toxic fungal infestation as well as destruction by insects and other animals.
Amaizz offers protected electric or solar modular drying, disinfection, and storage units that keep out pests and prevent fungus. The company also makes cool storage units for any type of grain, in addition to barley and maize threshers that cut down on time, labor and grain damage.
In 2016, Amaizz won the Israeli Grand Challenges Program for improving post-harvest handling and storage, and saving up to 50% of the losses caused by mishandling and depreciation.
As one of six Israeli startups chosen for the 2018 India-Israel Bridge to Innovation program of the Israel Innovation Authority at the initiative of both countries’ prime ministers, Amaizz now is conducting pilots with key players in the Indian market.
3. Saving mangoes from fruit-fly devastation
Biofeed’s FreeDome lures on a mango tree in Tamil Nadu, India. Photo: courtesy
Mangoes provide a livelihood for thousands of farmers in developing countries. However, many mango growers in India, the Americas and West Africa have simply given up in the past few years because such a high percentage of their crops were ruined by various species of fruit flies.
That situation is being dramatically reversed by a novel product from Israel’s Biofeed, another of the six startups in the 2018 India-Israel Bridge to Innovation program.
The startup’s FreeDome line of no-spray, environmentally friendly lures contain an organic customized mix of food, feeding stimulants and control or therapeutic agents delivered by a patented gravity-controlled fluid release platform to kill the tiny flies.
Biofeed has demonstrated an overall decrease of Oriental fruit-fly infestation from 95 percent to less than 5% in a pilot test with Indian mango farmers, while a pilot program in Togo reduced infestation in various areas from 88-95%.
4. Precision agriculture
Taranis CEO Ofir Schlam using the app in the field. Photo: courtesy
Israel’s large and growing precision ag-tech sector comprises more than 450 companies offering advanced data-collection and analysis technologies for more efficient and productive farming.
Here are just four examples of Israeli precision-ag companies whose solutions are used across the globe:
AgriTask lets farmers integrate all their agricultural data from multiple sources (imaging, weather stations, in-field sensors, etc.) on one platform, accessible via a mobile app.
Croptimal performs real-time accurate tests of plant tissue, soil and water in the field, dramatically reducing the standard analysis procedure from 10 days to less than an hour.
Taranis combines high-resolution aerial imaging with computer vision and artificial intelligence to show farmers what’s happening in their plots down to the insect and leaf level, and analyzes that data to provide decision-making support.
Prospera makes a digital farming system that collects, digitizes and analyzes vast amounts of data to help growers control and optimize their production and growing systems.
5. Saving strawberries (and much more)
Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu-owned Bio-Bee breeds and exports several species of beneficial insects and mites for biological pest control, and bumblebees for natural pollination, to more than 50 nations from India to Chile.
The company’s top seller worldwide is the tiny BioPersimilis, a highly efficient enemy of the spider mite, a devastating agricultural pest.
BioPersimilis is used by most of California’s strawberry farmers (BioBee’s single largest market) and by growers of peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, beans, corn, cucumber, melon, eggplant and ornamental flowers in order to reduce the amount of pesticides they use by up to 80 percent.
5. Helping more farmers export crops
Farms can’t export unless they comply with complex and frequently changing government regulations in target countries regarding details including water, fertilizer, pesticides, plant protection, safety and labor conditions.
That’s a daunting challenge for small farms especially, which must be part of larger cooperatives if they want to sell abroad.
The unique cloud-based AKOLogic farm management system from kibbutz-based Agricultural Knowledge On-Line (AKOL) gives farmers constantly updated regulatory guidelines on a single dashboard. If a customer wants to sell in Walmart, AKOLogic automatically applies the relevant US regulations to the growing plan.
The AKOLogic system helps farmers manage any kind of crop according to any country’s import regulations. Photo: courtesy
“For each container they receive, buyers need to know that everything was done according to regulations. Now all the documentation is in one place in real time automatically, with full traceability from field to market,” says CEO Ron Shani.
The system also helps farmers manage resources, administrative processes and daily functionality with calendars, checklists, reports, maps and digital document storage. Farming cooperatives can use the platform to assist and manage member growers.
Soft-launched in January 2015 in Israel, the system is now used by half of Israel’s farmers. The first overseas pilot of AKOLogic, in Angola in cooperation with the International Bank, enabled a cooperative of small farmers to export crops to Europe for the first time.
The company is now working with local partners in Balkan countries to enable small traditional farms to sell their crops in the European Union; and is seeking strategic partners to help implement AKOLogic in China, Singapore and South America. The system also is being implemented through a partner at heavily regulated medical cannabis farms in Israel and elsewhere.
6. Squeezing every drop of water from the air
Not every brilliant solution has to be high-tech. Tal-Ya Water Technologies makes a reusable plastic tray to collect dew from the air, reducing the water needed by crops or trees by up to 50 percent.
In January 2019, academicians from Punjab Agriculture University, India, came to see Tal-Ya in use at the Arava R&D Center in Israel. Photo: courtesy
The square serrated trays, made from non-PET recycled and recyclable plastic with UV filters and a limestone additive, surround each plant or tree. With overnight temperature change, dew forms on both surfaces of the Tal-Ya tray, which funnels the dew and condensation straight to the roots. If it rains, the trays heighten the effect of each millimeter of water 27 times over.
Inventor and CEO Avraham Tamir told ISRAEL21c that the trays also block the sun so weeds can’t take root, and protect the plants from extreme temperature shifts. “Farmers need to use much less water, and in turn much less fertilizer on the crop,” which translates to less groundwater contamination.
7. Dairy farming
Hof Hasharon Dairy Farm, SAE Afikim (Afimilk) and SCR Precise Dairy all make advanced systems for herd management, monitoring and feeding used on dairy farms worldwide. MiRobot makes robotic milking systems that enable cost-effective, uniform milking and post-milking procedures.
In the past 10 years, Asian countries including Vietnam and China have been investing heavily in setting up dairy farming enterprises, and they rely on Israeli experience, expertise and equipment to do so.
8. Something fishy going on
The aquaculture industry is growing an average of 6 percent annually to meet ever-rising demand for fish and seafood.
But with more than half the fish consumed around the world grown on farms where fish are crowded into tanks and given massive amounts of antibiotics, hormones and pesticides, there’s an urgent need for sustainable and healthful solutions for commercial fisheries.
Israel has several such solutions on the market; we’ll look at one new and two veteran companies.
The newer company is GiliOcean Technology, whose Subflex system enables farmers to raise fish safely in open water, where oxygen levels are ideal and the natural micro-elements help the fish grow faster and healthier without antibiotics. GiliOcean also offers machine-learning algorithms and big-data analytics for precision aquaculture.
AquaMaof Aquaculture Technologies works with customers in 50 locations across the world to design, build and maintain technologically advanced sustainable indoor fish farms. AquaMaof built the largest industrialized tilapia farming facility in Europe, and now is working with a Norwegian client to build the world’s largest indoor salmon aquaculture facility, in Newfoundland, Canada.
BioFishency developed a plug‐and‐play all-in-one water treatment system for aquaculture. The system increases fish productivity, has a minimal ecological footprint, enhances water conditions and significantly grows profitability.
Since its founding in March 2013, BioFishency has installed its systems in countries such as Norway, Denmark, China, India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Congo and Iraq. In November 2018, Biofishency won first place in the Fishtech Awards held in China. In March 2019, the company raised $2.4 million.
9. Hardier seeds for more and better crops
Seed breeding has been an Israeli specialty since the beginning of the state. Israeli scientists in academia, industry and the government’s Volcani Center Agricultural Research Organization have made many types of seeds more nutritious, high-yield and flavorful, and resistant to drought and disease; and have developed new fruit and vegetable varieties.
Equinom develops several varieties of hardy high-protein seeds. Its new patented sesame variety is set to open new markets for the cultivating this iron- and calcium-rich seed. The global sesame market is worth $9 billion annually.
Sesame ready for harvest. Photo courtesy of Equinom
Equinom’s sesame seeds have an enhanced nutritional profile and are shatter-resistant so that they can be harvested by machine. The need to harvest sesame by hand has kept the crop from reaching its full potential at market, and leads to much of the crop being lost to contamination as the pods shatter on the ground.
Hazera Seeds, a top Israeli seed company selling internationally under parent company Limagrain, has headquarters in Israel and in The Netherlands, with subsidiaries in 12 countries and an extensive distribution network in over 100 additional markets. Hazera recently opened new screening and trial stations in The Netherlands, Mexico and Turkey.
Origene’s booth at Agritech, May 2018, Tel Aviv. Photo: courtesy
Another major Israeli seed breeder, OriGene Seeds, breeds vegetables for markets in more than 25 countries. OriGene specializes in R&D of the cucurbit family, which includes melons, cucumbers, squash, and pumpkins. The company also has a new tomato-breeding program active in southern Mexico.
10. Next-gen packaging extends shelf life
Xgo FreshLid extends the shelf life of fresh cherries shipped from South America to China. Photo courtesy of StePac and Tadbik
Pre-market food spoilage is a huge source of food waste throughout the world. Several Israeli companies are using cutting-edge materials to make sure more food gets to hungry consumers.
StePac and Tadbik jointly developed Xgo FreshLid, a “modified atmosphere” re-sealable lidding film, to extend the shelf life of fresh cherries from Chile and Peru on their journey from farm to fork – as far away as China.
StePac Xflow packaging for blueberries, spring onions and green beans reduces the amount of plastic used by up to 40%, while extending shelf life by improving air flow.
Valentis Nanotech is testing nanocrystal cellulose (CNC), made from abundantly available cellulose, in a coating that adds strength, UV blocking and antibacterial properties to food packaging.
Melodea is putting CNC into customized transparent gel package coatings for paper packages and cartons that are biodegradable, extremely strong and oxygen-resistant to extend the shelf life.
Active Pak, now being commercialized through the SN2E (Startup Nation Enterprise) national tech-transfer company, uses a patented process to permeate thermoplastic packaging materials with a nontoxic nanocompound containing antimicrobial essential oils to extend shelf life of fruits and vegetables.
11. Alternative protein
Filling an urgent need for cheaper, more healthful, sustainable and less polluting sources of protein, Israeli companies are piloting products made from insects, legumes and plant-based or cultured meat.
Flying Spark makes a protein powder and unsaturated oil derived from the larvae of fruit flies; and the multi-award-winning Hargol makes protein powder from farmed grasshoppers.
Chickpea-based protein concentrate, (meat substitutes) providing a neutral-taste vegan protein that’s allergen-, gluten- and GM-free for use in a large assortment of foods, is made by InnovoPro and ChickP.
Amai Proteins designed what it calls the world’s sweetest protein, meant to replace sugar in food without raising blood sugar or insulin levels. Amai uses cloud-computing-based computational protein design coupled with yeast fermentation production to match sweet proteins that grow along the equatorial belt to the mass food market.
Still in development are realistic plant-based meat substitutes from Jet-Eat, SavorEat and Rilbite; and “clean” cultured meat manufactured from animal cells by startups including Future Meat Technologies, Aleph Farms and SuperMeat.
12. MASHAV: Teaching how to grow more and better food
A MASHAV intensive fish-farming class for professionals from 15 countries, January 2019. Photo copyright MASHAV-MATC
Israel has always made it a priority to share its technological advances with developing countries in Africa, Asia/Oceana, central Europe/Eurasia, the Middle East and Latin America/Caribbean. The primary address for this activity is the Foreign Ministry’s MASHAV – Israel’s agency for international development cooperation.
Over the years, more than 280,000 professionals have participated in MASHAV courses in a wide range of languages and subjects including agricultural best practices aimed at transforming subsistence-oriented dairy and produce farms into market-oriented agribusinesses.
Some of the agricultural projects MASHAV operates in partner countries include training in low-cost family-farm food security; demonstration farms and extension services; small-scale pilots of better environmental practices; technology-based agribusiness enterprise development; agribusiness consultancy and technical services; and more.
Trainings are held in the target countries as well as in Israel.
This January alone, MASHAV hosted extension officers, agricultural university instructors and agro-technology experts from eight Russian-speaking countries to transfer the latest Israeli research on boosting production and product quality; and participants from 15 countries to examine proven Israeli strategies and technologies to meet production, economic and ecological challenges in intensive fish farming.
Other courses planned in 2019, in English and French, touch on subjects including agricultural education in African primary and secondary schools; intensive vegetable production; agribusiness tools for the rural African women; and agricultural development in arid regions.
The legendary physicist of our generation, Prof. Stephen Hawking of Cambridge University, has
been proved right by a Technion experiment that used its unique sonic black hole in a lab to prove the theory of Hawking radiation.
Stanford and MIT receive well-deserved recognition as hotbeds of entrepreneurship, but neither of those is as singularly influential in the US as the Israel Insitute of Technology, better known as the Technion. Since the university’s founding over one hundred years ago, a quarter of the university’s graduates have started businesses. Since 2004, graduates of the Technion have won four Nobel Prizes, and a remarkable two-thirds of Israeli companies listed on NASDAQ have been founded by graduates of the Technion. Israel is often referred to as “start-up nation”, and the Technion has contributed more than any other institution to that reputation.
Since 2009, Peretz Lavie has served as President of the Technion. During that time, he has hired faculty who are experts across traditional academic silos, encouraged more professors and students to get involved in starting businesses, and in the process has bolstered the university’s reputation as a hot-house for new businesses.
Peter High: President Lavie, the Technion, for those who may not be as familiar with it, has a really storied place in Israeli entrepreneurial culture. Many people refer to your nation as startup nation, and many rightly believe that your university is at least partially, if not largely, responsible for that boom in entrepreneurship. Amazingly, a full quarter of the graduates of the university have started businesses. How has the university been such a hotbed of entrepreneurship?
Peretz Lavie: Indeed the Technion is the engine behind a startup nation. I have been asked this question many, many times and I have come to the conclusion that a world class university that plays such a major role in the economy of its environment or its state must have three ingredients: excellent students, excellent faculty members, and this is obvious, but it must have also a third ingredient and it is not so clear when you think about universities. This is a statement of mission. A mission statement must be part of the DNA of the university. I’ll give you some examples from the history of the Technion where the mission statement historically changed the Israeli economy. First, the Technion was established in the early 20th century as a mission to allow the Jewish people to get an education in engineering. When the decision was made to establish the Technion in 1905, Jews in Europe could not study engineering. So there was a mission for this engineering school to allow engineering education for the Jewish people.
Then, the school was opened in 1924 after the First World War. When the state was established, David Ben Gurion, the legendary prime minister of Israel, made a decision that the Technion would be one of the more important institutes for the future of the newly established state. He picked a site on the top of the Carmel Mountain, and he also made the decision of which faculty to open first: the faculty of aeronautical engineering. Why? Because he realized that this was important for the future of the state even as early as 1954. The same year, the Israeli aircraft industry was established which is now one of the three largest industrial complexes in Israel and every one of the 5,000 engineers was educated at the Technion.
Another example is 1969. The Technion decided to open a micro-electronic institute. At that time, few people knew how to spell micro-electronic. The decision was made to provide the country with badly needed semiconductors that were deprived by an embargo that was imposed on Israel by Charles de Gaulle after the Six Day War. So the university had the mission to serve the country and mankind as part of its DNA.
Students who were educated under such an environment knew that when they graduate from the Technion, they also should serve a mission. Therefore combining excellent students and excellent faculty with the DNA of the university that it serve higher goals: humanity, the country, etc., I think you have an outcome like changing the economy and changing the environment.
High: You have spent considerable time in the United States. As I think about the comparison between the US and Israel, they are each country that have a great deal of immigrants from all over the world. There is something about going to a different land where one’s future is uncertain that is fundamentally entrepreneurial. I have always believed that in the US that we have entrepreneurship in our DNA in some ways and it strikes me that Israel is exactly the same in many cases as well. Is that a hypothesis that you share?
Lavie: Yes, I share your hypothesis, but again, we have an added layer that in our region, necessity is the mother of invention because of where we are and the neighbourhood in which we live. We have needs and a reason to be inventive. So if you add to this layer that you mentioned, immigration, to the nature of the country and the fact that we must be on our tiptoes with respect to our inventive capacity, then you also get very motivated students, faculties, and universities.
High: With all the exposure you have to entrepreneurs, do you think that entrepreneurship can be taught, or does it require attributes that one is born with? To what extent is it nature versus nurture?
Lavie: I’m very skeptical that you can teach entrepreneurship or that you can make someone who doesn’t have the fire in his belly change and become an entrepreneur. Either you have it or you do not. Being entrepreneurial and being innovative is affected by a multitude of factors. First, how the student or the entrepreneur is educated. The ability to take risk or the ability to sustain failure is very important. Remember, among startups only one in ten is successful. Some entrepreneurs are successful only in their seventh or eighth attempt, so you must be resilient to failures. The need to achieve is very important. These are characteristics of sometimes immigrants as you said yourself, or people who need to live in an environment or a neighborhood that constantly challenges them. What you can do in order to direct them or to make them a better entrepreneur is to give them some tools. You can provide them with role models, and this is what we are doing in the Technion, you can provide them with some basic information that can help them to build their own business plan, how to present their ideas, etc. So it’s a mixture of some basic tools that you can provide them, and I believe, personality and the history of a person that makes them an entrepreneur.
High: I know that a key aspect of the curriculum at the Technion is learning by doing, as well as combining disciplines that have traditionally been silo’d. Please describe these two approaches.
Lavie: Yes, it is very interesting. When I meet Technion graduates ten years after they left the school and I ask them, can you go back and tell me, “What did the Technion give you? What was the most important education you got at the Technion?” They almost unanimously tell me, “The Technion taught us how to think, how to solve problems. So I’m in a high tech company and there is not a single area that I’m not familiar with and I can tackle any problem.” We give a very broad education and we demand a lot of independence. And this bridging across areas is very important.
Science was done in the past in silos as you mentioned. You were an expert in your field, you didn’t need any others, you did your own thing and that’s it. Science in the 21st century, and it is going to be even more emphasized in the second half of the 21st century, must be based on several areas of expertise. You cannot rely on your own knowledge, you must bridge different areas. So most of the research centers in the Technion now are interdisciplinary. I’m now recruiting faculty members who can be conversant both in computer science and biology and medicine, because in the future, you won’t be able to deal with medicine without knowledge of big data. And I have now in the faculty of mechanical engineering, a cell biologist, and in the computer science [faculty], I have a biologist. This is, I believe, how science will be done in the future. So it is very important, the interdisciplinary approach or the multidisciplinary, both to educate students and for research. Research in the future will be done by people who can bridge between different fields of science.
High: You mentioned your conversations with alumni, President Lavie, I can only imagine that this is a great luxury for current students, that there are in fact so many role models to emulate. It is easier to do so when you know that others that have been through the same program have been successful, perhaps in some comparable way to what you envision for yourself. Can you talk a bit about the role that alumni play in fostering opportunities for students, in acting as advisors, etc.?
Lavie: Excellent question. I’ll give you an example. Professor Dan Shechtman, who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2011, has taught a course for 27 years called “Entrepreneurship” that is open to all students of the Technion. Every year, the course enrolls between 200 and 600 students. In this course, Danny, the motivator of the course, presented the students role models of Technion graduates who made it, and they discussed both the success stories and the failures. Since I am an amateur entrepreneur, I gave, for the last 17 years, both my experience in entrepreneurship and in academia. And you have to see these students fill the hall with their shining eyes who swallow every word they say and the questions that they ask later. And I believe that presenting the students with role models of, as I said, both the success and the failures, will provide them with some idea regarding what is entrepreneurship and how to proceed.
In addition to that, we have several programs on campus in which alumni take upon themselves to guide groups of students who are building a business plan or have an idea; we call it “Technion for Life.” There is a national competition called BizTEC in which 75 groups are selected out of hundreds in order to continue to develop their ideas to a point that they can start their own company. Each one of these groups is accompanied by a Technion alumnus in the comparable field. So we do a lot to provide the students with the experience and the excitement of being able to build your own ideas based on the experience of others. This is very important.
High: You have also developed a partnership with Cornell University and you are in the process of working with them to develop a campus on Roosevelt Island in New York. I am curious: how did you choose New York and how did you choose Cornell?
Lavie: Well, the story is very interesting. We were approached by Mayor Bloomberg to participate in the competition to open a research centre in New York, and he was very candid and open. He said, “We are envious of the Silicon Valley, we’d like New York to become the technology capital of the world.” And I must admit, in the beginning, I thought that somebody was pulling my leg, but then we realized that indeed they wanted the Technion to participate. At the first phase, there were 55 universities. Now the city provided free land for 99 years, and $100 million, provided that you match with $100 million of your own. We are a state university so we didn’t have this money and the committee suggested that we provide them with a program and then find an American university that would share our vision and take upon itself the financial responsibility. And indeed, the program we suggested to New York was based on our experience in a multidisciplinary approach to research and education. And we suggested building in New York three hubs that have a common denominator. The first is the hub of connective media that is tailor-made to the industrial strength of the city: the finance world, the media, the advertisement industry. Then, a second hub dedicated to a healthier life, not disease-oriented, but improving the quality of life using technology. And the third one, a hub of the built environment. And the common denominator of these hubs was big data and information technology.
The city liked the proposal, so we moved to the second stage, and then we started to look for a partner. After two disappointments, I got a telephone call from Sandy Weill, and he convinced me that Cornell and the Technion was a match made in heaven. An hour later, I got a telephone call from David Skorton, the President of Cornell. In a week, I was with my team in New York and we came to an agreement. The agreement was to establish the Technion Cornell Innovation Institute, which would be part of Cornell Tech. We will adapt our program of three hubs for this new partnership. It’s amazing that immediately after that, we got a gift from Irwin Jacobs, one of the founders of Qualcomm. Now, we are referred to as Jacobs Technion Cornell Institute (JTCI).
Now, two years later we are up and running. Roosevelt Island will be ready in 2017 and Google provided us with space in their headquarters in Chelsea. We have 60,000 square feet there and we are already full of students, faculty, and post-docs. I visited the site, and the excitement – you can feel it in the air – it’s incredible. The impact on New York is already visible. Recently, I met the comptroller of the state of New York, Mr. DiNapoli, and he issued a report about what happened to high tech industry in New York in the last three years. They mentioned the establishment of Cornell Tech and JTCI as one of the reasons for the incredible increase in the number of employers and the number of businesses in high tech. I had to pinch myself to make sure that I was not dreaming.
High: You have been affiliated with multiple startups in your career. As you mentioned, you humbly refer to yourself as an “amateur entrepreneur.” Do you encourage faculty to get involved in businesses and to be active in management or on the boards of companies that students are developing, and if so, what are the advantages that you see to faculty in addition to students?
Lavie: The tension between what is called applied science and basic science exists on the campus of every university. There are faculty members who say, “I am interested in gaining knowledge, I’d like to understand how the body works, what are the laws of nature, I have no interest whatsoever in applying my findings to anything.” On the other hand, there are people like me who feel that if they have a basic finding, the next step is to see what can be done in order to improve human life. I believe that this tension is a healthy tension. When there is a bias toward one of them, then it is unhealthy. But you have to encourage both groups.
What I did when I became president was to encourage people who believe that they could apply their findings. First, I established a fund, which I call a proof of concept fund. Any faculty member who has an idea that can become a useful technology can apply to the fund and get support for the proof of concept, and this is the entry to the pipeline.
Then I established a second fund that participates in financing, not in the startup phase, but in the second and third round of financing. Why? First to provide confidence to outside investors and second, to protect our equity in this newly established company. I see the results: in the last six years, the Technion spinoff companies raised $271 million and between six and thirteen companies every year spin off based on Technion technologies. I believe in the future this will be a source of income to the Technion because we split revenues 50/50 between the faculty member and the Technion. Again, this encourages faculty members who have the ability and they have fire in their belly to go to the applied mode.
Some examples of companies that were brought about through these programs are Mazor, which is a company that produces robotics for spine surgery and ReWalk, a company that provides the paraplegic with the ability to walk. There are others coming on in future months. So this is my own belief, that this tension between applied and basic research is a healthy one and you should encourage both groups to do what they like to do.
High: If one thinks about some of the stereotypes of an entrepreneur, President Lavie, one thinks someone who works at all hours, and sacrifices tremendously when it comes to sleep. You are a pioneer in sleep research, interestingly enough, so you are actually in a position to advise and work with entrepreneurs. In preparation for our conversation, I was fascinated to learn about the concepts of the “sleep gate” and the “forbidden zone for sleep.” Can you describe these concepts, and how they might be applied to entrepreneurs?
Lavie: These were studies that I did during the ‘80s and ‘90s, and indeed those were the two terms that I used in the literature: the “sleep gate” and the “forbidden zone for sleep.” For many years, the ruling concept was that sleepiness or the accumulated need for sleep is a linear process or an exponential process: we wake up in the morning fresh and full of energy, and then during the day there is an accumulation of fatigue and the need to sleep which reaches a peak during the evening hours. And we knew there were morning people and evening people, so for morning people, the peak is earlier and for evening people the peak is later. There was a bump during the afternoon that was called the siesta zone, but this was the concept.
My studies showed that indeed sleepiness and the accumulation of sleepiness is not a linear, nor an exponential concept. There is a period during the evening hours that I termed the “forbidden zone for sleep” that is the best period for creative work. Just before the sleep gate is open, and again it is different for evening people and morning people, say between 6 o’clock in the afternoon and 8 or 9 o’clock at night, we are at the best with respect to our alertness. It is difficult to fall asleep at that period, and if you need to do some creative thinking and some work that requires concentration, it is the best time. This was contrary to the ruling concept was that sleepiness accumulated throughout the day. Nevertheless, we have a period of high alertness. And then sleepiness, or the ability to go to sleep is almost an all or none phenomenon. The sleep gate is a short period of time during which you can easily fall asleep and it’s not an accumulated process.
For many years, people thought that this forbidden zone and sleep gate occur only in Haifa and is typical of the students of the Technion. Later, it was found out, that indeed this is the rule everywhere in the world. The name of the concept has been changed to the Wake Maintenance Zone not the forbidden zone for sleep, and they found the sleep gate is a true phenomenon. It has many implications to the design of shift work, the design of day work, how to treat insomniacs, or how to change the pattern of sleepiness. We found that melatonin, the hormone that was for many years considered to be the opener of the sleep gate starts to increase in the blood stream about an hour before the sleep gate is open and it’s locked to the sleep gate, so this provides us with information about when to take melatonin if you’d like to use it as a sleeping pill.
High: How strictly do you apply your findings to your own life?
Lavie: I try to synchronize my behavior to the sleep gate even though as the president, your nights are very long and when you go to sleep you have so much on your mind that even the sleep gate is not always open on time.
High: Through your work and your collaboration with your fellow professors, students, and alumni of your university, you have reason to think a lot about trends – about which ones have legs and which ones do not. I’m curious, what are a couple of those that you’re particularly excited about in the next year or two or three?
Lavie: There are two trends, both of them technology dependent, that excite me. First the ability to use technology to monitor different bodily functions. There are in the Technion now, several groups working on very inexpensive sensors to detect tuberculosis and malaria based on nanotechnology. This is amazing and I was involved, in one of my companies, in detecting atherosclerosis based on very non-invasive technologies that will allow us to do it in ten minutes, to really make a prediction regarding the future health of arteries. This is something which is very promising. Many universities and many industries are working on it: wristwatches that monitor your bodily functions etc. I’m very excited by this trend.
The second is the ability to communicate between people speaking different languages using automatic translation, I believe is around the corner. And this will change the way we push globalization in a way that we cannot even fathom. I just want to give you an example of MOOCs, massive online open courses. The Technion put one course in nanotechnology in two languages. One in English has 33,000 registered and one in Arabic with 8,800 registered on the Coursera platform. It was a smashing success. I believe that the ability to overcome the barrier of language using technology is one of the most exciting trends for the future.
Applied with a glue gun, the melted polymer works both externally and internally, and is nontoxic, flexible and biodegradable, researchers say.
Article by Shoshanna Solomon, published on The Times of Israel on June 11, 2019.
Technion researchers have developed a medical glue gun to help heal human tissue that has been seriously injured (Courtesy).
Researchers at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology have developed a glue gun to put the human body back together when it has been seriously injured.
The pins and stitches currently used to treat serious injuries come with drawbacks: They can be painful, they leave scars, they require high skill from the doctor, and they sometimes have to be removed after the tissues heal. Suture on the intestine, lungs or blood vessels often leak and therefore require a sealant.
The medical glue that the researchers have developed is a “two in one,” said Prof. Boaz Mizrahi, head of the Biomaterials Laboratory of the Technion. It replaces both stitches and the sealant, and is good for both external and internal injuries, he said.
All sorts of medical glues are already being used in dermatology, surgery, and other areas. Israeli startup Nanomedic Technologies Ltd., for example, has developed a medical device that it says can dress burns and other wounds with nano materials that mimic human tissue and peel off once the skin below is regenerated.
Still, the glues currently in use to replace sutures and staples are limited by their mechanical properties and toxicity, the researchers said. Because they are very toxic, they can be utilized only on the surface of the skin. In addition, hardening of the glue may make the organ less flexible or the adhesion may not be sufficiently strong.
With these limitations in mind, researchers have been on the hunt for a glue that is suitable for different tissues, nontoxic, and flexible after hardening. Such a glue would also need to decompose in the body after the tissue is fused together.
Mizrahi worked together with doctoral student Alona Shagan and came up with what they say is a “very strong, nontoxic tissue adhesive that remains flexible even after solidification.” Their study was published in the journal of Advanced Functional Materials.
Melting the glue and smearing it on the damaged tissue is performed with a hot-glue gun. The gun warms the glue to just above body temperature so as not to cause a burn. After the glue is applied, it quickly hardens, then decomposes within a few weeks. The adhesive is also suitable for use on tissue inside the body, and it is four times as strong as existing adhesives used for this purpose. Tested on cells and laboratory animals, it was effective and nontoxic, the researchers said.
Use of the polymer for medical purposes has previously been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). “We played with its physical structure,” said Mizrahi, to lower the polymer’s melting point, but its chemical properties otherwise remains the same, so there is no need for additional FDA approvals, he said.
The polymer is inserted into a glue gun and melts upon minimal pressure. It is squeezed directly onto the wound, where it solidifies, bonding strongly with both edges of the wound, the Technion said in a statement.
The researchers believe the new concept will lead to the development of devices that will reduce the use of stitches, staples and pins, speed up the healing process and reduce scarring.
The university tested the technology on animals and has patented it. Because its components are materials that have been previously approved by the FDA, Mizrahi hopes that “the product can reach the market in two or three years.” The university is now looking for a partner to commercialize the technology, he added.
Hot glue guns can be used for a myriad of projects, including scrapbooking, arts and crafts, and assembling toys. Now, researchers at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology have developed a glue that is applied with a hot glue gun to adhere seriously injured human tissues.
Illustration of glue being applied to an incision using a hot glue gun.
Most serious injuries are currently treated with pins and stitches that have many drawbacks. For the patient, they are very painful, leave scars, require high skill from the doctor, and sometimes have to be removed after the tissues heal. Medical glue, on the other hand, can produce improved medical and cosmetic results.
Such tissue bioadhesives are widely used in dermatology, surgical theaters, and in the field. But even though they have advantages over sutures and staples, currently available tissue glues are limited by their mechanical properties and toxicity. Because they are very toxic, they can be utilized only on the surface of the skin. In addition, hardening of the glue may make the organ less flexible or the adhesion may not be sufficiently strong.
With these limitations in mind, researchers have long been trying to develop a glue that is suitable for different tissues, non-toxic, and flexible after hardening. Such a glue would also need to decompose in the body after the tissue is fused together.
In an article published recently in Advanced Functional Materials, Biomaterials Laboratory head Prof. Boaz Mizrahi and doctoral student Alona Shagan introduce a very strong, non-toxic tissue adhesive that remains flexible even after solidification.
Melting the glue and smearing it on the damaged tissue is performed with a hot glue gun. Unlike the glue guns with which we are familiar, this gun warms the glue to a moderate temperature – just above that of the body – so as not to cause a burn. After the glue is applied, it quickly hardens, and decomposes within a few weeks. The adhesive is also suitable for the adhesion of tissue inside the body, and it is four times as strong as existing adhesives used for this purpose. Tested on cells and laboratory animals, it was effective and nontoxic.
The new approach is based on a biocompatible, low-melting-point, four‐armed N‐hydroxy succinimide‐modified polycaprolactone (star‐PCL‐NHS). Star‐PCL‐NHS is inserted into a hot-melt glue gun and melts upon minimal pressure, the team wrote. It is squeezed directly onto the wound, where it solidifies, bonding strongly with both edges of the wound. Changes in molecular weight allow control of adhesive strength, melting point, and elasticity properties. In-vitro and in-vivo evaluations confirm the biocompatibility of this system. The straightforward synthetic scheme and the simple delivery method – combined with the desirable mechanical properties, tunability and tissue compatibility – are desirable traits in wound management.
Doctoral student Alona Shagan
The researchers believe the new concept will lead to the development of devices that will reduce the use of stitches, staples and pins, speed up the healing process and reduce scarring.
Created by the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this YouTube video about the Technion features appearances by Nobel laureates, Distinguished Professors Dan Shechtman and Aaron Ciechanover. Among other things, the video highlights the Technion as a place where diseases are cured, Nobel Prizes are won, and the technology that’s making the world a better place is made.
Researchers at the Technion believe their discovery of a new technology to monitor metabolic processes in cancerous tissue could lead to targeted drugs for preventing malignant growth.
In recent decades, many studies have been conducted around the world on the development and spread of malignant tumors in the body, as well as their diagnosis and treatment. One of the most important discoveries is related to the unique metabolic properties of the cancerous cell.
Metabolism is a vital process that makes it possible for the cell to generate energy and produce the molecules needed for its development and survival. This process is very different in the malignant cell, as cancer cells divide uncontrollably, and their speedy growth reduces the oxygen and nutrients available to them and requires reprogramming of the metabolic processes. Successful monitoring of these metabolic changes could lead to the development of specific anti-cancer drugs that would impair the metabolic processes needed to sustain the cancerous tissue.
But applying this idea is not simple, because cellular metabolism is a very complicated process that involves the activity of thousands of genes and metabolic enzymes. Another major complication is that different areas of the cell maintain different metabolic processes, and existing technology does not allow each of them to be tracked separately.
Now, in a study published in Nature Communications, Professor Tomer Shlomi of the Technion Faculty of Biology and Computer Science and the Lorry I. Lokey Interdisciplinary Center for Life Sciences and Engineering present a new technology for monitoring metabolic processes in different parts of the cell.
“We have developed a technique for monitoring the rate of metabolic reactions at sub-cellular resolution, particularly mitochondria and cytosol,” he said. Mitochondria are the cell’s “power station,” and cytosol is the fluid inside the cell.
Prof. Shlomi’s research group is an interdisciplinary team comprised of researchers from the fields of biology and computer science. The new technology also combines biological methods with computational methods, namely molecular biology and mass spectrometry, technology for identification of materials in a sample, along with decoding of measurements using computational analysis. This combination enables modeling of the metabolic processes at the sub-cellular level.
The new technology was used to study mutations that interfere with mitochondrial activity in cancer cells. To their surprise, the researchers discovered a unique backup mechanism that allows cancer cells to overcome mitochondrial mutation damage and survive through unknown metabolic activity, the reversal of the direction of the Krebs cycle, a major metabolic pathway involved in cellular respiration.
“This is the first time that a reversal of the activities of these enzymes has been observed in human cells and specifically in cancerous ones,” said Prof. Shlomi. “Understanding this reversal mechanism is paving the way for medical treatment that will neutralize it. In other words, drug targeting of this backup metabolic process enables to selectively kill the mutated cancer cells without harming the healthy cells.”
The study was supported by a grant from the European Research Council (ERC) and carried out with Dr. Alina Eisenstein and doctoral students Won Dong Lee and Dzmitry Mukha.
Aimed at using scientific knowledge to improve sports performance, the First Scientific Conference of the Israeli Olympics Sports Research Center was held recently at Technion. Among the attendees were leading researchers and scientists, senior coaches from Israel and members of the sports-tech industry, and guest lecturers from the USA and England.
(L-R) Muli Epstein, scientific director of Israel’s Olympic Committee; Prof. Yannis Pitsiladis, Brighton University; Yael Arad, Olympic Committee of Israel; and Prof. Alon Wolf, head of the Israeli Olympic Sports Research Center at the Technion.
The conference was held at the Technion Faculty of Mechanical Engineering on May 15, as part of the Annual Belfer Symposium. It marked a new cooperative venture between the Technion and the Olympic Committee of Israel.
The Israeli Olympics Sports Research Center, which is focused on applied research for advancing Olympic Sport in Israel, is headed by Professor Alon Wolf of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, and directed by exercise physiologist Muli Epstein, scientific director of Israel’s Olympic Committee and its Elite Sports Unit.
Among the discussions related to scientific and technological challenges in the field of athletic achievement was the challenge of breaking the two-hour barrier in marathon races. Running a marathon in less than two hours is more than just a physiological challenge, and new developments in the field of footwear and nutrition could help break the elusive two-hour mark. Experts agree that it is possible to beat the record, and many believe that Kenyan Olympic runner Eliud Kipchoge could achieve do so in the near future.
Prof. Yannis Pitsiladis, an expert in sports and exercise science at England’s Brighton University and a world expert on the genetic and environmental effects of athletic performance, spoke about the enormous challenge of breaking the two-hour barrier in a marathon.
“The borders are not fixed, and by investing time and energy, they can be extended,” said Prof. Pitsiladis. In order for the goal to be reached, there must also be cooperation among researchers in various fields, including nutritionists, biomechanics and data scientists. “We need to develop tools with which to inject carbohydrates into the runner’s body effectively, and to provide him/her with intelligent sensing systems that monitor physiological variables and provide feedback on his/her condition in real time.”
Dr. Alison Sheets is a senior biomechanics researcher at Nike, whose research focuses on the biomechanical mechanisms that limit the performance of athletes through experimental and computational approaches. Her lecture addressed the contribution of equipment innovation in improving athletes’ sports performance.
“Why can’t I run faster, why can’t I jump higher? These questions keep me awake,” said Dr. Sheets, who seeks to improve the athletic performance of the super athlete. Established in 1980, Nike’s Biomechanics Laboratory’s goal is to develop ways to overcome existing limitations and enable athletes to improve their achievements while reducing injuries. “Since the 1980s, tremendous scientific developments have taken place, including the power of computing, data science and 3D printing, which give us new tools to combat sporting challenges.”
Prof. Wolf said that the research center was designed to promote Israeli sports on three levels: the physiology of the individual athlete, the technology of the equipment, and the interaction between the two. During the conference, Prof. Wolf and Mr. Epstein presented a fascinating talk about the history of scientific research in Olympic Sports and the current challenges in the field.
“With this joint cooperation between the Olympic Committee and Technion, a leading body in science and technology,” said Gili Lustig, CEO of the Olympic Committee of Israel, “I have no doubt that together, we can improve the training patterns and physiological tracking of our athletes and thus lead them to new heights.”
“The cooperation with Technion is at one with the quantum leap in the goals that we have set for ourselves,” said Yael Arad, Israel’s first athlete to win an Olympic silver medal and board member of the Olympic Committee of Israel and Chairman of the Sports Committee. “If we have so far aimed at returning from any Olympics with one or two medals, now we want to achieve more. Not only to be good but to be the best. And for that we have to focus on things that we are not good at, and to improve and bring measurable results, and in short – more medals. It is a long-term process whose benefits will be seen only at the 2024 Olympics and perhaps even later. But it will happen if we will be patient, determined and consistent.”
Following the conference, four Israeli Olympic trainers presented challenges from their respective fields to researchers at the new center. Niv Libner, coach of Israel’s women’s cycling team, is seeking to develop tools to improve training and decision-making in training and races. Rogel Nahum, who represented Israel three times in triple jumps in the Olympic Games, said that these areas are desperate for tools to improve the accuracy of running and hitting the jumping board. Sailing coach Gur Steinberg is seeking to develop precise methods for measuring distances and learning how world-champion sailors succeed. And Claudia Laciga, coach of the Israel Beach-Volleyball Team, said the players need tools that will improve their ability to read the opponent and his intentions.
Professor Ashraf Brik
The new strategy, based on a combination of the production of ubiquitin chains (left) and the formation of large libraries of cyclic peptides (center), and the atomic composition of one of the cyclic peptides
Meet Israel’s First Hasidic Med School Student
Sam Sokol
Sam Sokol
Sabiner has dreamed since the age of three of becoming a doctor. Photograph: Rami Shlush
Sabiner is now in the final year of his medical degree. Photograph: Rami Shlush
Yehuda Sabiner: Doctor in training (RAMI SHLUSH / TECHNION)
Sabiner poses for a photograph outside the of Rapaport Family Medical Sciences Building (RAMI SHLUSH / TECHNION)
Dr. Yehuda Sabiner.
Dr. Yehuda Sabiner. (YouTube/N12/Screenshot)
Senegalese farmers learning how to install the Tipa irrigation kit. Photo courtesy of MASHAV
Photo courtesy of GrainPro
Amaizz launching a pilot in Bihar, India, with the Syngenta Foundation. CEO Aviram Tenenbaum is in the purple shirt. Photo: courtesy
Biofeed’s FreeDome lures on a mango tree in Tamil Nadu, India. Photo: courtesy
Taranis CEO Ofir Schlam using the app in the field. Photo: courtesy
The AKOLogic system helps farmers manage any kind of crop according to any country’s import regulations. Photo: courtesy
In January 2019, academicians from Punjab Agriculture University, India, came to see Tal-Ya in use at the Arava R&D Center in Israel. Photo: courtesy
Sesame ready for harvest. Photo courtesy of Equinom
Origene’s booth at Agritech, May 2018, Tel Aviv. Photo: courtesy
Xgo FreshLid extends the shelf life of fresh cherries shipped from South America to China. Photo courtesy of StePac and Tadbik
A MASHAV intensive fish-farming class for professionals from 15 countries, January 2019. Photo copyright MASHAV-MATC
Technion researchers have developed a medical glue gun to help heal human tissue that has been seriously injured (Courtesy).
Doctoral student Alona Shagan
Professor Tomer Shlomi.