Technion scientists mobilized in the worldwide effort to find solutions for the current global health crisis.

Published on March 26, 2020.

Researchers in more than 20 Technion labs are working round the clock to help fight the spread of COVID-19. Their research includes early detection and diagnosis of the virus, development of a vaccine and therapies, and designing robotic solutions for remote monitoring and care of patients.
“Technion is at the forefront of science and technology worldwide, and during this time of crisis, we are collaborating closely with the health system and the hospitals in order to find immediate solutions to the challenges they are facing,” said Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan. “We are working on advanced diagnostic techniques, personalized medical treatment, technologies that enable pinpointed drug delivery, treatment protocols based on machine learning and artificial intelligence, data mining and Big Data management, developing robots for remote medical care, and more. Technion’s added value is apparent in the close interaction between medicine and engineering at our university, and in the interdisciplinary collaborations that are generating rapid and sophisticated solutions to help fight COVID-19.”

Technion emergency projects include:

• Diagnostics
• Prof. Hossam Haick, Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering: His lab is developing a diagnostic test for pre-symptomatic coronavirus carriers. Research focuses on two approaches: diagnosing the virus with a breath test, and monitoring the virus with an inexpensive patch adhered to the arm or chest.
• Prof. Roy Kishony, Faculty of Biology: Pooling method for accelerated testing of COVID-19.
• Prof. Amit Meller, Faculty of Biomedical Engineering: Identifying and quantifying viral RNA using nanopores.
• Prof. Moran Bercovici, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering: Innovative and rapid diagnostic test using blood and saliva.
  Vaccine development
• Prof. Avi Schroeder, Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering: Developing a vaccine for coronavirus based on a vaccine for shrimps, he invented at Technion – and is being commercialized by his Technion start-up ViAqua Therapeutics.
• Prof. Zaid Abassi and Prof. Oded Lewinson, Rappaport Faculty of Medicine: Prof. Lewinson is developing recombinant ACE-2 receptors in collaboration with Prof. Ofer Mandelboim of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The aim is to develop antibodies for ACE-2 receptors on which the coronavirus attaches itself to the host organism’s cells.

Therapeutics:

• Prof. Josué Sznitman, Faculty of Biomedical Engineering: Innovative technology for delivering drugs to the lungs. Especially suitable for treating acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), which is the principal cause of death among coronavirus patients.
• Prof. Roee Amit, Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering: Developing an ointment to treat coronavirus infections.
• Prof. Marcelle Machluf, Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering: Trapping the coronavirus using the existing nano-ghost technology developed in her lab.
• Prof. Avi Schroeder, Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering: Developing a targeted drug for treating acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), based on existing drug delivery methods.
  Aids for medical teams
• Prof. Eyal Zussman, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering: Developing filters and coatings using nanometric fibers.
• Prof. Yotam Bar-On, Rappaport Faculty of Medicine: Virologist specializing in COVID-19 – expert advice to medical teams.
• Prof. Shai Shen-Orr, Rappaport Faculty of Medicine: Identifying infected individuals based on their immune response; monitoring disease progression and complications in infected individuals; triage for the aged population and predict those with higher risk of complications or death. Additional collaboration is to develop rapid cell-based diagnostics for infections.
• Prof. Shady Farah, Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering: Developing anti-viral disinfectants.
• Prof. Shie Mannor, Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering: Artificial Intelligence research to evaluate the patients’ condition and the progress of the disease, in collaboration with Prof. Uri Shalit, Davidson Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management and Prof. Joachim Behar, Faculty of Biomedical Engineering.
• Prof. Alex Bronstein, Faculty of Computer Science is developing ultrasound for lung imaging. The researchers are adapting inexpensive ultrasound sensors in order to identify infections in the lungs caused by the coronavirus. Prof. Ron Kimmel, Faculty of Computer Science and Doron Shaked of General Electric are collaborating on this project.
• Prof. Ezri Tarazi, Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning: Design and produce novel protective equipment for medical personnel using 3D printing; establishing a national network of designers who will plan and produce products for immediate use in the COVID-19 crisis.
  In addition, Technion researchers and Rambam Health Care Campus medical staff are working together in high gear on numerous emergency projects. This collaboration is led by Technion VP for External Relations and Resource Development Prof. Alon Wolf, Rambam Director-General Prof. Michael Halberthal and former Rambam Director-General Prof. Rafi Beyar.

COVID Testing: From Bench to Bedside by Winter

Image: Israeli researchers introduce pooling method for COVID-19 testing (Photo courtesy of Technion – Israel Institute of Technology)

The best way to stop the spread of the coronavirus is by identifying carriers and keeping them away from healthy people. That requires testing — and a lot of it.

Researchers at the Technion and Rambam Health Care Campus are undergoing a final validation of their “pooling” test, which would dramatically increase testing capacity and speed. They hope the test will be available for widespread use by winter, when people could be suffering from a second wave of coronavirus, or a combination of COVID-19 and the flu.

“In winter, a lot of people will have respiratory diseases and will really want to know if they have SARS or something else,” said Technion researcher Dr. Idan Yelin. “There are going to be a lot of people being tested — even more than now — and we will need this.”
The team is led by Technion Professor Roy Kishony, the Marilyn and Henry Taub Chair in Life Sciences, and the director of the Lorry I. Lokey Interdisciplinary Center for Life Sciences and Engineering.

The new method, announced in March, advances PCR molecular testing common for COVID-19 by analyzing dozens of people simultaneously. Samples from saliva or throat and nose swabs are grouped into one batch and undergo a single test. If the group comes back negative, no further testing is needed. Individual testing would only be necessary when the pool comes up positive. Pooling is most beneficial in communities with a relatively low incidence of coronavirus because fewer positive results would emerge.

Currently, Israel is screening an average of 25,000 people per day, and as of July 19, the U.S. was testing more than 750,000 people daily, according to Johns Hopkins University & Medicine. The pooling method would test more people rapidly — a requirement for allowing the economy to reopen. The new approach would also save on chemical reagents and other equipment that has been in short supply.

Israeli researchers have successfully tested a method, known as pooling, that enables simultaneous testing of dozens of samples and can dramatically increase the current COVID-19 testing capacity using existing available resources. Its implementation has the potential to greatly accelerate the rate of testing and detection of COVID-19 infected patients in the population. The trial was conducted jointly by researchers from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology (Haifa, Israel) and Rambam Health Care Campus (Haifa, Israel) with the support of the Ministry of Health.

Article by HospiMedica International staff writers published on www.hospimedica.com on Mar 24, 2020.

COVID-19 is diagnosed with PCR testing, which is common for virus monitoring and examines the presence of a unique genetic sequence of viruses in a sample taken from the patient. However, the test takes several hours and does not allow for monitoring of asymptomatic carriers in the population, which is vital to curb the epidemic, thus creating a bottleneck in identifying COVID-19 infected people.

“According to the new pooling approach that we have currently tested, molecular testing can be performed on a “combined sample,” taken from 32 or 64 patients. This way we can significantly accelerate the testing rate. Only in those rare cases, where the joint sample is found to be positive, will we conduct an individual test for each of the specific samples,” said Dr. Yuval Gefen, director of the Rambam Clinical Microbiology Laboratory.

“This is not a scientific breakthrough, but a demonstration of the effectivity of using the existing method and even the existing equipment to significantly increase the volume of samples tested per day. This is done by pooling multiple samples in a single test tube. Even when we conducted a joint examination of 64 samples in which only one was a positive carrier, the system identified that there was a positive sample,” said Prof. Roy Kishony, head of the research group in the Faculty of Biology at Technion. “Although there are some logistical challenges in implementing the method, we expect that it will greatly increase the volume of samples tested per day so that we can identify the asymptomatic carriers. This approach should reduce the chance of infection and flatten the infection curve.”

“This experiment that was conducted by Technion and Rambam researchers is complex, and under normal circumstances would take months. This is a remarkable example of the mobilization of an outstanding team in a time of crisis,” said Prof. Uri Sivan, President of the Technion. “The initial experiment was completed in less than four days. This achievement emphasizes the importance of the close relationship between Technion and Rambam and between medicine and engineering. Technion researchers have been enlisted in the war against the coronavirus and this is one of the many activities currently underway at Technion to combat the spread of the disease.”

“This collaboration between Technion and Rambam, for the benefit of all humanity, is just one example of many joint projects between the two institutions. These collaborations are designed to harness the multidisciplinary capabilities of Technion researchers for the advancement of medicine,” said Prof. Michael Halberthal, General Director of Rambam Health Care Campus.

Israeli hospitals all over the country have prepared designated isolation units for coronavirus patients.

PRESS RELEASE

The Biobeat medical monitoring system is now installed in 11 hospitals across Israel, and they will continue installing their system in several more over the coming week. Biobeat is also working closely with several authorities in the country to implement monitoring of home hospitalized patients, being the first company to provide a comprehensive and advanced tracking solution of their medical condition and deterioration as needed from afar. The Biobeat platform allows continuous monitoring using a wireless, medical grade, non-invasive optical sensor. The 16 different vital signs measured – all by one small wireless device – are automatically transmitted in real time to the cloud and can be accessed from anywhere by the medical staff, providing relevant alerts when a change is detected. This dramatically reduces the direct contact between patients and health care providers, decreasing the risk for secondary exposure of the medical teams. Biobeat will continue to combat this global outbreak.

Technion-affiliated Rambam Hospital for example is opening a new coronavirus department this week. The facility will be on its own floor, isolated from the rest of the hospital. Construction and logistic teams worked cut an entire floor of the hospital in two: a hospitalization wing on one side and rooms for the team on the other side. The department will also have a separate ambulance entrance and elevator. Air from the rooms will be pumped through a filter before it exits the building. The department will use the new remote monitoring system developed by the Israeli start-up BioBeat, whose co-founder and CTO Johanan May is a Technion alumnus. The system includes smart monitoring stickers that will replace currently used monitoring methods. The stickers will be put on all the patients and allow continuous monitoring of breathing, saturation, pulse, blood pressure, body temperature, and other essential metrics. The results will be continually streamed to an information system, allowing the monitoring of every patient without physical contact.

This new remote monitoring system will be used for the first time in Israel in this new department. The system was developed by the Israeli start-up Biobeat.

The Rambam Hospital in Haifa finished preparations ahead of the opening of a new coronavirus department on Tuesday. The facility will be on its own floor, isolated from the rest of the hospital. Construction and logistic teams worked in the past week to cut an entire floor of the hospital in two: a hospitalization wing on one side and rooms for the team on the other side. The department will also have a separate ambulance entrance and elevator. Air from the rooms will be pumped through a filter before it exits the building. The new department will be able to hold 30 patients, with two rooms that will be able to treat children and an additional room for patients who have been intubated due to acute respiratory failure.

A special coronavirus team was trained by Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer, which opened its own coronavirus unit last month and also uses BioBeat

The department will be staffed by 30 nurses who all volunteered for the job, as well as doctors from a range of different departments. The team will be specialized for this department and until further notice will not work in any other department.

Patients will have phones and video equipment in their rooms in order to talk with family and medical professionals, with the aim of minimizing contact between patients and other people.

Biobeat will be used for the first time in this new department. The system, developed by the Israeli start-up Biobeat, includes smart monitoring stickers that will replace the currently used monitoring methods. The stickers will be put on all the patients and will allow continuous monitoring of breathing, saturation, pulse, blood pressure, body temperature and other essential metrics. The results will be continually streamed to an information system, allowing the monitoring of every patient without the need for physical contact.

“The establishment of the specialized department for the intake of coronavirus patients presents us with many challenges, some of which we learned for the first time. Some of them we’re creating from scratch, because the experience throughout the world regarding everything connected to the coronavirus is limited,” said Dr. Michael Halbertal.

Biobeat is one of many inventions developed by Technion Alumni that are being used all over the world to benefit millions. BioBeat will continue combating this global outbreak.
ENDS

Jews in communities around the globe show more genetic similarities with each other than they do with their non-Jewish neighbours, except in India and Ethiopia.

Jewish men celebrate Hanukkah at Manezhnaya square in the center of Moscow December 4, 2007 Credits: Reuters

A new study shows that Jews in communities around the globe show more genetic similarities with each other than they do with their non-Jewish neighbours. The only three exceptions were the Jews of India, Ethiopia, and Georgia, who had more similarity to their host nations than to other Jewish communities. The international study, led by researchers from Rambam Medical Center in Haifa and the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, mapped the Jewish genome for the first time. The research encompassed communities representing most of the world’s Jewish population.

The study also showed the genetic ties between the Jewish people and other peoples of the Levant: In communities representing 90 percent of the Jewish people worldwide, Jews were more genetically similar to non-Jewish Levantines than their non-Jewish hosts were.

The analysis discovered genetic substructures not found in most other Middle Eastern populations. Researchers from eight countries – Israel, Britain, the United States, Russia, Spain, Estonia, Portugal and Italy – compared 600,000 genetic markers in 114 people from 14 Diaspora Jewish communities and 1,161 people from 69 non-Jewish populations. Their findings were published yesterday in the journal “Nature” and will be presented today at an international conference of doctors and researchers at Rambam.

“Contemporary Jews comprise an aggregate of ethno-religious communities whose worldwide members identify with each other through various shared religious, historical and cultural traditions,” said the introduction to the article, whose lead researchers were Dr. Doron Behar of Rambam and Prof. Richard Villems of the University of Tartu in Estonia. “Historical evidence suggests common origins in the Middle East, followed by migrations.”

“Although many genetic studies have shed light on Jewish origins,” it noted, no previous study has addressed “genome-wide patterns of variation across the vast geographic span of Jewish Diaspora communities and their respective neighbours.”

Emergency preparedness, personal hygiene and science are among the winners in this crisis.

Article by Daniel Orenstein published on blogs.timesofisrael.com on Mar 11, 2020.

Coronavirus Disease 2019, or COVID-19 for short, has been with us for less than three months and it has thrown global health and economic systems into chaos – infecting 118,347 118,893 people as of this writing, and killing 4,269. Airports around the world are empty and millions sit at home in mandatory quarantine. International markets are crashing at a scale reminiscent of the 2008 banking crisis, and financial experts warn of worse to come. More immediately, people who work in tourism, international business and travel (among other professions) are losing their income. Global market collapse, unemployment and a lethal virus are nothing to make light of.

Yet, as the mantra goes, “out of crisis comes opportunity.” In the case of COVID-19, the opportunity is to learn a few essentials about life in the 21st century, about the state of humanity, our relationship with one another and with the earth. COVID-19 has led to some unexpected, and even desirable, trends. If we can overcome the disease, yet hold on to these trends, a stronger human society may yet emerge. In the spirit of this crisis-brings-opportunity, here are six interim positive trends (some of them lifesaving) to consider as we continue to collectively face the ongoing threat of COVID-19:

Emergency preparedness: A cornerstone of societal resilience is being prepared to face foreseen and unforeseen disasters. In Israel, such threats can take the form of not only global pandemics, but earthquakes, forest fires or Hezbollah missiles. Every household should have two weeks of supplies on hand just in case supply chains and infrastructures are disrupted and basic supplies are not available for a short period of time. By being prepared, you can alleviate pressure on health and emergency infrastructures at a time that they are least able to accommodate large numbers of people in need. In this way, you protect yourself and your community. So this is not anti-social behavior, but quite the opposite – it’s a civic duty.

Personal hygiene: Knowledge about hand washing and sneezing/coughing into your elbow has been around for as long as people have known that many harmful viruses and bacteria are transferred from infected surfaces to your hands and from your hands to your eyes, nose and mouth, where they invade the body and get you sick. You should have been washing your hands long before you ever heard of coronavirus, but COVID-19 has provided a timely reminder.

Clean air: Our global economy runs on burning fossil fuels that release pollutants into the local environment (think: cancer, emphysema, asthma and more) and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (think: climate change). China has among the worst air quality conditions in the world and is the second biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses. According to NASA observations, nitrogen dioxide concentrations over parts of China dropped by 10 to 30% due to the economic shutdown of the Wuhan Province, which was the COVID-19 outbreak epicenter. NPR cites one researcher saying, “I’ve definitely spoken to people in Shanghai who said that it’s been some of the most pristine blue skies that they remember over the winter.” Considering that an estimated one million premature deaths are attributed to air pollution annually in China alone, we might consider that after dealing with COVID-19, ending our dependence on fossil fuels may be the next best thing we can do for our collective health.

Geography lessons: How many countries can you identify on a world map? During the latest crisis, world maps and geography lessons are standard fare on the nightly news and the internet and print media. Who knew where Macau was, and that you could gamble there (10 infected, all recovered)? Or that most of Italy’s rich lived in the northern part of that country (10,149 infected, 631 fatalities)? Or that the epidemiological future of Israel and Palestine are tied together (58 and 29 infected, respectively). Or that Black Plague marched across the world via the Silk Road, from China through Central Asia and into Italy, much like the path of Covid-19 in our time. Coronavirus has opened the door for educational opportunities, and not just environmental studies or epidemiology.

Public health experts and agencies: Doctors get much-deserved credit for their role in saving lives, but public health experts are the unsung heroes as far as monitoring and preparing for the local to global environmental risks that threaten us all. Coronavirus reminds us of the pre-meditated, lifesaving work done by the likes of the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control, National Ministries of Health, Non-government health organizations and university public health extensions programs. In calmer times these not-for-profit bureaucracies and organizations have to fight for their budgets, so it’s good to have a reminder regarding their prominent role in assuring societal wellbeing.

In this vein, COVID-19 gave a much-needed boost to the argument for universal health care. Health experts express in a single breath that China’s universal health care system was one of the key elements assisting it’s citizens to identify and treat sick individuals (free testing, free CT scans), while the US lack of such mechanisms to assist the uninsured leave it dangerously exposed to public health risks like a pandemic. COVID-19 is an advocate for affordable, universal health care.

Science and the leaders who listen to it: One of the interesting disagreements brought about by COVID-19 was between Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and US President Trump. Netanyahu has listened to the advice of his health experts and has taken pro-active measures to protect citizens from an emerging threat. Trump publicly contradicts his own health experts and tweets insults at his political opposition (all the while posing a real threat to his citizens by offering bad advice). Neither science nor Coronavirus responds to tweets.

And while respect for science is experiencing a revival due to COVID-19, fake news, which is a threat to public wellbeing, is taking a beating. In contrast to the previous years, society is pushing back against identifiable fake news, and everyone from the Palestinian Authority to billionaire social-network bosses are working to identify and quash fake news. Hopefully such vigilance will outlive the disease outbreak.

And finally, two “silver linings” of a more personal nature that also offer some optimism for the future. First, with the Ben Gurion airport effectively closed, perhaps the Israel Railways can finally finish their work on the Airport–Haifa rail line, so passengers coming into and leaving Israel will no longer suffer the unpleasant surprise that, yet again, the line is closed for infrastructure repairs and expansion.

And lastly, COVID-19 provides an opportunity for the community of end-of-the-world literature and movie aficionados to apply their encyclopedic knowledge of how to respond to a pandemic/alien invasion/ rapture/zombie outbreak. Max Brooks, author of World War Z, for instance, already taught us about the need for Israeli-Palestinian cooperation to properly defend both nations from the zombie apocalypse. So, it was already obvious to us aficionados that we need the same cooperation today to contend with COVID-19.

And hopefully that final silver lining – greater respect for the connection between people and nations – will outlast COVID-19, too.

Technion UK has announced that its chairman, Daniel Peltz OBE, is standing down after ten years in the role. The property entrepreneur and philanthropist will nonetheless maintain strong connections to the charity, which was established to promote the invaluable work of the Technion Institute in Israel. Peltz will stay on as a trustee for the charity and a governor of the university itself.

PRESS RELEASE

Daniel Peltz hands over chairmanship of Technion UK

Discussing his departure, Peltz commented that:
“It’s been a genuine privilege to play a part in the story of Technion UK, a remarkable charity promoting an incredible university. After a decade in the role, I have decided that it is time for fresh blood to step in to help write the next chapter of this life-changing organisation.
Technion UK has also announced that Daniel Peltz’s replacement will be Paul Charney, who will take over in April 2020.

Paul Charney commented that:
“The Technion is a technological powerhouse of Israel and a brilliant example of the Jewish people’s commitment to be a light unto the nations. The university has not only transformed Israel itself through the countless students it has trained, but its research and advances have also had an undeniable impact on the world at large. Daniel Peltz has done an incredible job of steering the organisation forward and I am very proud to undertake this role”

As well as the change in chairmanship, Technion UK will also see other new faces on the trustee board. After ten years in the position, Gary Monnickendam is stepping down, while four more new trustees have been appointed. They are Stephen Wiseman, Geoff Hartnell, Claire Rothman and David Samuel who will be joining Sir Michael Heller and Lois Peltz.
ENDS

Historic moments: Technion and the Churchill Family

Today, January 24, 2020, marks the 55th anniversary of the death of Sir Winston Churchill at the age of 91. Buried in St. Martin’s Church, Bladon just outside the Blenheim Palace grounds north of Oxford, Churchill was honoured at his funeral by an assembly that brought together some of the greatest statesmen in world history.

Article published at www.technion.ac.il on January 24, 2020.

On this anniversary, the ongoing British – Technion relationship was again exemplified by a meeting between HRH Prince Charles and Technion Prof. Hossam Haick in which Prof. Haick showcased cutting edge technology for the rapid detection of cancer through sampling the breath.

Sir Winston Churchill

The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa had a special connection with Sir Winston Churchill, and the central and largest conference hall on campus was named for him.

British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill maintained a close and warm relationship with the Technion, and his descendants have continued to do so. In 1955, his son Randolph Churchill visited the Technion and signed the cornerstone scroll for the Churchill Building. He brought with him a message from his father: “I am very sorry for being unable to attend the opening of the new Technion conference building … You are to be commended for the development of your country’s technological achievements.

Two official letters from Winston Churchill to the Technion’s administration were found in the Technion’s archive. In the first letter, dated November 20, 1954, Churchill – who was then Great Britain’s Prime Minister – thanked the Technion’s administration “for the decision to name after me two buildings on the new campus… I am truly honored that some buildings of the Israel Institute of Technology are to be named after me and that my name will be associated with an undertaking devoted to the advancement of knowledge and human well-being.”

He notes that the Technion is essential to the future prosperity of the State of Israel and that this prosperity will certainly benefit other countries. “Israel has no lack of skil[l]ful professional men professionals, scientists and artists, but these, with all their gifts, cannot alone solve all of Israel’s present economic problems. She needs also technicians and craftsmen to build new towns and factories and to bring what is now desert under cultivation.”

In the second letter, from May 1958, Sir Winston Churchill – who was already a private person – apologizes for being unable to visit the Technion. “I have been a Zionist for many years, and I view with pleasure and admiration the maturing of the State of Israel … I pray that your efforts will be crowned with success to the detriment of none and to the lasting benefit of all the peoples of the Middle East.” He was represented at the inauguration of Churchill Hall at the Technion by his second daughter, Sarah Churchill.

The Churchill Building at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa

Two months later, on July 3, 1958, at his London residence, Sir Winston Churchill handed the key to the Technion Hall to Israel’s Ambassador to Britain Eliahu Eilat.

Churchill’s grandson, Winston Spencer Churchill, also visited the Technion and was involved in the restoration of the Churchill Building after it was damaged by a fire. He was awarded a Technion Honorary Doctorate in 1997.

Technion Professor Hossam Haick tells Prince Charles about his invention of SniffPhone

Photo by Ben Kelmer courtesy British Embassy Israel

A device that uses nanotechnology sensors to analyse biomarkers in the breath and is able to accurately diagnose diseases such as certain types of cancer, pulmonary disease, and even early stages of neurodegenerative diseases, the SniffPhone Project aims to develop a small plug-in module that can detect a disease from exhaled breath. It will be invaluable in broad screening efforts for cancer and 17 other types of diseases. An ideal screening test needs to meet several criteria: to be highly accurate, low in cost, easy to use, comfortable for the patient, and easily repeatable.

SniffPhone has an unparalleled advantage over traditional screening methods: the device is comfortable and painless to use and provides a simple and cost-effective alternative for medical professionals.

It is notable that the meeting of the Prince and Professor Haick falls on the 55th anniversary of the death of Sir Winston Churchill.

Sir Winston Churchill played a crucial role in the foundation of Israel. In 1958 the Churchill Auditorium at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology was dedicated to the great leader with the participation of Israel’s Prime Minister David Ben Gurion and members of the Churchill family.

Britain’s leader sent a letter to the Technion in November 1954: ” I feel truly honoured that some new buildings at the Israel Institute of Technology are to be named after me and that my name will be associated with an undertaking devoted to the advancement of knowledge and human well-being.”

Prince Charles is honouring Churchill’s memory by meeting Professor Hossam Haick, one of Israel’s leading scientists.

Photo by Ben Kelmer courtesy British Embassy Israel

From Waze to cancer-busting nano-ghost cells and 3-D printed hearts, The Times of Israel takes a dive into tech that helps us get where we’re going and keeps us safe and healthy

Article published at www.timesofisrael.com on January 1, 2020.

The Beresheet selfie during landing, April 11, 2019. (YouTube screenshot)

As we enter 2020, The Times of Israel has taken a look at some of the coolest Israeli technologies and inventions of the past 10 years — those that are already hugely impacting the way we live and those that have the potential of changing our lives and health.

The list is of course purely subjective, and there are so many other Israeli technologies and startups out there that are making a difference to our world.

Driving with your personal navigator: Waze
This GPS navigation software works on smartphones or car screens, providing turn-by-turn information to drivers about how best to get to their destination, including estimated length of travel and time of arrival.

The software has revolutionized how people drive: like old-school GPS systems, it does away with printed maps and recalculates if you make a mistake, but this unflappable piece of software also smoothly updates its instructions based on real-time conditions and bases its advice partly on user input relating to traffic jams and other road pitfalls.

Waze navigation screen (photo credit: Courtesy)

The technology was developed by Israeli founders Ehud Shabtai, Amir Shinar and Uri Levine and was snapped up by US tech giant Google in 2013 for some $1 billion.

Using public transportation better: Moovit
This smartphone app allows users to find the best way to their destination using public transportation, and the Israeli startup by the same name this summer hit a milestone of over half a billion users around the world. Moovit, founded in 2012 by entrepreneurs Nir Erez, Roy Bick, and Yaron Evron and headquartered in Ness Ziona, has been referred to as the “Waze for public transportation.”

The Moovit app in use in Washington, US (Courtesy)

The free crowdsourced app provides real-time bus, train, subway, and light rail schedules, offers route options to help users find the quickest, most efficient way to their destinations, and issues exact instructions on how to get there.

The firm has raised some $131.5 million to date from investors including Intel Capital, the investment arm of Intel Corp., Sequoia Capital Israel, BMW i Ventures, and NGP Capital, a VC firm based in Palo Alto, California.

Water from thin air: Watergen
This startup creates drinking water by capturing the humidity from the air. It was set up in 2010 by Arye Kohavi, a former combat reconnaissance company commander in the Israel Defense Forces.

Drawing water from a Watergen generator in Bukhara, Uzbekistan. (Screenshot/YouTube )

The water-making machine uses a series of filters to purify the air. After the air is sucked in and chilled to extract its humidity, the water that forms is treated and transformed into clean drinking water. The technology uses a plastic heat exchanger rather than an aluminium one, which helps reduce costs; it also includes proprietary software that operates the devices.

Did we get all of the cancer out? Dune Medical Devices
The startup developed the MarginProbe device to help surgeons find out, on the spot, if they have removed all of the cancerous tissue or not, thus helping women with breast cancer avoid undergoing dreaded follow-up surgery to remove residual cancer cells after a tumour is excised. The device has shown to reduce re-excisions in breast-conserving surgery by over 50% and has been used in over 20,000 procedures in hospitals in the US and in Israel, according to the firm.

Dune Medical’s MarginProbe reduces amount of follow-up breast cancer surgery (Courtesy)

The startup was founded in 2002 by Dr. Dan Hashimshony.

Shooting rockets out of the sky: The Iron Dome missile system
The Iron Dome is an air defence system developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries. Using advanced radar and software, this device, which predicts an incoming rocket’s trajectory and shoots it out of the sky, has helped save lives in Israel during rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip. The system was initially deployed in 2011 near Beersheba, where it successfully intercepted its first rocket. Brigadier General Danny Gold and Chanoch Levine were behind the development of the system.

An Israeli missile launched from the Iron Dome defence missile system, designed to intercept and destroy incoming short-range rockets and artillery shells, in the southern Israeli city of Sderot, on November 12, 2019. (MENAHEM KAHANA / AFP)

Helping those with paralysis to walk: ReWalk Robotics
This Israeli firm has developed the ReWalk “exoskeleton system” that enables people who are paralyzed to walk by letting computers and motion sensors do all of the “heavy lifting” of the body. The system controls movement using subtle changes in the center of gravity mimics natural gait and provides a functional walking speed, enabling people who are paralyzed to stand up straight again, walk down the aisle with their loved one and even run marathons.

With the help of ReWalk Robotics, Dudu Shevy is able to walk down the aisle (screen capture: Channel 2)

ReWalk Robotics is a Nasdaq-traded Israeli company. The inventor of the system, Amit Goffer, is a mechanical engineer who became paralyzed from his upper back down after an accident.

Helping the blind ‘see’: OrCam
This Israeli startup develops products based on advanced computerized visual interpretation capabilities. The firm’s artificial vision wireless product is basically a miniature camera attached to a computing device, less than an ounce in weight and the size of a finger, with a personal speaker on the other end.

OrCam’s MyEye 2 can recognize text from any surface (Courtesy)

When the OrCam camera is attached to the frame of a pair of glasses, users can point to text on any surface, and the speaker transforms the image into words and reads them out. That way, users can “read” newspapers, restaurant menus, or books — even ballot slips. The AI-driven software uses the high-resolution video camera and smart algorithms that analyze what the camera is seeing, and reads back the information to a user in real-time.

Ziv Aviram, the CEO and co-founder of the Jerusalem-based startup, set up the firm in 2010 together with Prof. Amnon Shashua. The two entrepreneurs are also the founders of Mobileye, a maker of self-driving car technologies, acquired in 2017 by Intel Corp. for a massive $15.3 billion.

Have a heart: The 3D-printed heart
Scientists at Tel Aviv University unveiled a 3D print of a heart with human tissue and vessels earlier this year, calling it a “major medical breakthrough” that advances possibilities for transplants.

Professor Tal Dvir presents a 3D print of a heart with human tissue at Tel Aviv University on April 15, 2019. (Jack Guez/AFP)

While it still remains a far way off, the scientists hope one day to be able to produce hearts suitable for transplant into humans as well as patches to regenerate defective hearts.

Ghost cells that target cancer: NanoGhost
NanoGhost is a startup set up by Prof. Marcelle Machluf that aims to shrink the deadliest forms of cancer by precisely targeting tumours. Machluf developed the technology in her lab at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, and she has now set up a startup as a spin-off from the university to commercialize the technology. The startup got funding earlier this month from the moon venture capital fund.

In their work, Machluf and her team at the Technion used mesenchymal stem cells — cells, found in all humans, that play multiple roles in the body, differentiating into a variety of cell types. These cells help cancerous cells hide from the immune system, allowing the cancers to thrive and grow to a size that makes it impossible for the immune system to later attack.

The Technion’s Prof. Marcelle Machluf, left, at her lab in Haifa with a lab assistant; June 19, 2019 (Shoshanna Solomon/Times of Israel)

Machluf’s team took these cells and emptied them of their content — creating “ghost-like” cells — and then reconstructed them into nano-vehicles filled with anti-cancer drugs. These are then injected into the bloodstream and released directly into the tumours. Animal experiments have shown that NanoGhosts may reduce tumour size in small lung carcinoma, prostate, and pancreatic cancer tumours by as much as 85%, the company said.

And what does your gut say? DayTwo
The DayTwo startup has developed an app that provides customized nutrition recommendations based on an analysis of gut bacteria, with the aim of helping diabetes patients find the best foods for them to avoid sugar spikes.

Users of the service get a home kit through which they send a sample of their stool by courier to a lab, where their gut bacteria’s genetic profile is analyzed. Patients also fill out a medical questionnaire and provide blood test results. They then get a personalized diet with recommendations for menus that best suit their gut.

The DayTwo app in action (Courtesy)

DayTwo was founded in 2015 by entrepreneur Marius Nacht, who is also the founder of Israeli cybersecurity firm Check Point Software Technologies Ltd., chairman Yuval Ofek, CEO Lihi Segal, and managing partner Yair Schindel.

The company’s technology is based on research developed at the Weizmann Institute of Science. The researchers genetically sequenced the DNA of all of the bacteria of the gut and then created multiple profiles of people based on their bacteria. Their study showed that different people eating the same foods can have different sugar — or glycemic — responses, depending on the kind of gut bacteria they have.

Shooting for the Moon: Beresheet, by SpaceIL
Beresheet was an Israeli spacecraft that never managed to land on the moon, crashing on it instead, but was a winner anyway because of the chutzpah and daring it represented. Had the landing succeeded, it would have made Israel the fourth country, with the first privately owned spacecraft, to land on the moon.

Yariv Bash, right, Yonatan Winetraub, middle, and Kfir Damari, the founders of SpaceIL, inserting a digital time capsule into the Beresheet spacecraft, December 17, 2018. (Yoav Weiss)

“We are on the moon, but not in the way that we wanted to,” operational control director Alex Fridman said grimly to engineers in the control room after the spacecraft crashed on the moon in April this year.

The spacecraft, roughly the size of a compact car, was budgeted at fraction of the cost of vehicles launched to the moon by major powers the US, Russia and China in the past.

It was a crazy idea that was hatched by three friends at a bar in Holon, Yonatan Winetraub, Kfir Damari and Yariv Bash, who set up the SpaceIL startup to propel their moon-landing dream. Together they somehow collected $100 million in donations, harnessed a team of dozens of engineers, and captured the attention and dreams of Israel and the world.

Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s: New Strategies, New Hope

Virtually everyone has been impacted by either Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease. Watching as a beloved grandparent or friend experiences cognitive decline is heartbreaking. And as the number of older Americans grows, so too will the number of cases. Americans with Alzheimer’s are slated to rise from about 5.8 million people today to 13.8 million by midcentury, while the number of Americans age 45 or older with Parkinson’s is forecasted to jump from about 930,000 today to 1,238,000 in a decade.

Technion researchers are on the front lines battling both degenerative diseases. Professor Ester Segal, along with her Ph.D. student Michal Rosenberg in the Technion Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, and scientists from Bar-Ilan University, are studying a novel approach to treatment.

Conducted with the support of the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute at the Technion and tested in mice, their approach hinges on a probable cause of Alzheimer’s: the accumulation of the protein amyloid beta, which blocks and kills neurons and damages motor function. Existing research suggests that treating Alzheimer’s patients with another protein, neural growth factor, can inhibit the disease’s progression. But there is a real barrier to success: the “blood–brain barrier,” a filtering mechanism that restricts drugs’ passage from bloodstream to brain.

As a work-around, Prof. Segal and her team have developed a nanoscale silicon chip with a porous structure that can carry large amounts of neural growth factor. Measuring just 2 millimeters on each side and 10 microns thick, the chip is small enough to get through the blood–brain barrier. And consisting of 70% holes, it acts like a sponge that can be tailored to carry the neural growth factor, releasing it over a span of a month to the target brain region. After doing so, the chips
safely dissolve.
The Segal team has described two methods of chip delivery: either implanting it into the tissue surrounding the brain or injecting it via a gene gun. Developed for a separate purpose, the gene gun was reworked by Bar-Ilan Associate Professor Orit Shefi into a spray that can propel the chip into the brain through the nose, avoiding the blood–brain barrier. Experiments so far have been restricted to animals and are ongoing.

Dozens of people from all over the world have contacted us since the publication of our work,” said Prof. Segal. “I was devastated from some of their stories and the depression of early-diagnosed Alzheimer’s patients and their families.
The Technion has a notable history in neurodegenerative research. Professor Emeritus Moussa Youdim co-created the first anti-Parkinson’s drug, rasagiline, now marketed as Azilect®. Other Technion researchers are following suit. Associate Professor Simone Engelender, for example, has posited a new theory that better accounts for the progression of Parkinson’s symptoms than the conventional model.

Although clinical studies enrolling Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s patients are required to gauge the long-term significance of Technion research, the advances that Prof. Segal and others are making provide solid hope for an improved standard of care for both nefarious diseases.

Researchers at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology and their partners at Bar Ilan University have developed new technology to inhibit the development of Alzheimer’s disease. The work was recently published in the journal Small and also appears on the magazine cover. The research was led by Professor Ester Segal and Ph.D. student Michal Rosenberg from the Technion Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering and their partners, Professor Orit Shefi and Ph.D. student Neta Zilony-Hanin from the Bar Ilan University Faculty of Engineering.

Article published at www.ats.org on November 19, 2019.

Technion Professor Ester Segal

Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia, is characterized by symptoms that include memory loss, speech impairments, orientation problems, and significant impairment of motor functions. The disease primarily strikes the elderly population, and after the age of 85 reaches a prevalence of some 30%. Due to the increase in life expectancy and the increase in the elderly population, the overall incidence of the disease has grown and is today referred to as the “gray epidemic” or the “21st century plague.”

Alzheimer’s is a neurodegenerative disease, meaning that it originates in the brain cells. The major cause of the disease is the accumulation of a protein called amyloid beta (Aβ) in brain tissues. The protein blocks kill the nerve cells, also called neurons, in different regions of the brain. This leads, in part, to damage of the cholinergic mechanisms essential for brain function.

Administering a specific protein, neural growth factor, inhibits the damage to the cholinergic mechanisms and the exacerbation the disease. But delivering the protein into the target area of the brain is not a simple task because the brain rests beneath the blood-brain barrier (BBB), which protects the central nervous system (the brain) from being infiltrated by bacteria and harmful substances from the blood. This barrier also restricts the passage, from the bloodstream to the brain, of drugs intended to treat brain diseases.

Ph.D. Student Michal Rosenberg

The Technion and Bar Ilan University researchers have presented an innovative solution to this challenge: Nanoscale silicon chips for direct insertion of the protein into the brain and its release into the target tissue. The dedicated silicon chips, developed in Prof. Segal’s lab, have a nanoscale porous structure that allows them to be loaded with large amounts of protein.

Through precise control of chip properties –- pore dimensions, surface chemical properties and more – the researchers were able to reach an optimal configuration that retains the protein in its active form and then releases it gradually, over a period of about a month. Afterwards, the chips safely degrade in the brain and dissolve.

In this way, as mentioned, the protein is not required to cross the blood-brain barrier since it is inserted directly into the brain in one of two ways: by implanting it into the brain (as a chip) or sending it to its target as microparticles with the use of a dedicated gene gun. Upon reaching the target location in the brain, the protein is released from the chip and the chip breaks down into non-toxic components.

Cover of the November 6, 2019 issue of Small, dedicated to the research of Prof. Ester Segal. Silicon chips are inserted into the brain of a mouse by safe implantation or with a gene gun. The chips break down while releasing a neural growth factor, a protein that prevents the death of nerve cells in Alzheimer’s disease. (credit: Ella Maru Studio)

“In a series of experiments, we showed in mice that the two ways of delivering the platform into the brain led to the desired result,” said Technion doctoral student Michal Rosenberg. “Furthermore, our technology has also been tested in a cellular model of Alzheimer’s disease and indeed, the protein release has led to rescuing the nerve cells.”

The research was conducted with the support of the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute at the Technion.