I spoke with Alexey Tomsov, Technion graduate in Biotechnology and Food engineering (MSc, BSc), about Jet-Eat Printed Foods Ltd., a Tel Aviv start-up which ‘prints’ steaks using 3D printers. In this interview, Alexey Tomsov, who is a senior manager at Israeli startup Jet-Eat, speaks about disrupting the vegan food market with 3D printing technology that will be able to produce tasty meat substitutes using plant-based formulations. Alexey is a #Technion graduate.

Article by Shlomo Maital, published on The Jerusalem Post on February 22, 2019.

In researching this column, I was astonished to learn how carnivorous we Israelis are.

According to an OECD study on per capita meat consumption, Israel ranks fourth in the world. Israelis consume on average 86.1 kilograms (189 pounds) of meat annually – more than the average body weight! This is only slightly less than Australia, the world’s top carnivore. And the Australians raise their own beef. We have to import it.

To feed our craving for meat, in 2018 Israeli companies imported for slaughter nearly 700,000 live sheep and cattle, mostly from Australia, a steep rise of 37% from the previous year. Animal rights groups claim that these animals undergo “a tortuous voyage to Israel in crowded ships, wallowing in their own excrement, sick and exhausted.” Does anyone believe the animals are given proper food and water during their three-week-long 12,000 km (7,600 mile) voyage?

The slaughter of animals worldwide is truly massive. Nearly 1.5 billion pigs are slaughtered yearly, some 600 million sheep, over 400 million goats and 300 million steers. All this, to produce over 300 million tons of meat yearly, three times more than in 1970. As the world grows wealthier, it consumes more and more meat.

Do we human beings have the moral right to impose cruelty on living beings just to feed our cravings? Mostly, when we savor a sizzling steak, we turn a blind eye to the pain and suffering that generated it, because we never see it – it is kept well-hidden.

Last July a bill was introduced to the Knesset, calling for a phasing out of live animal imports. The cabinet approved it. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife Sarah supported the bill strongly. But it failed to pass the Knesset. Another win for the lobbyists.

The ethical and humane appeals of animal rights advocates join a hard economic reality – we simply cannot sustain the enormous waste that eating meat implies, even if we ignore the cruelty. To feed billions of people, we will need to eat vegetable calories rather than wastefully feed them to animals. Here are the numbers.

It takes about 25 times more energy to produce one calorie of beef than to produce one calorie of corn for human consumption. A large proportion of beef cattle in the US are corn fed. If we ate the corn, we could feed 25 times more people.

According to Science magazine, to raise a steer weighing 700 kg, it takes five million liters of water and 8,000 kg of food. That steer generates 10 times its weight, or 7,000 kg, in carbon dioxide emissions, through methane flatulence. Methane is said to cause fully one-fourth of global warming. For all this, we get just 320 kg of meat. Now, multiply those numbers by 300 million, the number of steers raised and slaughtered annually. In short, we waste 96% of food calories, and worsen climate change, besides causing immense cruelty and suffering.

It is doubtful the world will become vegan overnight – even though India, for instance, consumes only 3 kg of meat per person yearly, for religious reasons, and still thrives. The only solution seems to be to make tasty synthetic meat.

There is a wide variety of people who reduce their meat consumption or avoid it altogether. Vegetarians eat no meat of any kind. “Flexitarians” eat meat occasionally. Pollotarians eat chicken or other poultry, but no meat. Pescatarians eat fish but not poultry or meat. Vegans abstain from using any animal products, particularly food. One study showed one adult Canadian in every ten is flexitarian, and 42% of those are baby boomers.

I spoke with Alexey Tomsov, Technion graduate in Biotechnology and Food engineering (MSc, BSc), about Jet-Eat Printed Foods Ltd., a Tel Aviv start-up founded early last year by Eshchar Ben-Shitrit; Tomsov is a senior manager at Jet-Eat, which ‘prints’ steaks using 3D printers.

How did the idea originate?
Eshchar, the founder of the company, was a devout, almost obsessive meat-eater for 30 years. A sudden change happened when he became a father, realizing that eating meat is wrong for the future of our planet, and the way we treat animals in our food system has to change. Unfortunately, existing meat substitutes fail to compete with meat, and much of that comes from the technology used to produce them. The discussion about 3D printing as a potential new technology for meat alternatives has been around for close to a decade, but never as a full-blown technological project. With a background in digital and 3D printing, Eshchar decided that his life mission is to make meat printing reality.

Alexey, the crucial test for Jet-Eat will be: does it taste good, like real steak, or close to it? Have you done taste tests? What did the carnivores say?
Taste is the No. 1priority for us from day one. People will eat the product, not the technology that is used to produce it, hence it needs to be tasty. This is why taste-tests are a crucial part of our R&D process already today. “Taste” is a very broad term, comprising many factors. We are constantly evaluating taste, flavor, mouthfeel, flavor delivery and much more. Moreover, we are working on novel incorporation of advanced flavors and flavor delivery mechanisms, which make our current products surprisingly beefy – and much more meat-like compared to existing meat alternatives. Combined with culinary experiments, we believe that these approaches will bring us as close as possible to the experience of meat.

What is the source of protein for Jet-Eat printed steaks? Does it match the protein of meat? Is it easier to digest than meat?
We have a unique and proprietary protein formulation from several plant sources. We try to optimize the selection of proteins for their functionality – mostly based on their contribution to the texture of the final product. However, we keep in mind the need to have a balanced source of amino acids and try to match beef in that sense as much as possible. We are incorporating protein sources with high DIAAS (Digestible Indispensable Amino Acid Scores) in our formulations – in order to increase the amino acid absorption as compared to some of the plant-based meat alternatives currently available on the market. In addition, diets that are rich in plant-based proteins are linked in research to many health benefits.

Proteins are also important for different sensory attributes. For example, proteins are important for the mouthfeel and texture of meat and the plant-based alternatives. Our technology is developed from the ground up, tailored for the application – in order to reach these attributes in our products, bringing us one step closer to beef.

Have you considered various “pivots” (shifts in direction) for Jet-Eat?
The basic technology we are developing can deliver innovation in many fields related to food. However, our mission is focused on replacing meat, and this is what gets us excited every day. In meat, we have plans to use our technology to create many different products, starting from beef but not stopping with just one animal.

Can you describe your team? Your current funding status? Your plans for the next year or two?
We have a unique combination for a food technology company. We are a truly multidisciplinary team combining food technology, printing technology, and culinary background. There are not a lot of companies around the world in which a food engineer, mechanical engineer, and a chef are working together to create something tasty. We also have advisers with vast industry experience in food and especially plant-based meat. We have raised a pre-seed round and received support from the Israeli government and the European Institute of Technology. In 2019 we plan to triple our team size, and this will happen as part of a seed round [of funding] we are currently working on.

I FELT guilt pangs in writing this column. Can one write about animal cruelty and still savor a sizzling steak? My wife and I are basically flexitarians, consuming beef fairly rarely. But that juicy sizzling steak is still very tempting.

It will be interesting to see how the combination of moral values, healthy living trends and economics combine in future to change what 50,000 years of carnivorism have built into our brains and taste buds. Jet-Eat’s 3D steaks will surely help move this process forward.

A Jet-Eat printed steak. (photo credit: Courtesy)

An innovative centre for the printing of cells, tissues, and organs have been established in the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering led by Professor Shulamit Levenberg at the Technion.

Article by Kevin Hattori, published on American Technion Society on March 28, 2019.

Professor Shulamit Levenberg, who heads the centre, said at the event that “the new centre is open to all Technion researchers and will guide the Technion’s tissue engineering department into new areas.” Prof. Levenberg is dean of the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, and the Stanley and Sylvia Shirvan Chair in Cancer and Life Sciences.

The field of tissue engineering has undergone dizzying progress in recent decades – and the Technion has filled a significant role in this revolution. Technion researchers are developing complex and precise artificial tissues that significantly improve their integration in the target organ. This involves, among other things, the creation of tissue containing a developed system of blood vessels that quickly connect to the patient’s blood vessels.

Click here for a video of the 3D printer at work.

The 3-D Bio-Printing Center for Cell and Biomaterials Printing will provide a significant boost to tissue engineering at the Technion. The centre operates an innovative printer that prints three-dimensional scaffolds and the cells that grow into tissue. The printer translates the information obtained from the patient’s CT scans into three-dimensional tissue suited to the injury area. The system has additional tools to design scaffolds or cells to make 3D tissues, Levenberg said. “You can design as you wish and seed cells in the proper orientation to allow them to better organize into the right tissue structure.”

The printer is relevant to all areas of regenerative medicine and makes possible the printing of various tissues and the integration of controlled-release systems. It has several different printing heads, enabling the simultaneous creation of printed tissue from different. It is equipped with precise motors of variable speed and accuracy of 0.001 mm, as well as a built-in camera that improves the exactitude of the printing needle.

The system is suitable for a wide range of raw materials, such as hydrogels, thermoplastic materials, and ointments, with precise temperature and radiation control (ranging from 0 to 70 degrees Celsius and 30 to 250 degrees Celsius for ultraviolet radiation). The printing can be carried out directly into the growth plate.

For more than a century, the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology has pioneered in science and technology education and delivered world-changing impact. Proudly a global university, the Technion has long leveraged boundary-crossing collaborations to advance breakthrough research and technologies. Now with a presence in three countries, the Technion will prepare the next generation of global innovators. Technion people, ideas, and inventions make immeasurable contributions to the world, innovating in fields from cancer research and sustainable energy to quantum computing and computer science to do good around the world.

The American Technion Society supports visionary education and world-changing impact through the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Based in New York City, we represent thousands of US donors, alumni and stakeholders who invest in the Technion’s growth and innovation to advance critical research and technologies that serve the State of Israel and the global good. Over more than 75 years, our nationwide supporter network has funded new Technion scholarships, research, labs, and facilities that have helped deliver world-changing contributions and extend Technion education to campuses in three countries.

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A breathalyzer designed to detect multiple cancers early is being tested in the UK.

Several illnesses are known to create signature smells from the body, including typhoid fever reported to smell like baked bread and the aroma of acetone, said to be similar to rotten apples, on the breath of diabetics. Recent research has also shown that a person’s breath could also indicate the presence of cancer.

To test this theory, Cancer Research UK have launched a two-year trial into a clinical device, called the Breath Biopsy, to find out if exhaled airborne molecules can be useful for cancer detection.

In the body’s normal metabolic processes, molecules called volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are produced. It’s thought that cancer can create a different pattern of VOCs, which researchers hope to identify using the device. “Our goal is, can we spot these subtle differences?,” Billy Boyle, co-founder and CEO at Owlstone Medical which developed the device, told CNN.

The trial, which is being run by the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre, is recruiting up to  1,500 participants, including healthy people to act as a control group.

Patients with stomach and esophageal cancers will initially be asked to try the test, before expanding to patients with prostate, kidney, bladder, liver and pancreatic cancers.

Participants will be asked to breathe into the device for 10 minutes to provide a sample, which will be analyzed by Owlstone Medical’s laboratory in Cambridge.

The idea is to identify if cancer signals are similar or different and how early any signals could be picked up. If some people go on to develop cancer, their samples will be compared to those who don’t develop the disease.

Late diagnosis

“We urgently need to develop new tools, like this breath test, which could help to detect and diagnose cancer earlier, giving patients the best chance of surviving their disease,” Professor Rebecca Fitzgerald, lead trial investigator at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre, said in a statement.

Almost half of cancers are diagnosed at a late stage in England, according to Cancer Research UK. Some of the reasons are due to patients’ fears of invasive tests, a lack of knowledge of cancer signs and symptoms, and the lack of early detection tests for certain cancers.

Early detection can be a matter of life and death added Boyle, who added that around 85% of people with lung cancer are diagnosed at a late stage, “and they will die in one or two years [because] by the time doctors diagnose it, it is too late.”There are more than 360,000 new cancer cases in the UK every year, according to Cancer Research UK. Globally, an estimated 18.1 million new cases of cancer were reported in 2018, according to the World Health Organization.

The need for trials

In 2017, researchers told CNN they had developed a device which — using nanorays to analyze breath — can identify Parkinson’s disease, various cancers, kidney failure, multiple sclerosis and Crohn’s disease with 86% accuracy.

But the experimental technology analyzing breath had a number of issues it had to address: including the problem of storing breath that is not immediately analyzed.

Boyle agreed that it is hard to “capture, store, and transport” breath, but added that the Breath Biopsy device has been developed to solve those issues. He said the device captures chemicals using a cartridge, which “acts like a sponge,” and it is then transported to a lab where it is analyzed.

If the trial turns into a success, both Boyle and Cancer Research hope the breath biopsies will be used in doctors’ practices to figure out whether patients should be referred for further diagnostic tests.

“Through this clinical trial we hope to find signatures in breath needed to detect cancers earlier — it’s the crucial next step in developing this technology,” Fitzgerald said in a statement.

Today’s widespread interest in breath analysis stems from the relatively recent discovery — within the past 20 years or so — that nitric oxide, a common pollutant, works as a signaling molecule in the cardiovascular system, Terence Risby, professor emeritus at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, told CNN in 2017. The three scientists who made the discovery won a Nobel Prize for their efforts in 1998.

The theory behind the technology is that each of us has a unique chemical “fingerprint.” Each disease also has a particular chemical signature, which can be detected on our breath.

CNN’s Susan Scutti contributed to this report.

Article published on CNN, January 3, 2019

 

 

The Olympic Committee of Israel and Technion have established a joint research center to advance Olympic Sports in Israel to be headed by Prof. Alon Wolf, Technion Faculty of Mechanical Engineering

The Israeli Olympic Sports Research Center aims to encourage studies that will enhance Olympic sports in Israel in line with US and European models.

Yigal Carmi, Chairman of the Olympic Committee of Israel said, “The (joint) establishment of the center will position Israel in an advantageous position over our competitors in world sports with regards to scientific knowledge and technology. The fields of biomechanics, motion analysis, and technological development are areas of application that will now receive special attention so the performance of our athletes can be improved. The Olympic Committee of Israel welcomes and acknowledges this strategic cooperation with Technion, which involves the fusion of brilliant scientific minds for the benefit of Israeli Olympic sports. We are certain that this will push our sports performance forward.”

Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie welcomed the establishment of the new research center and said, “The cooperation between the Olympic Committee of Israel and the Technion is exceptional and very promising. This link between Technion scientists and leading Israeli athletes will upgrade human performance and ensure future achievements.”

Yigal Carmi, Chairman of the Olympic Committee of Israel (on the left) and Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie

The joint research activity has already begun. The center’s first research goal is related to windsurfing. Gur Steinberg, who coaches the Israeli windsurfing team, and Yair Talmon, Scientific and Technical Coordinator of the competitive sports unit, targeted as their first goal to research surfer/ surfboard compatibility in order to provide the athlete with best performance ability.

Steinberg explained that a certain surfboard model can have various types of fins and this can make a difference in the athlete’s performance. This difference requires each surfer to examine and test the selected fin over time, but this takes much effort and sometimes even causes the fins to break.

Steinberg and Talmon’s initiative led to a Technion study named, ‘The Mechanical Signature of Olympic Surfboard Fins,’ which makes it possible to differentiate accurately among the various fins and adapt them optimally to the surfer. The research was conducted at Technion’s Material Mechanics Center Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, headed by Prof. Daniel Rittel, and with the scientific support of Prof. Nitai Drimer and Prof. Alon Wolf who is also the Head of the Laboratory for Bio-Robotics and Biomechanics. Prof Wolf’s research encompasses many areas, including robots used for surgery, rehabilitation and rescue and recovery missions; the study of the mechanics of the body; and the development of technologies to improve the motor function of healthy and sick people.

 

Yael Arad, first Israeli Olympic medalist, (on the right) and Prof. Alon Wolf

“Very often we see that a fraction of a second or a few centimeters determine whether a competitor will win a gold medal. This kind of advantage is the result of scientific understanding and its implementation in training and equipment. We believe that if we implement the knowledge and capabilities that have made Israel the Start-Up Nation that it is today, into Olympic sports, we will be able to advance the achievements of our Olympic athletes and help them become role models whose achievements will infiltrate into Israel’s sports culture,” Prof. Wolf said.

Yigal Carmi, Chairman of the Olympic Committee of Israel, Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie

The Olympic Committee in Israel is an umbrella organization for Israeli sports, one that brings together all the Olympic branches and represents Israel in the International Olympic Committee. Its main function is to ensure the optimal preparation of the athletes in Israel’s delegations to the Olympic Games and other competitions.

The new agreement was signed by the Olympic Committee in Israel, the Technion and the Technion Institute for Research and Development. The strategic agreement for the establishment of the new Israeli Olympic Sports Research Center was initiated following a seminar held at the Technion for Olympic sports coaches and in recognition of the need for extensive and in-depth research on various aspects of sports.

On behalf of the Olympic Committee of Israel, were: Chairman, Yigal Carmi; Director-General, Gili Lustig; Committee Board Member and Sports Committee Chairman, Yael Arad; Scientific Director and physiologist, Muli Epstein and European Championship silver medalist, Yoav Omer.

Technion representatives included President, Prof. Peretz Lavie; Technion Vice President for Research, Prof. Wayne D. Kaplan; Technion Vice President for External Relations and Resource Development, Prof. Boaz Golany; Dean of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering Prof. Yoram Halevi and Prof. Alon Wolf.

 

Original article posted on The Technion’s website.

Half-paralysed British fundraiser Claire Lomas made an honorary fellow by Israel’s leading university after completing London Marathon using its bionic innovation.

Article by Jenny Frazer, published on Jewish News – Times of Israel on December 31, 2018.

 

The British charity fundraiser, Claire Lomas, has been made an honorary Fellow by Israel’s Technion as a result of her pioneering use of the ReWalk body suit.

Ms Lomas, a former equestrian event rider, had a riding accident in 2007 which left her with severe spinal injuries.

In 2012 she became the first UK user of the ReWalk suit, completing the London Marathon in 17 days wearing the device. It was invented by a Technion graduate, Dr Amit Goffer, and was processed through the university’s Technion incubator for further development before it was used in clinical trials.

It is a bionic walking assistance system, which uses powered leg attachments to enable partially paralysed users to stand and walk upright. Dr Goffer invented the device because he himself had become quadriplegic after a life-changing accident, and although he was not able to use the ReWalk himself it became a world-wide success in helping paraplegic cases.

Each year Technion awards six honorary fellowships to international public figures who have made outstanding contributions in the field of science and technology.

Ms Lomas, who lives in Leicestershire, was nominated by Alan Aziz, now chief executive of Technion UK, who took her to Israel to meet the developers of the ReWalk in 2014.

She told Jewish News: “I am absolutely delighted to be awarded with an honorary degree by the Technion in Israel. It will be 12 years since my life-changing accident that left me half-paralysed. The ReWalk suit, which was developed at the Technion, has been a huge part in my fundraising and rehabilitation — and I have lots more more plans for the future. I am very grateful for the use of such pioneering technology and was proud to be the UK’s first ReWalk user.”

Nascent industry aims to reduce environmental impact of beef production.

Article written by Damian Carrington, published in The Guardian on 14 December 2018.

The first steak grown from cells in the lab and not requiring the slaughter of a cow has been produced in Israel.

The meat is not the finished article: the prototype costs $50 for a small strip, and the taste needs perfecting, according to its makers. But it is the first meat grown outside an animal that has a muscle-like texture similar to conventional meat.

It marks a significant step forward for a nascent industry that aims to provide people with real meat without the huge environmental impact and welfare problems of intensive livestock production. Other companies are producing beef, chicken, duck and pork cells in the lab, but for unstructured items such as burgers and nuggets.

No lab-based meat products are on sale to the public yet, though a US company, Just, has said its chicken nuggets will soon be in a few restaurants.

The lab-grown steak is at least three to four years away from commercial sale, according to Didier Toubia, the co-founder and chief executive of Aleph Farms.

The steak was produced using a mixture of cell types grown on a scaffold in a special medium, and Toubia said a series of challenges lay ahead to get the steak to market, including taste.

“It’s close and it tastes good, but we have a bit more work to make sure the taste is 100% similar to conventional meat,” he said. “But when you cook it, you really can smell the same smell of meat cooking.”

He said the $50 cost was “not insane” for a prototype. The first lab-grown beefburger, in 2013, cost €250,000. Toubia said the cost would come down as the production process was moved from the lab to a scalable commercial facility.

Another challenge is to increase the thickness of the steak, currently about 5mm. Here, the company is working with Prof Shulamit Levenberg, an expert in tissue engineering, at the Technion, Israel’s Institute of Technology.

Toubia’s team have already created a growth medium that is animal-free. The current standard for cell culture is foetal bovine serum, derived from the blood of cow foetuses, but it needs optimising. A few cells are needed to start the cell culture, and these are extracted from a living animal.

Plant-based alternatives to meat, such as the Impossible and Beyond burgers, have proliferated as people try to reduce the amount of meat they eat. But Toubia said: “Today, over 90% of consumers do eat meat and we think the percentage of vegetarians will not grow significantly despite many launches of plant-based products.

“If you want to have a real impact on the environment, we have to make sure we solve the issue of production, and we grow meat in a more efficient, sustainable way, with no animal welfare issues and no antibiotics.”

A series of recent scientific studies have found that huge reductions in meat-eating are essential in order to cut greenhouse gas emissions and avoid dangerous climate change. One found that avoiding meat and dairy products was the single biggest way to reduce an individual’s environmental impacton the planet, from slowing the annihilation of wildlife to healing dead zones in the oceans.

Lab-grown beef is very likely to have a much smaller environmental footprint than intensively reared beef. But Marco Springmann, at the University of Oxford, said: “Although the technologies are evolving, there is no indication that lab-grown meat is significantly better for the environment and health than existing alternatives to beef. The latest reviews have put the emissions of lab-grown meat at several times that of chicken and far above any plant-based alternative, in particular due to the large energy inputs needed during production.”

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800 High School Students participated in the annual Tech Women event at Technion

 

Tech Women encourages outstanding female students to continue their academic studies in science & engineering

 

[L-R] Rosalyn August, Donor of the GEM Initiative, Prof. Marcelle Machluf, Dean of the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering

 

From Kiryat Shmona to Beer Sheva, Ashdod, and the Golan Heights, over 800 outstanding female high school students from all over Israel attended the Tech Women 2018 event (21^st November 2018), hosted by Technion to encourage outstanding female pupils to opt for science and engineering in their academic careers. This 4^th annual event was made possible through the generosity of the Rosalyn August GEM Initiative.

In honor of the event, Rosalyn August arrived at Technion with her eldest granddaughter, Lauren. Rosalyn was born in a small town in Virginia, USA. The daughter of immigrant parents who opened a small jewelry shop which in time turned into a prosperous business. As a young woman growing up during the ’60s, Rosalyn felt a dissonance between what she wanted to become and what society at large, and her own family, in particular, felt suitable for her.

Rosalyn shared with the students that her acquaintance with Technion began a decade ago.  She felt an instant bond with the quiet, underplayed vibe of the place. “There are many fields worthy of a donation, yet I chose Technion,” Rosalyn said. “Even though I don’t know much about technology, it is clear to me that technology is our future and it is our duty to help integrate women into this field. Trust yourselves, find what you love and love what you do.”

All of the students who were invited to participate in the event study mathematics and other science and technology related subjects, at the highest level of accreditation. During the event, they met with female researchers, faculty, and graduate students. They visited the laboratories and heard about the various fields of research and study.

 

Rosalyn August [center] with Dr Adi Hanuka and PhD graduate Sara Nagosa

 

When Technion was opened in 1924, female students comprised 6% of the student population, a ratio of 1 to 17. Gradually, and especially during the past decade, the number of female students at Technion has grown considerably, and today they account for 40% of the student population.

The students attended lectures and visited the labs of 10 engineering and science faculties:  Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Biotechnology and Food Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Physics, Mathematics, the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry and the William Davidson Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management.

In her opening remarks, Prof. Marcelle Machluf, Dean of the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering said, “I have always had to prove myself and being the only woman in the room drives me even further in doing so. Women are the future and I encourage each and every one of you to come and study at the Technion. You all have talent and the ability to succeed, with or without affirmative action.”

Dr. Efrat Sabach who completed her doctoral thesis at Technion’s Faculty of Physics, said,  “When I said that I wanted to study physics I was told that I would be the only girl among many boys but that didn’t scare me, I always asked questions and I was always given a legitimacy for these questions.”

With regards to her thesis, under the guidance of Prof. Noam Soker, Dr. Sabach said, “I am an astrophysicist who studies processes in space and even though I am the only woman in my research team I have never felt unequal to the others.”

 

Students attending the Tech Women 2018 event

 

Sara Nagosa, a Ph.D. student at the Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine said that she chose Technion because she wanted to study at the best academic institute. “At first I was scared, but then I understood that if I don’t try I will never know if I am capable and that is how I made it to today, the final year of my doctoral thesis. Technion gave me more than knowledge, it provided me with determination, perseverance, and tools for life.”

When you think of electrical engineers you probably do not have me in mind, but here I am, a woman with a doctoral degree, at the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering, said Dr. Adi Hanuka.

Dr. Hanuka told the students about the two projects which she has been leading over the past years: the first, a miniature particle accelerator intended for use in X-ray and radiation equipment and the second, an Eyelid Motion Monitor (EMM) for diagnosing various diseases.

During my doctoral thesis, I traveled to the USA to continue my studies at Stanford University. The people in my research team were surprised that I was female, and someone even pointed out that girls are not supposed to study electrical engineering but rather psychology or economics. This leads me to say that it is not enough to strengthen only the girls and relay to them how capable they are, but also to ‘educate’ boys in a way that will make them see that girls do not fall short with regards to talent and ability.”

Article originally published on Technion.ac.il