Prof. Ido Kaminer and Prof. Yehonadav Bekenstein of the Technion have been awarded ERC Proof of Concept (PoC) grants by the European Research Council. The grants are expected to lead to a major leap forward in low-radiation medical imaging and in the precise mapping of biological tissues.

Two young researchers from the Technion have won the prestigious ERC PoC grants from the European Research Council (ERC). Proof of Concept grants are feasibility grants designed to promote the transition from academic research to application and commercialization, including the establishment of a startup company, and are awarded only to researchers who have previously received ERC grants. Grant amount: €150,000 each.

The two recipients are Prof. Ido Kaminer from the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Prof. Yehonadav Bekenstein from the Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering. Both joined the Technion faculty in the same year, 2018, and in 2025 inaugurated a joint interfaculty laboratory: the Quantum Microscopy Lab. This innovative lab is equipped with state-of-the-art microscopes capable of detecting quantum phenomena that cannot be studied by other means. The laboratory, which also includes Dr. Michael Krüger from the Faculty of Physics, was established following the Technion’s success in a call issued by the National Authority for Technological Innovation, with support from the Helen Diller Quantum Center at the Technion.

Prof. Yehonadav Bekenstein, a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, joined the Technion faculty after a Rothschild postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley. He is considered a leading scientist in materials discovery, specializing in light-emitting nanomaterials and perovskites  the technology at the heart of the new sensor that earned him the grant. His scientific work has been recognized with a series of prestigious awards, including the Krill Prize for Excellence in Scientific Research and the Goldberg Prize from the Technion.

The grant Prof. Bekenstein received will be used to advance MagicLayer a sensor for a new generation of medical imaging with minimal radiation exposure. The scientifc idea of the developed technology is based on nanocrystals and ultrafast quantum light emission.

3.המעבדה למיקרוסקופיה קוונטית בטכניון. מימין לשמאל : מנהל המעבדה ד"ר קובי כהן, פרופ' עדו קמינר , ד"ר מיכאל קרוגר ופרופ' יהונדב בקנשטיין.
The Quantum Microscopy Laboratory at the Technion. From left to right: Prof. Yehonadav Bekenstein, Dr. Michael Krüger, Prof. Ido Kaminer, and laboratory director Dr. Kobi Cohen

Sensors used in medical imaging are currently limited by their response speed. This relative slowness leads to the loss of valuable information and forces physicians to increase patients’ exposure to radiation. Standard crystals used in industry have reached the limits of their classical physical capabilities and struggle to deliver the field’s “holy grail,” which is a time resolution of 10 picoseconds. This is where the new sensor comes in; it is based on arrays of nanocrystals developed at the Technion. The light emitted from these arrays is correlated and responds significantly faster than existing technologies. The technology is relevant not only to medicine but also to improving electron microscopes and to real-time monitoring of radioactive gases in nuclear facilities. The research team behind the winning proposal includes Dr. Georgy Dosovitskiy, Dr. Rotem Strassberg, and Shai Levy.

Prof. Ido Kaminer, who completed all of his degrees at the Erna and Andrew Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering, returned as a faculty member after a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT. He is a world-renowned scientist in photonics, electron microscopy, light–matter interactions, quantum information processing, and mathematical discoveries using artificial intelligence. His scientific work has earned him numerous honors, including the Stanisław Lem Prize, the Schmidt Science Polymath Award, the Blavatnik Award, the Krill Prize, and election to the Israeli Young Academy.

His new grant will be used to develop Stork – an innovative module that improves the performance of transmission electron microscopes (TEM). These instruments are widely adopted for biological applications as well as semiconductor metrology and inspection. However, their capabilities across both fields are highly limited owing to low contrast, which hinders resolution and throughput. The Stork technology makes it possible to introduce light directly onto the studied specimen, while also efficiently collecting the light emitted from it, thereby enhancing the TEM imaging capabilities dramatically. This paradigm shift in TEM technology will provide unprecedented information for imaging biological tissues and atomic-scale defects in electronic devices. The research team behind the winning proposal includes Dr. Tal Fishman, Dr. Michael Yannai, and Dr. Raphael Dahan, as well as students Marta Rozhenko and Rotem Elimelech.

Researchers at the Technion Faculty of Biology have discovered that a mechanism responsible for breaking down toxic proteins, and known to be involved in the development of Alzheimer’s disease, may actually spread these proteins to neighboring cells, thereby promoting the progression of the disease in the brain

A research group led by Professor Michael Glickman, dean of the Technion’s Faculty of Biology, has uncovered a key mechanism in the development of Alzheimer’s. The mechanism in question identifies toxic proteins and disposes of them. In most cases, harmful proteins are degraded inside the cell. However, the researchers found that in certain situations, the very system meant to eliminate these proteins simply transfers them outside the cell. This discovery may explain how a disease that begins randomly in individual neurons can spread to large regions of the brain.

The study, published in PNAS, was led by Prof. Glickman and postdoctoral researcher Dr. Ajay Wagh. In their article, they describe how brain cells deal with UBB+1, a defective and toxic variant of the protein ubiquitin.

The ubiquitin system is essential for breaking down damaged and dangerous proteins. Ubiquitin helps the body eliminate such proteins. The problem arises when ubiquitin mutates into UBB+1. Instead of protecting the cell, UBB+1 harms it, forming protein aggregates associated with the development of Alzheimer’s disease. In brain cells, this damage is particularly severe because neurons do not divide or regenerate – once a neuron dies, it cannot be replaced. One of the “gatekeepers” that prevents UBB+1 from poisoning brain cells is the protein p62, which is involved in the cellular self-cleaning process known as autophagy. Acting as a smart receptor, p62 recognizes UBB+1 and encloses it in a vesicle that prevents it from causing harm.

Next, one of two things happens: p62 either directs the vesicle to the lysosome, which is the cell’s recycling centre, or secretes it out of the cell into the intercellular brain fluid. The Technion researchers show that the second option may endanger brain tissue. Once the vesicle is expelled into the brain’s extracellular fluid, fragments of the toxic UBB+1 protein may leak into neighboring neurons, thereby accelerating the spread of Alzheimer’s pathology.

According to Prof. Glickman, “We all want someone to take out the trash, but in this case, the cells are dumping their trash on their neighbors. Although this solves an acute problem for the individual cell, it may cause long-term damage to the entire tissue. We believe that uncovering this mechanism will enable, first, early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease based on analyses of cerebrospinal and other body fluids, and second, the development of precise, personalized treatments.”

The study was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) and the European Research Council (ERC).

Prof. Reinhard Genzel, who won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way Galaxy, met with students at the Technion and planted a tree on the campus’ “Nobel Laureates Avenue”

Prof. Reinhard Genzel, Nobel Prize laureate for 2020, recently visited the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. During his visit, Prof. Genzel met with the incoming Dean of the Faculty of Physics, Prof. Eric Akkermans, delivered a lecture in the Faculty, met with graduate students, and then planted a tree on the Technion’s “Nobel Laureates Avenue,” where more than twenty trees have been planted by Nobel Prize laureates.

This was not Prof. Genzel’s first visit to the Technion. In 2014, the Technion awarded him the Harvey Prize in Science and Technology for proving the existence of a black hole at the center of our galaxy (i.e., the Milky Way Galaxy). The Harvey Prize is the most prestigious award granted by the Technion, and over the years, it has become known as a “Nobel predictor,” since more than 30% of its recipients have gone on to win the Nobel Prize. This was the case with Prof. Genzel, who received the Nobel Prize six years after winning the Harvey Prize. Since then, Prof. Genzel has visited the Technion several times.

Born in Germany in 1952, Prof. Genzel is the director of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany. Until the age of 15, he believed he would become an archaeologist. “In the end, I arrived at a similar field,” he told Technion students, “after all, both archaeology and astrophysics deal with the study of the past.” He was also interested in sports and was even selected for Germany’s Olympic team in javelin throwing. A severe elbow injury cut short this promising athletic career and dashed his dream of participating in the Munich Olympics. Nevertheless, he said that “Sports gave me excellent tools for life, especially the understanding that you must work hard and know how to get up after failures.”

2.נשיא הטכניון פרופ' אורי סיון (מימין) עם פרופ' גנצל
Prof. Genzel with Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan

Before the lecture in the Faculty of Physics, Prof. Hagai Perets spoke in glowing terms about Prof. Genzel. “In my view, his greatness as a person is no less than his greatness as a scientist,” said Prof. Perets. “As a doctoral student, I remember how accessible he was to students, how much he enjoyed meeting them and helping them. His support for Israel over many decades, and especially since the events of October 7, attests to his exceptional character.”

“My visits here, and my friendships with colleagues at the Technion and in Israel in general, are a great privilege,” said Prof. Genzel. “I see many curious students here in the audience, and I promise them that the Technion is an excellent place for high-level learning.”

“Black holes were part of Einstein’s general theory of relativity,” said Prof. Genzel. “According to Newton’s classical physics, if a photon (a particle of light) passes near a mass, it will not be affected by it and will not change its path. According to Einstein, by contrast, the photon will be influenced by the mass and will deviate from its trajectory; and if the mass is particularly large, the deviation will be especially large. In such a case, regions form in space from which photons cannot escape. These are black holes.”

3.פרופ' גנצל מרצה בפקולטה לפיזיקה בטכניון
Prof. Genzel

Since the publication of the general theory of relativity in 1915, significant breakthroughs have been made in its theoretical development, but experimental research has had to contend with numerous technological challenges – and this is where Prof. Genzel’s main contribution lies. Using the technologies he developed, Prof. Genzel succeeded in proving the existence of a black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy and determined that its mass is four million times that of the Sun.

One of the technological challenges on the road to discovery was the optical challenge, since the radiation reaching the large telescopes on Earth passes through currents and turbulence in the atmosphere that distort the resulting image. The solution developed by Prof. Genzel and his colleagues combined infrared imaging, innovative optical technologies, and adaptive optics – a field that began developing in the 1980s and made it possible to correct the optical disturbances created by the atmosphere. Adaptive optics is based, among other things, on creating “virtual stars” using laser radiation and observing them telescopically; based on the data obtained from these observations, and the gap between them and the true properties of the “star,” it is possible to create a correction mechanism that neutralizes atmospheric distortions and provides a more accurate and sharper image of real objects in space.

“Prof. Genzel is a leading observational astrophysicist who has excelled in developing groundbreaking instrumentation,” explained Dr. Shmuel Bialy from the Technion Faculty of Physics, who organized the visit. “The success that led him to the Nobel Prize was based on instruments whose development he led. The most recent of these, GRAVITY, was launched in 2016 as part of the VLT (Very Large Telescope) in Chile. The instrument combines the signals from four telescopes, each with a diameter of 8.2 meters, and produces an image with exceptional resolution, equivalent to observations made with a gigantic telescope with a mirror diameter of 130 meters. This technology makes it possible to measure the positions of objects with an accuracy of up to 10 micro-arcseconds – like measuring, in a telescopic observation from Tel Aviv, the exact position of a grain of sand lying on a bench in New York.”

4.פרופ' גנצל בפגישתו עם הסטודנטים
Prof. Genzel with the students

The technological advances led by Prof. Genzel enabled him and his partners to create pioneering observation systems and unprecedented discoveries. In October 2002, they published in Nature the findings they had collected over a decade and their central conclusion: at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, about 26,000 light-years from us, there is an object smaller than the size of the solar system but with a mass four million times that of the Sun. This discovery led to the awarding of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics to three scientists: Prof. Genzel and Prof. Andrea Ghez for the discovery of a “supermassive compact object at the center of the galaxy,” and Prof. Roger Penrose of Oxford for showing that “black holes are a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity.”

Prof. Genzel shared his scientific journey with the students. “The motivation to continue experimental research, with all its challenges, came to me from the many successes along the way. The Nobel Prize was never my motivation – and Prof. Charles Townes, Nobel laureate in Physics for 1964, made it clear to me early in my career that there are no Nobel Prizes in astrophysics. Later, when I received the Crafoord Prize in 2012 from the Royal Swedish Academy – the same academy that awards the Nobel Prize – they told me at the dinner after the ceremony that ‘you have no chance of winning a Nobel Prize – unless you present a truly earth-shaking discovery.’”

In the past decade, things have changed, and four Nobel Prizes in Physics have been awarded to astrophysics. One of them went to Prof. Genzel, who told the students that, “Even after the Prize, I continue to do science because that’s what I love. It’s not that nothing changes – the attention you receive following the award is hard to describe. And it doesn’t affect you only positively – suddenly, the media follows every word you say and looks for ways to create sensational headlines from your remarks. That requires great caution.”

4.פרופ' גנצל בפגישתו עם הסטודנטים
Prof. Genzel with the students

Photo credit: Sharon Tzur, Technion Spokesperson’s Office

Five companies across the hardware-software stack position Israel among the world’s most dynamic quantum hubs.

Israel’s quantum computing sector is experiencing a breakout year. In 2025 alone, five Israeli quantum companies have raised almost $500 million, an influx of capital that places the country among the most active and diversified quantum hubs in the world. The companies – Quantum Art, Classiq, QuamCore, Qedma, and Quantum Machines – span nearly every layer of the quantum stack, from hardware and scaling architectures to control systems and error-correction software.

Quantum Art: A Hardware Bet With an Aggressive Roadmap

The most recent deal came on Wednesday, when Quantum Art announced a $100 million Series A, bringing its total funding to $124 million. The round was led by Bedford Ridge Capital with participation from Battery Ventures, Destra Investments, Lumir Growth Partners, Disruptive AI, Harel Insurance, and others, alongside continued investment from Amiti Ventures, StageOne Ventures, Vertex Ventures, Entrée Capital, and the Weizmann Institute of Science.

Founded as a spin-off from Prof. Roee Ozeri’s group at the Weizmann Institute, the company is led by Dr. Tal David (CEO), Dr. Amit Ben Kish (CTO), and Ozeri (CSO). It specializes in trapped-ion quantum computing, a field long known for precision but criticized for scalability. Quantum Art argues it has solved key challenges through proprietary techniques in multi-qubit gates, modular architectures, and robust error correction.

In June, the company unveiled an unusually detailed roadmap targeting Quantum Advantage by 2027 and a one-million-qubit system by 2033. The timeline includes a 50-qubit system next year; a 1,000-qubit “Perspective” line in 2027; an ultra-dense 12,000-40,000 qubit “Landscape” platform; and ultimately a fault-tolerant “Mosaic” architecture.

Classiq: Software as the Missing Layer

Quantum computer
Quantum computer. (Courtesy)

On the software side, Classiq raised an estimated $30 million in November in an up-round that included AMD Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, IonQ, and major financial institutions such as Mirae Asset Capital, Bank Leumi’s LeumiTech77, and Quantum Eretz. The company has now raised more than $200 million to date, following a $110 million Series C completed just six months earlier and an additional $10 million investment from SoftBank.

מוסף חג העצמאות 25.4.23 מייסדי החברה מימין ניר מינרבי אמיר נוה ד׳׳ר יהודה נוה חברת Classiq
Classiq founders. (Photo: Eyal Toueg)

Classiq builds an operating system and development environment that translates high-level goals into quantum circuits, allowing organizations to build applications without deep knowledge of quantum physics. Its partnerships with NVIDIA, Microsoft, and AWS, and customers including BMW Group, Comcast, Rolls-Royce, Citi, Toshiba, and SoftBank, suggest that enterprises increasingly see value in preparing for quantum computing years before the hardware matures.

Founded in 2020 by CEO Nir Minerbi, CPO Amir Naveh, and CTO Dr. Yehuda Naveh, the company employs 100 people, three-quarters of whom are based in Israel.

QuamCore: The Race to a Million Qubits

In August, QuamCore raised $26 million in a Series A that brought its total funding to $35 million, including a $4 million grant from the Israel Innovation Authority. The round was led by Sentinel Global, with participation from Arkin Capital and returning investors Viola Ventures, Earth & Beyond Ventures, Surround Ventures, Rhodium, and Qbeat.

מייסדי QuamCore
QuamCore founders. (Photo: QuamCore)

QuamCore claims to have developed a fully designed and simulated architecture for scaling superconducting quantum systems to one million qubits in a single cryostat, far beyond the ~5,000-qubit per-module limit achieved by Google and IBM. If validated, the approach would fundamentally rewrite assumptions about the physical limits of superconducting systems.

The company is led by CEO Alon Cohen, formerly of Mobileye’s EyeC Radar Group, and CTO Prof. Shay Hacohen-Gourgy and Chief Scientist Prof. Serge Rosenblum, both leading figures in superconducting quantum research at the Technion and the Weizmann Institute. Their combined academic work has appeared in Science, Nature, and other top journals.

Qedma: Fixing Quantum Computing’s Biggest Problem

Error rates remain the defining barrier to practical quantum computing, and Israeli startup Qedma has positioned itself squarely at this chokepoint. The company raised $26 million in July in a Series A led by Glilot+ with participation from IBM, Korean Investment Partners, and others.

QEDMA עובדי חברת קדמה
Qedma team. (Photo: Eyal Toueg)

Qedma develops software that identifies and learns the noise profile of each quantum device and adjusts algorithms to suppress and mitigate errors. The company claims its methods can enable quantum calculations up to 1,000 times larger than today’s hardware alone can support. That would dramatically reduce the overhead required for quantum error correction, which typically consumes up to 1,000 physical qubits for every single logical qubit.

The company traces its origins to a 2020 conversation between Prof. Netanel Lindner and Dr. Asif Sinay, later joined by Prof. Dorit Aharonov, a pioneer of the fault-tolerance theorem that proved large-scale quantum computing was theoretically possible. Their weekly discussions evolved into a startup aiming to build the “operating layer” that quantum machines currently lack.

Quantum Machines: Control Systems Become Strategic

The year’s largest raise came in February, when Quantum Machines closed a $170 million Series C, bringing its total investment to $280 million and valuing the company at an estimated $700 million. PSG Equity led the round with participation from Red Dot Capital Partners, Intel Capital, TLV Partners, Battery Ventures, and entrepreneur Avigdor Willenz.

מייסדי Quantum Machines קוואנטום משינס ד”ר יונתן כהן CTO , ד”ר איתמר סיון, מנכ"ל וד”ר ניסים אופק מהנדס ראשי
Quantum Machines team. (Photo: Ilya Melnikov)

Quantum Machines builds hybrid control systems used across nearly every type of quantum hardware. Its technology has seen broad global adoption, including through a strategic collaboration with NVIDIA on DGX Quantum, which integrates real-time quantum control with high-speed classical computing.

The company was founded in 2018 by Dr. Itamar Sivan (CEO), Dr. Yonatan Cohen (CTO), and Dr. Nissim Ofek (VP R&D), all alumni of the Weizmann Institute’s Submicron Center.

Prof. Gal Shmuel of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Technion—Israel Institute of Technology has developed an innovative approach that enables precise control of heat conduction in ways that do not occur naturally.

The breakthrough could lead to new applications in energy harvesting and in protecting heat-sensitive devices. The research, conducted in collaboration with Prof. John R. Willis of the University of Cambridge, was published in Physical Review Letters.

The researchers’ approach is based on designing materials with asymmetric and nonuniform microstructures, inspired by similar methods previously developed for controlling light and sound—but never applied before to heat conduction. The challenge in adapting these ideas stems from the fact that light and sound propagate as waves, while heat spreads through a spontaneous process known as diffusion.

The solution developed by Profs. Willis and Shmuel relies on a unique homogenization method that accurately maps the average heat flow in composite materials. Using this method, the two propose thermal metamaterials (engineered materials with thermal properties not found in nature) in which the average heat flow is asymmetric: the heat flow pattern depends on the direction from which it enters the material.

This engineered asymmetry makes it possible to “tame heat,” guiding it in desired directions. According to Prof. Shmuel, “This capability is essential for various technological applications. It expands our toolkit for managing heat and offers new solutions for protecting temperature-sensitive electronics and efficiently routing heat in thermal energy harvesting systems.”

At 15, when a neurological condition took Tobias Weinberg’s ability to speak, aspects of his personality became more difficult to express.

Typing to communicate, he struggled to keep up in conversations, especially to make the jokes or sarcastic comments that had been his norm. And his first text-to-voice device was monotone, with Mexican or Spanish accents but not his native Argentinian.

“The monotone voices, the timing of interjections and conveying my personality through this new way of communication was definitely frustrating,” wrote Weinberg, now a doctoral student and Siegel PiTech Fellow at Cornell Tech. As part of the Matter of Tech Lab, he is exploring how artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance the technologies that he and more than two million Americans with speech disabilities use to communicate.

Through a standing partnership between Cornell Tech and YAI—a nonprofit that supports more than 20,000 people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in New York, New Jersey and California—Weinberg spent a year working with a group of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) users who live in group homes in Tarrytown, New York to better understand needs and behaviors and to improve prototypes.

The resulting research and lines of inquiry, which incorporate Weinberg’s own experience, could transform assistive technology design.

The field is taking notice. Weinberg’s first paper—”Why so serious?”—won best paper honorable mention and jury best demo awards at the prestigious Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). Those are highly coveted commendations according to his advisor, Thijs Roumen, assistant professor at Cornell Tech.

“Tobi really is a trailblazer,” said Roumen, who has a joint appointment in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science. “He’s been developing technology while also using the technology, which changes the way it’s shaped and the way we reflect on it. In the process, he’s hitting on a richness that is going to make the future of AAC technology much much better, and he’s also inspiring a whole generation of researchers.”

Judith Bailey-Hung, supervisor of the YAI Center for Innovation and Engagement, said he’s also inspiring the AAC users involved in his studies.

“For the people we support, it was very powerful to see that this person’s working on their Ph.D., they’re interested in improving how you communicate, and they want to involve you in that process,” said Bailey-Hung, who has supervised three Cornell Tech interns as part of a larger partnership. “It gives them a voice and a way to advocate for themselves.”

Humor, backchanneling and AI villains

Heather Klippel, who has cerebral palsy and lives in a YAI group home, has similar frustrations with AAC devices to Weinberg’s—she gets overwhelmed when too many people are speaking and struggles to convey tone and humor.

“Those things are very hard to express as a nonverbal person,” Klippel wrote.

In the first of two studies, Weinberg interviewed Klippel and six others and designed an interface that could help users write jokes or humorous comments they can then interject in real time.

“There is an inherent tradeoff between agency and efficiency when designing AI tools that support communication,” Weinberg wrote. “While an AI auto-complete will enable making humorous comments faster, there is a risk that it diminishes the user’s sense of agency by making jokes for users instead of with the user.”

Weinberg designed interfaces that explored this tradeoff—in one, users selected keywords they wanted the AI to use in crafting a joke; in another, they were able to edit and modify AI-written jokes; and in another, they could simply choose a joke that the AI provided.

“What we found is in time-pressured scenarios, like making a humorous comment, AAC users were willing to give up some agency to deliver the comment faster,” Weinberg wrote. “This challenged the existing research that said AAC users care most about maximum agency, which is true in general but not always.”

Student draws on experience to transform assistive communication
At 15, Weinberg lost the ability to speak and found it harder to communicate certain aspects of his personality, like humor. Now, he’s working to make assistive communication technologies more expressive. Credit: Alexandra Bayer/Cornell University

That led Weinberg and his collaborators to think about the purpose of humor. Often, he said, the joke itself is less important than participation and engagement in the conversation. The team started to consider other types of “backchanneling,” or ways we communicate engagement, alongside the primary conversation, like saying “uh-huh” or nodding.

In a second study with the AAC users—resulting in a paper, “One does not simply ‘Mm-hmm'” presented at the ASSETS’ Conference on Computers and Accessibility in October—Weinberg and his team found that the participants formed their own micro-culture of bachkchanneling, such as tapping their armrests to indicate agreement or raising eyebrows. The interviews and observations led him and his team to recommend a design approach that amplifies and incorporates what users are already doing, rather than imposing mainstream behaviours.

“There can be this tendency to just want to build an app and solve a problem,” Roumen said. “But by asking ourselves these fundamental questions and driving the curiosity that Tobi brings as a researcher to really understand what’s happening, we can now start to understand how we can be really impactful in this space.”

Those fundamental questions are often also ethical ones. For a third paper currently in submission, Weinberg developed an app that collected everything he’d typed over a period of seven months and used the text to train a large language model that could help facilitate and speed his communication.

While the resulting “AI-twin” captured a verbal identity, incorporating characteristic phrases and Argentinian slang, it failed in practice to suggest or provide that language in appropriate contexts and risked exposing private information at the wrong times. Weinberg also felt the app dampened control over his own self-presentation.

“AI is a very wonderful but dangerous technology, especially if it mediates everything we say as AAC users,” Weinberg wrote. “So, my work serves both sides, providing design guidelines for future developers and also playing the villain, warning of the socio-technical implications of AI in the lives of AAC users like myself.”

Building community, inspiring others

Weinberg disassembled his first computer at age 2 and at age 7 told his parents he wanted to invent things that would help people. But when he arrived at Cornell Tech for a summer internship in 2022, he didn’t know what a Ph.D. was and did not see it in his future.

Wendy Ju, associate professor at Cornell Tech, encouraged Weinberg to apply for the doctoral program after completing his bachelor’s in mechanical engineering at the Technion—Israel Institute of Technology. In 2023, he joined Roumen’s lab, intending to work on digital fabrication. But Roumen encouraged Weinberg, as he does all students, to find a project he really cared about.

“I told Thijs, there was this other thing I really care about, but neither of us has any experience with it,” Weinberg wrote. “He was on board to give it a try, and here we are.”

Weinberg and Roumen teamed with Stephanie Valencia at the University of Maryland, who specializes in AI and agency in AAC use. After overcoming steep learning curves—embarking on what Roumen calls “a journey” for them both—Weinberg is now inspiring others.

“It amazes me that somebody with an AAC device was going for his doctorate,” Klippel wrote. “I know that people with disabilities can achieve such high degrees in education, but it was quite an honor to actually meet somebody like this.”

The studies have also built community. Klippel said she became closer to another AAC user during the course of the studies and continued the friendship.

For Weinberg, seeing that connection form was one of the most rewarding parts of the research. “It didn’t feel like a workshop, it felt like a couple of friends hanging out and sharing anecdotes about our AAC hurdles and use, not only for me but also for them,” he wrote.

The other reward was seeing the participants use the systems to express themselves in new ways. Weinberg often replays a video from the humor study, of an AAC user working with the platform to write a joke and bursting into laughter at what she had created.

“That made all the hard work worth it,” he wrote.

Looking ahead, Weinberg hopes to reframe AAC—not as a workaround for missing speech but as a medium of expression. “This vision represents a step toward the broader goal of enabling AAC users to fully participate in spoken communication and to flourish in society,” he wrote.

A pioneering technology for coating plants with a thin wax layer is expected to dramatically reduce the agricultural use of pesticides

According to UN reports, plant diseases destroy about one-third of the world’s agricultural yield, causing an estimated annual economic loss exceeding CAD $95 billion. Findings recently published in Small present SafeWax – a new technology developed at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. Funded by an EU EIC Pathfinder grant, SafeWax could reduce crop disease impact and lower pesticide use by more than 50%. Coordinated by Prof. Boaz Pokroy from the Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering, the SafeWax project collaborated with another Technion laboratory led by Prof. Ester Segal from the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, along with four international partner organizations – BASF (Germany), the University of Bologna (Italy), the French Wine and Vine Institute (France), and Eurofins (France).

Traditional methods of combating plant diseases rely heavily on chemical pesticides, which seep into the soil and endanger both the environment and human health. Moreover, many pesticides have lost their effectiveness due to bacterial resistance. The SafeWax technology offers a promising, sustainable alternative to pesticide use. Through a simple spray application, it creates a thin, uniform, biodegradable layer on the plant surface of superhydrophobic (water-repellent) material that passively prevents fungal spores from germinating, thereby inhibiting disease development. The inspiration for this innovative technology is the cuticle – a natural waxy layer that covers plants such as lotus leaves and broccoli, enabling them to self-clean by repelling bacteria and other contaminants.

In the experiments described in the article published in Small, first authored by Dr. Iryna Polishchuk from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, the new technology was tested on tomatoes, peppers, grapevines, and bamboo plants, and proved both feasible and effective in protecting these plants without affecting essential physiological processes such as photosynthesis. Furthermore, the unique coating filters intense UV radiation that damages crops, shielding the plant from heat and UV exposure while slowing dehydration. Moreover, the coating is transparent to visible light necessary for photosynthesis.  The coating material is based on biodegradable fatty acids that can be derived from food waste, thus also helping to reduce global food waste.

The researchers estimate that the SafeWax technology could reduce the use of chemical pesticides by at least 50%. According to Prof. Pokroy, “This is an ecological, efficient, and multifunctional alternative for crop protection, especially in view of challenges that climate change poses to modern agriculture. Beyond providing passive defense against diseases, it enhances the environmental resilience of plants and reduces the ecological footprint of crop cultivation.”

The laboratory, operating at the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, was upgraded with the support of Apple, Intel, and NVIDIA

The Technion inaugurated the renovated VLSI Laboratory at the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The field of VLSI (Very Large-Scale Integration) – the creation of complex, multi-component integrated circuits—lies at the core of the development of advanced chips.

The laboratory was upgraded through an investment of approximately $1 million from Apple, Intel, and NVIDIA. The upgrade included renovation of the facilities, the addition of personnel, and the renewal of equipment. The inauguration ceremony was held in the presence of Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan, Faculty Dean Prof. Shahar Kvatinsky, the VLSI Laboratory’s Academic Director Prof. Ran Ginosar, and senior executives from the three companies – all Technion alumni: Tamir Azarzar, Senior Vice President of Chip Design at NVIDIA; Karin Eibschitz Segal, CEO of Intel Israel and Corporate Vice President at Intel; and Rony Friedman, GM of Apple Israel.

Over the years, the Viterbi Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering has trained the scientific and technological leadership that has made a decisive contribution to establishing Israel’s status as a “Startup Nation” and as a global center for chip development. The faculty’s researchers and alumni have played a leading role in the evolution of the semiconductor industry and continue to do so in the development of chips and computing architectures for the era of artificial intelligence. The combination of deep foundational knowledge, mathematical excellence, creativity, and engineering innovation gives the faculty’s graduates – who integrate into and lead Israel’s high-tech industry – a sustained competitive advantage at the forefront of global technology.

The VLSI Laboratory focuses on the development of advanced computing architectures and large-scale integrated systems, including in-memory computing, hardware acceleration of artificial intelligence, hardware security, and highly energy-efficient systems. The companies’ investment in the laboratory reflects a deep commitment to training the next generation of VLSI engineers in Israel. This partnership between academia and industry is designed to provide students with practical knowledge at the cutting edge of technology and to ensure a strong pipeline of engineers who will lead chip development in the years ahead.

3.סטודנטים במעבדה החדשה
Students in the new laboratory

The inauguration of the laboratory marks a strategic step in deepening the connection between advanced academic research, education, and Israeli and global industry, and in strengthening the Technion’s position as a leading force in shaping the fields of microelectronics and computational hardware in Israel and worldwide.

Technion President Prof. Uri Sivan at the event

Israeli research team develops brick made from recycled salt; this could be solution to dependence on polluting cement

Over the past decade, there has been a growing understanding that we need to rethink not just how we build the structures of the future, but from what materials we build them. The main reason is that the construction industry is one of the world’s leading sources of environmental pollution. Cement production—the most widely used building material—alone accounts for roughly 8% of global carbon emissions.

In response, science and technology are advancing to develop alternative, sustainable building materials with lower carbon footprints, often based on recycled resources while preserving strength and quality. As part of a joint initiative by researchers and students from the Hebrew University and the Technion, a new innovative building material has recently been developed with exceptional environmental potential—made entirely from recycled salt. Could we one day build entire structures from salt?

אתר בנייה
Construction site
(Photo: Shutterstock)

Working with what we have
Today, construction is a major environmental burden. According to data from the UK Green Building Council, the industry uses more than 400 million tons of raw materials annually, many of which are tied to ecosystem damage, pollution and high energy consumption. A 2017 United Nations Environment Program study also found that construction accounts for 23% of global air pollution, uses about 36% of all energy produced, and contributes roughly 39% of carbon dioxide emissions.

Construction clearly demands vast energy. In Israel, apart from natural gas, traditional natural resources like oil are scarce. One notable resource is the Dead Sea, one of the world’s largest sources of potassium and salt, where mineral extraction has become a distinctive national asset.

Each year in the southern Dead Sea, millions of tons of excess salt are deposited as a byproduct of decades of industrial production. Over time, enormous quantities have accumulated in evaporation ponds with no practical use. This buildup presents an environmental and logistical challenge, raising the lakebed and shifting shorelines. For years, this surplus salt was viewed as worthless waste.

Since 2015, Professor Danny Mendler of the Chemistry Department at Hebrew University has led research aimed at turning the accumulating Dead Sea salt from waste into a usable raw material. The guiding principle is simple but far‑reaching: treat the salt not as a nuisance to remove, but as a resource that can be refined and used.

Salt deposits on the edges of the Dead Sea
Salt deposits on the edges of the Dead Sea(Photo: Shutterstock)

Mendler developed a chemical process that compresses and processes the salt into solid bricks with strength nearly equivalent to concrete. “About 5% additional materials are added to the salt, compressed under high pressure, and you get strong bricks that can be shaped in various forms and sizes,” he explains. “If we can replace even a small portion of cement with salt, the environmental impact would be dramatic. It could significantly reduce the industry’s carbon emissions.”

From lab to architectural studio

This year saw the first collaboration between Mendler and a group of Technion architecture students. As part of the Studio 1:1 program in the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, under Michal Bleicher and Dan Price, the students applied architectural thinking to the technology. They translated the new material into a practical building system—defining the brick’s dimensions, understanding its strength requirements and examining its potential for use in the Israeli construction industry.

“What’s interesting here is the connection between chemistry and architecture,” Bleicher says. “The students designed an example structure called the ‘Mediterranean Igloo’ and studied the qualities of salt—translucency, mass, strength. From there we developed the structure and derived the brick itself in proportions of 8 cm x 8 cm x 24 cm. That 1:3 ratio allows flexibility in compositions and building forms.”

The studio, which annually explores alternative materials and develops real‑scale projects, served as an experimental platform linking research, design, and implementation. Based on Mendler’s patent, the students developed the first building brick made entirely from Dead Sea salt, suited to contemporary construction needs and opening the door to reusing a material once deemed worthless. The final product is uniform, producible in series, and adaptable to various shapes, thicknesses and textures. Beyond recycling an existing resource, this material is less polluting and more sustainable compared with conventional building materials.

A direct flight to the Biennale

The initiative was presented in October at Change: The Shape of Transformation, part of the Venice Architecture Biennale—one of the most important global architecture events. The project was selected from 55 academic institutions, with only 10 groups invited to present—a distinction that places the local academic work alongside leading worldwide programs.

Will we soon see salt bricks on construction sites in Israel?
Will we soon see salt bricks on construction sites in Israel?(Photo: Shutterstock)

At the Biennale, the students showcased their research, development and material model. Bleicher says their participation represents international recognition of the importance of material research and the potential to turn this waste into a future building resource.
“We took bricks with us to Venice and presented the project, and it created incredible buzz,” she says. “This material is both natural and engineered. Our intention, together with Professor Mendler next semester, is to build a real structure in Israel using these bricks. We believe in this technology; it can solve a significant environmental problem and turn waste into something valuable. There is a real breakthrough here for the future of construction and the environment.”
The challenges ahead
Despite progress in sustainable building solutions, researchers emphasize that improvements are not keeping pace with accelerated construction and rising energy demands. The implications are clear: without new, more environmentally friendly materials and building processes, construction will remain a key driver of the climate crisis.
So, will we soon see salt bricks on Israeli construction sites? The answer for now is complex. The path from the Technion lab to widespread industry use is long—especially in construction, an industry known for conservatism.
“Introducing a new material into construction takes time and resources,” Bleicher notes. “Every material must undergo prolonged standardization, strength and durability testing—and that takes many years and significant investment. Moreover, there is a lack of regulation and legislative support that complicates the development of new solutions.”
Yet the salt that has accumulated for decades as a problematic surplus may yet become a cornerstone of cleaner, more thoughtful architecture—one that views crisis not just as a threat, but as an opportunity for innovation.

Technion researchers find protein-disposal system in brain cells may actually spread toxic proteins linked to Alzheimer’s; instead of destroying them, cells sometimes expel them to neighbouring tissues, potentially accelerating disease progression in brain

In a surprising discovery, researchers at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology have found that a cellular system tasked with disposing of toxic proteins—crucial in preventing Alzheimer’s disease—may actually be helping the disease spread across the brain.

The study, led by Professor Michael Glickman, dean of the Technion’s Faculty of Biology, and postdoctoral researcher Dr. Ajay Wagh, reveals that, instead of breaking down defective proteins inside the cell, neurons may be pushing this “trash” into surrounding brain tissue. Their findings were published recently in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

At the heart of the discovery is a mutated version of the protein ubiquitin, called UBB+1. While healthy ubiquitin helps cells identify and eliminate damaged proteins, UBB+1 disrupts this process and leads to toxic buildup, which is one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease.

Normally, a cellular protein called p62 helps neutralise this threat by packaging UBB+1 into protective vesicles, keeping it from damaging the cell. The vesicles can then take one of two paths: they’re either sent to the cell’s internal recycling centre (the lysosome), or they’re expelled into the space between cells.

It’s the second option that poses a danger. According to the Technion team, once UBB+1 is released into the brain’s extracellular fluid, fragments of the toxic protein can leak out and be absorbed by neighbouring neurons—potentially accelerating the spread of Alzheimer’s throughout the brain.

“We all want someone to take out the trash,” Glickman said. “But in this case, the cells are dumping their trash on their neighbors. Although this solves an acute problem for the individual cell, it may cause long-term damage to the entire tissue.”

The discovery could pave the way for earlier diagnoses of Alzheimer’s, possibly through testing cerebrospinal fluid for markers of UBB+1. It may also open the door to personalised treatments targeting the faulty disposal pathway.

The research was funded by the Israel Science Foundation and the European Research Council.