Haifa-based Pluri entered into an exclusive collaboration with Ukrainian umbilical cord blood bank Hemafund last month to stockpile and distribute its placental expanded cell therapy, PLX-R18, as a potential treatment for life-threatening radiation sickness. Under the terms of the collaboration agreement with Hemafund, Pluri will produce and supply an initial capacity of 12,000 doses of its PLX-R18, sufficient to treat 6,000 people. Pluri was founded in 2001 by Technion alumnus Shai Meretzki, who made use of a stem cell patent developed during his Ph.D. studies in the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine

Amid rising threat from Russia, Pluri partners with Ukrainian blood bank to stockpile remedy for deadly radiation poisoning that uses cells grown from donated placentas.

About two weeks after a Russian drone struck the cover built to contain radiation at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Israeli biotech firm Pluri, a developer of placenta-based cell technology, landed an agreement to help Ukraine develop an emergency response to life-threatening radiation sickness in case of a radiological event.

The nearly three-year war between Russia and Ukraine has underscored the ever-rising threat of nuclear fallout amid repeated shelling of a nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons.

Last month, Haifa-based Pluri (formerly Pluristem) entered into an exclusive collaboration with Ukrainian umbilical cord blood bank Hemafund to stockpile and distribute its placental expanded cell therapy, PLX-R18, as a potential treatment for life-threatening radiation sickness.

The condition, also known as hematopoietic acute radiation syndrome (H-ARS), occurs when a person is exposed to high levels of ionizing radiation, such as during a nuclear attack or accident. Destruction of the bone marrow and blood cells ensues, leading to severe anemia, infection and bleeding.

Death can occur in four to eight weeks if effective treatment is not received.

Over the past two decades, Pluri has focused on developing 3D technology to mimic how living cells communicate and interact with the body to grow and expand. The biotech firm harnesses stem cells extracted from placenta donated by healthy women who have given birth by cesarean section in hospitals around the country. The single placenta cells are cultivated in a proprietary 3D bioreactor system with a micro-environment that resembles and simulates the human body.

“Cells are the building blocks of life — everything in our world starts and ends with cells,” Pluri chief commercial officer Nimrod Bar Zvi told The Times of Israel. “These tiny cells are amazing creatures that exist in almost any aspect of our life, whether we get them from humans, animals, or plants.”

Bar Zvi explained that once placed inside bioreactors, the stem cells latch onto scaffolds and start “to communicate with each other and proliferate, similar to what happens in the human body, and they are secreting proteins as we mimic the conditions of the natural environment they need to expand.”

Using the 3D cell expansion technology method, a single placenta cell can be multiplied into billions of distinct cells, Pluri said. As a result, cells from a single placenta can treat more than 20,000 patients.

“In the end of that process, we have a vial that contains a specific amount of our placental expanded cells depending on the dosage needed for the patient,” said Bar Zvi. “Once the vial with the cells is injected into the muscle, it stimulates the human body’s own capabilities for the reactivation and regeneration of blood cells, mitigates the effects of radiation exposure and we see the recovery happening.”

Pluri says that its cell-based treatment stimulates and regenerates the production of all three types of blood cells produced in the blood marrow: white and red blood cells as well as platelets.

Under the terms of the collaboration agreement with Hemafund and subject to receiving external government and private sector funding, the veteran biotech firm will produce and supply an initial capacity of 12,000 doses of its PLX-R18, sufficient to treat 6,000 people. The doses will be stored and managed by Hemafund and delivered to medical institutions across Ukraine in case of need.

“At present, there are no other treatments for radiation poisoning that use stem cells taken from a placenta as far as we know,” said Bar Zvi. “The ability to treat acute radiation exposure with cell therapy and to scale it up for mass production is where we are unique since we can supply thousands and thousands of vials to large numbers of people.”

Pluri is publicly traded on the Nasdaq as well as the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. At the Matam Advanced Technology Park in Haifa, the biotech firm operates a cell therapy production facility, which it says has been designed to handle large-scale manufacturing of cellular therapies. It could also be mobilized for mass production to respond to global emergencies if nuclear threats escalate. The firm employs a total of 130 people.

Pluri and Hemafund said they will also seek to advance clinical trials to register the PLX-R18 therapy as a radiation countermeasure and obtain necessary regulatory approvals from Ukraine’s health ministry. The collaboration is expected to potentially generate over $100 million in value for both parties.

“Our cryostorage facilities and logistics network position us well to support the introduction of PLX-R18 as a potential vital tool for radiation emergency preparedness in Ukraine,” said Hemafund founder Yaroslav Issakov. “While we hope such treatments remain precautionary, our goal is to stand ready to distribute this potential therapy in the event of an emergency.”

Pluri uses patented technology to create cell-based pharmaceutical and food products. (Courtesy)

Pluri said that its PLX-R18 has been safely tested in both humans and animals. Results from a series of recent studies in animals of its stem cell therapy after radiation exposure demonstrated an increase in survival rates from 29% in the placebo group to 97% in the treated group.

The administration of PLX- R18 as a prophylactic measure 24 hours before radiation exposure, and again 72 hours after exposure, resulted in an increase in survival rates, from 4% in the placebo group to 74% in the treated group.

The FDA previously cleared an Investigational New Drug application for PLX-R18 for the treatment of radiation sickness and granted it Orphan Drug Designation. This means that should a nuclear event take place, Pluri could use the drug to treat victims.

Pluri’s bioreactors for the cultivation of cell-based therapy products. (Courtesy/Michael Brikman)

In July 2023, Pluri was awarded a three-year $4.2 million contract by the US National Institutes of Health to continue to develop its novel treatment for deadly radiation sickness and to collaborate with the US Department of Defense’s Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in Maryland.

As part of the contract, the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) will fund final studies required to complete the biotech firm’s application for FDA approval to market its PLX-R18 therapy.

Pluri hopes that the approval would make it eligible for purchase by the US Strategic National Stockpile — the country’s repository of critical medical supplies — as a medical countermeasure for exposure to nuclear radiation.

The Technion is the only Israeli university in the top 100 and ranks 89th worldwide

The U.S. National Academy of Inventors (NAI) has ranked the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology  first in Israel and second in Europe for the number of U.S. patents approved in  2024, with 43 patents registered last year. The Technion is the only Israeli university on this prestigious list, placing 89th globally.

Rona Samler, general manager of T3 – the Technion’s commercialisation unit, stated:

“I am extremely proud of our ranking among the world’s top 100 universities and our first-place standing in Israel for the fourth consecutive year. This recognition is a testament to the excellence of Technion researchers in scientific and engineering innovation and the institution’s strength in translating ideas into research and research into world-changing technologies. This is one of the key ways the Technion makes a lasting impact on society and the economy.”

Patent registration in the U.S. enables academic institutions to transform groundbreaking technologies into competitive global products, significantly benefiting consumers and industries worldwide.

Dr. Paul Sanberg, president of the NAI, emphasised: “By recognising this crucial step in the commercialisation process, we highlight the role of intellectual property in benefiting inventors and institutions while encouraging the development of technologies with a potentially significant societal and economic impact.”

The NAI ranking is based on data from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for 2024 and includes 100 institutions and 9,600 patents.

Israeli medical startup AISAP, which is pioneering AI-driven diagnostics, has been recognised as one of the world’s most innovative and promising companies for 2025 by Fast Company. AISAP secured fourth place globally in the healthcare category, a remarkable achievement that underscores the international recognition of its groundbreaking technology and its impact on the future of medicine. One of their products, AISAP CARDIO, is the world’s first real-time AI-powered cardiac diagnostic platform. AISAP Co-founder Ehud Raanani is a Technion alumnus.

Autonomous Flying Cowboys Manage Livestock More Efficiently: Israeli tech startup BeeFree Agro has just delivered its first fleet of “autonomous flying cowboys” to a paying customer. The robots are eyes in the sky that will transform the way the world’s beef cattle are farmed. The drones supply a live feed for 30-minute missions over a ranch and provide high-resolution pictures that show the precise GPS location of every single cow, providing an exact count. Its first system went live in January in Brazil, where it currently manages around 3 million cattle. BeeFree Agro Co-founder and COO Dvir Cohen is a Technion alumnus.

The Woman Behind the Billion-Dollar Brain Surgery Breakthrough:Technion alumna Nora Nseir, founder and co-CEO of Nurami Medical, was recently featured by CTech in an informative Q&A. Nora speaks about founding the company with her partner, Dr. Amir Bahar, their products (which include an internal gel seal that degrades within the body once a wound is healed and a suture-free adhesive that can replace damaged meningeal tissue until new tissue grows), funding rounds, and more.

Ten Israeli-founded firms were chosen for this year’s Fast Company Most Innovative Companies lists in specific categories, three of which have Technion connections. In the enterprise category, aiOla is featured for helping industry reduce paper forms via AI and using AI-powered speech recognition for tasks like vehicle safety. In the security category, Dazz was featured for using AI to help find and fix critical issues within cloud infrastructures. And Silverfort, also in the security category, was featured for protecting every login and account in an enterprise. aiOla COO Alon Peleg, Dazz Co-founder and CEO Merav Bahat, and Silverfort Co-founder and CTO Yaron Kassner are all Technion alumni.

Conversational AI pioneer aiOla is cited for “rescuing legacy industries from paper forms via AI,” using AI-powered speech recognition for tasks like vehicle safety inspections in more than 120 languages spoken in various accents.

Dazz appears in the security category “for using AI to help find and fix critical issues within cloud infrastructures.” The startup was acquired by Israeli unicorn Wiz at the end of 2024 for approximately $450 million. (Wiz itself is in the midst of acquisition by Alphabet for a record $32 billion.)

Silverfort also won a place on the security category list, for “protecting every login and account in an enterprise.” The company focuses on identity security, integrating authentication into a single, easy-to-install platform that can instantly block compromised accounts, trigger multifactor authentication, and accelerate remediation time.

Israel’s oldest university is playing an integral role in tearing down walls between academia and business, helping the so-called “Startup Nation” better compete in future-facing industries at a time of rapid technological change. 

Technion — Israel Institute of Technology was founded in 1924, 24 years before the establishment of Israel, on the idea that if a Jewish state were to come into existence, it would first need technical expertise to develop the country. 

Most of Israel’s railroads, highways and bridges were designed and built by Technion grads, along with its advanced telecom infrastructure, desalination plants and electrical grid. Chip design, aerospace engineering and optoelectronics all have a home in the university, which awards about 30 percent of all Israel’s engineering undergraduate degrees and half of its Ph.Ds. Pioneering work in micro-electronics started at the Technion, and innovations like the Iron Dome air-defense system were developed by alumni.

“The impact is really unparalleled,” said Uri Sivan, president of the Technion, during a visit to Atlanta along with startups from Drive TLV, a mobility incubator in Tel Aviv. 

But that competitive edge is at risk for all universities that keep their inventions locked in ivory towers and fail to keep up with the adapting needs of companies. 

“I believe that universities … need to reposition themselves, or in a sense they’re going to become somewhat irrelevant,” he told a group of entrepreneurs and corporate development executives during a keynote at Curiosity Lab in Peachtree Corners. 

He pointed to a fundamental shift taking place at the nexus between education and practice. This “changing interface” requires educators to be nimble and open to new modes of collaboration, said Dr. Sivan, an expert in physics and nanotechnology.

“When I studied 40 years ago there was a clear dividing line — basic research done at the university and applied research in industry; academic degree at the university, training in industry. This line is completely blurring,” Dr. Sivan said.

This started in computer science with companies like Google and Microsoft, but it’s happening today in a wider variety of fields like AI and quantum computing, where companies are often the ones driving primary research forward. 

Universities, for their part, are also working more intently on how their research can address real-world problems. The Technion spins out about 15 companies per year, and the university has learned to embrace commercialization while remaining committed to its primary role of education, Dr. Sivan said.

As spinoffs increase by a factor of three to five per year, the question has become how to keep faculty engaged while also enabling them to explore ways to capitalize on their research.  The university already allows faculty to consult one day a week for companies and take leaves of absence of up to four years. 

“Very few don’t come back,” he said.  

He pointed to the Dyson Institute in England as a new model for integrating work and study.

While it’s accredited to grant engineering degrees, students also spend much of their time working directly for the vacuum and electronics innovator. 

“Students don’t pay tuition — zero tuition. They spend half the week in the company hub, doing research … and they get a salary. So you can see that this is a disruptive event for academia.” 

One solution for the Technion has been to invite innovators on-campus to create an optimal blend of theory and practice. PTC, a Boston-based software company that helps manufacturers simulate not only the physical design of their parts but also their thermal and electronic properties. 

“They moved a body of about 100 researchers moved into our campus, and they’re completely integrated now into our academic system. So their researchers take part in teaching, they take part in mentoring students, mentoring graduate students, and they actually built some research facilities that are now available to all researchers on campus,” Dr. Sivan said. 

The approach echoes that of Georgia Tech, which has been a magnet for corporate innovation centers in Midtown’s Tech Square. Dr. Sivan had meetings at the university during his Atlanta trip, soaking in the atmosphere of a growing tech hub. 

“There is an entrepreneurial spirit in the air. That’s where we would like to be,” he said. 

Technion has also created a new academic position that serves as a reciprocal of the common practice of professors acting as consultants for industry.

With Research Associates From Industry, business leaders with knowhow in critical sectors spend a day or two per week in the university setting, working with students directly and integrating into research projects. 

In a university with 600 faculty, some 60 associates have already joined, including Intel chip designers that are providing greater depth to existing courses. Meanwhile, they gain access to students and cutting-edge knowledge. 

“They’re exposed to research which is more blue-sky than what they do in their companies,” Dr. Sivan said. 

Capitalizing on Constraints

Israel is not new to seeding the links between researchers and entrepreneurs. The Israel Innovation Authority has long funded such initiatives, and in 1977, the country worked with the U.S. to establish the BIRD Foundation to underwrite joint innovation between U.S. and Israeli companies. The effort has led to 16 joint projects involving Georgia firms as recently as 2021. 

Dr. Sivan told Global Atlanta in an interview facilitated by the American Technion Society that Israel reached a “tipping point” in its innovation ecosystem years ago, in part because it has had to operate with constraints on funding and a small internal market that has force companies to look outward for growth and investment.

“You need necessity and you need constraints: If you have unlimited sums of money, and you don’t really have particular necessities, you don’t have to be creative,” he said. “Being a small country under constant stress from the outside, with limited resources and so on, I believe, drives people to innovation.”

Dr. Sivan said he would like to see the Technion deepen its institutional collaboration with Georgia Tech and added that he explored the idea during a meeting with his counterpart there, President Angel Cabrera. 

His speech during the Drive TLV event was followed by a panel on 2035: Shaping the Next Decade of Mobility with representatives from Honda Innovations, Wheels LLC and 19Y Advisors. Atlanta-based Cox Automotive and Novelis are partners in Drive TLV. 

Pitches followed from the latest (10th) batch of Drive TLV Fast Lane accelerator startups:

  • Arbell Energy Ltd. 
  • Deontic
  • dataspan.ai
  • Monogoto 
  • NUGEN 
  • Whilx Technologies

Unlike artificial language models, which process long texts as a whole, the human brain creates a “summary” while reading, helping it understand what comes next.

In recent years, large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Bard have revolutionized AI-driven text processing, enabling machines to generate text, translate languages, and analyze sentiment. These models are inspired by the human brain, but key differences remain.

A new Technion-Israel Institute of Technology study, published in Nature Communications, explores these differences by examining how the brain processes spoken texts. The research, led by Prof. Roi Reichart and Dr. Refael Tikochinski from the Faculty of Data and Decision Sciences. It was conducted as part of Dr. Tikochinski’s Ph.D., co-supervised by Prof. Reichart at Technion and Prof. Uri Hasson at Princeton University.

The study analyzed fMRI brain scans of 219 participants while they listened to stories. Researchers compared the brain’s activity to predictions made by existing LLMs. They found AI models accurately predicted brain activity for short texts (a few dozen words). However, for longer texts, AI models failed to predict brain activity accurately.

The reason? While both the human brain and LLMs process short texts in parallel (analyzing all words at once), the brain switches strategies for longer texts. Since the brain cannot process all words simultaneously, it stores a contextual summary—a kind of “knowledge reservoir”—which it uses to interpret upcoming words.

In contrast, AI models process all previously heard text at once, so they do not require this summarization mechanism. This fundamental difference explains why AI struggles to predict human brain activity when listening to long texts.

To test their theory, the researchers developed an improved AI model that mimics the brain’s summarization process. Instead of processing the entire text at once, the model created dynamic summaries and used them to interpret future text. This significantly improved AI predictions of brain activity, supporting the idea that the human brain is constantly summarizing past information to make sense of new input.

This ability allows us to process vast amounts of information over time, whether in a lecture, a book, or a podcast. Further analysis mapped brain regions involved in both short-term and long-term text processing, highlighting the brain areas responsible for context accumulation, which enables us to understand ongoing narratives.

A new all-cash deal came together after talks fizzled last summer

Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport is of course a graduate of the Technion, and after studying computer science on one of the special programmes that the Technion offers, he went on to set up his first company which he then sold to Microsoft. Assaf has appeared on the cover of Forbes magazine and was selected by Time magazine as one of the world’s leaders shaping the future. This is Israel’s biggest ever exit.

Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL -3.44%) agreed to acquire cybersecurity startup Wiz for $32 billion, in a massive bid to bolster its cloud business that has struggled to keep up with rivals.

The all-cash deal would be Google’s largest ever and also the biggest deal struck so far in 2025. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday evening that the talks between the two companies were advanced and an agreement could be reached soon.

Alphabet had been close to a roughly $23 billion deal for Wiz last summer, the Journal previously reported.

The talks fell apart, however, as Wiz and some of its investors had concerns about the time it would take for a deal to clear regulatory hurdles, among other issues.

Bankers and CEOs came into the year hoping for big deals, but market volatility and Washington turmoil have sapped confidence. Google moving to strike its biggest deal ever, and the biggest deal of the year, would be a test of the Trump administration’s antitrust appetite and a barometer for other tech deals.

Wiz, which offers cybersecurity software for cloud computing, is based in New York with additional offices in the U.S. and Israel. The startup partners with a number of the biggest cloud companies, including Amazon.com and Microsoft as well as Google, according to its website.

The acquisition could help boost Alphabet’s efforts in cloud computing, an important and growing business but one where it has lagged behind peers.
Wiz has enhanced security features that could help Google win more customers to its cloud service in a fiercely competitive market where demand is booming partly because of generative AI companies’ need for computing power. Google said Tuesday the deal would help artificial-intelligence companies get better security and use more than one cloud service.

A Wiz acquisition would also dwarf the size of Google’s largest deal to date, its $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility that closed in 2012. Google also spent $2.1 billion on Fitbit in 2021—a deal that hit regulatory hurdles after it was announced—and $3.2 billion on Nest Labs in 2014. Other acquisitions over the years have included YouTube, DoubleClick, Looker and Waze.

Google will be testing regulators’ willingness to approve this deal at the same time it is already dealing with two antitrust lawsuits. In one case over its search business, a judge already ruled it is a monopoly and the parties are awaiting a remedies trial after the government (under former President Joe Biden) proposed forcing it to sell its Chrome browser. And in another case over Google’s ad technology business, the trial is over and they are awaiting a verdict.

Wiz’s valuation has soared since it was founded in 2020 by Chief Executive Assaf Rappaport and several colleagues, and is considered one of the fastest-growing startups of all time. It was valued at $16 billion in an employee tender offer late last year, the Journal reported.
The company is backed by prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalists including Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures and Greenoaks.

In an email to employees last July, Wiz’s Rappaport said the company would be aiming for an initial public offering. But the IPO markets have remained quiet in the past year, and Wiz had since resumed deal conversations with several parties, according to people familiar with the matter.

Wiz will become an offering of Google Cloud and will continue to work on other cloud providers run by rival tech giants, the companies said.
“Wiz has achieved so much in a relatively short period, but cybersecurity moves at warp speed and so must we,” Rappaport wrote in a blog post Tuesday. “Becoming part of Google Cloud is effectively strapping a rocket to our backs: it will accelerate our rate of innovation faster than what we could achieve as a standalone company.”

Wiz’s founders launched the company after selling their first startup, Adallom, to Microsoft in 2015 for $320 million. They worked at the tech giant for several years before leaving to start Wiz.

A Letter to the Technion Family From President Uri Sivan

Dear Technion Family,

The academic year 5784 will commence soon and it will be a different and sorrowful year. The three months that have passed since October 7 have been painful and challenging for the State of Israel and the Technion family. Dozens of our friends’ family members were murdered, and others were abducted. Many have been injured or killed in the war, and our hearts are filled with pain and worry.

Approximately 2,500 students, faculty members, and administrative staff were called up for reserve duty, and many of them are still serving. In the spirit of Technion tradition, we postponed the opening of the academic year to await their return. As the expected release is delayed, we responded to the IDF’s request and delayed the opening of the year to January 14, 2024.

The upcoming academic year marks a historic milestone for us. Exactly one hundred years have passed since the Technion opened its doors in the historical building in Hadar HaCarmel with 16 male students and one female student. Who could have then foreseen that from that humble beginning would grow a top-tier research university, graduating one hundred thousand alumni, who have shouldered the security and prosperity of the State of Israel? Who could have imagined that our researchers would be awarded Nobel Prizes, and our influence on humanity would be so significant?

We did it all in our humble and persistent way, year after year. This has been our response to all the events, wars, and acts of terror that have afflicted us before the founding of the State and afterwards. This will also be our response to the appalling terrorist acts of Hamas, intended to undermine our determination, sow fear, create conflict within Israeli society, and drag us into the moral abyss in which they operate.

Nobody can divert us from our path. We will conquer the anger and the pain and immerse ourselves in achieving our goals with the spirit of our constitution: ‘To disseminate knowledge through education and promote knowledge through pure and applied research.’ We will continue to educate for the values that have guided us through the past tumultuous one hundred years: tolerance, inclusivity, the pursuit of truth and justice, and deep social responsibility towards all people. We will continue to support the security and economy of the State of Israel, and just as importantly, we will continue to embrace the entire Israeli society.

If we needed proof of our solidarity as a committed community, we received it in the last few months in the inspiring voluntary efforts of the Technion community. Alongside the enlistment of thousands in the reserves, the student union, academic and administrative staff rallied for a vast array of activities to support those whose lives were put on hold. We hosted hundreds of families who were evacuated from the south and north on campus, supported thousands of our own recruits, and addressed the diverse needs of the security forces.

This is the finest hour of the Technion family, and now we must channel these tremendous forces also to confront the additional challenges ahead of us. We must return to the routine of studies and research as in every year, and at the same time continue to support those among us whose lives have changed forever. We all must strive to heal the rifts in Israeli society, and we must continue to assist the thousands of women and men among us who left everything behind and enlisted to defend the country. We face enormous challenges, but from my acquaintance with this remarkable institution, its resilience, and the solidarity of the Technion family, I have no doubt that we will succeed.

Finally, I would like to remind you all, that my door and the doors of the entire administration are always open, especially during these challenging times. Please, do not hesitate to reach out with any problem or suggestion.

Wishing you all success and a fruitful academic year!

Technion President Uri Sivan

Several Israeli companies have joined the government-led initiative to ease traffic congestion.

Over the next two years, Israeli drone operating companies will conduct test flights throughout the country for one week each month. (B.Y. Creative & Productions)

A network of large drones – many of which are operated by Technion alums – have taken to the skies as the country prepares its national airspace for air taxi transportation and deliveries.

The Israel National Drone Initiative (INDI) – a two-year, NIS 60 million government-led pilot project – was established in 2019 to fly passengers and heavy cargo to reduce congestion on Israel’s busy roads.

Eleven drone companies were involved in the experimental flights this week, including:

  • Cando Drones. Its fully autonomous two-seater air taxi has been developed to carry passengers up to 220kg for up to 30km. CTO Moshe Kipnis and CFO Alon Zabuski are both alumni of the Technion.
  • Airways Drones. A provider of AI-based systems for the smart management of drone fleets. Investor, Oded Agam and Advisory Board Member, Yosef Fryszer, are alumni of the Technion.
  • Robotican. A developer of ground and air-based mobile autonomous robotic systems. Chief Scientist Amir Shapiro and Business Development Director, Eli Ben-Aharon, are both alumni of the Technion.

The INDI initiative is developing a “system of aerial routes in the sky” to allow different types of drones to fly simultaneously for various purposes, such as healthcare, commerce, security and passenger transportation.

Transportation Minister, Miri Regev, said: “This is the first initiative of its kind in the world for an extensive and multidisciplinary examination of new technologies, including the transportation of cargo and, later, people. The collaborative project examines all the aspects – including regulation and legislative changes – involved in the commercial operation of drones as an additional tool to deal with congestion.”

Over the next two years, the participating companies in the INDI initiative will continue to conduct flights throughout the country in controlled airspace.

Aleph Farms, which a Technion professor co-founded, continues to break more records in this latest development

The first company to grow steaks directly from the cells of cows has now received the first halachic ruling regarding the kosher status of cultivated meat.

Chief Rabbi of Israel, David Lau, made the announcement yesterday (Wednesday, January 18th), following an examination of the production methods in the company’s laboratory and speaking with experts in the field.

Rabbi Lau noted, however, that if it is marketed as meat or is “similar to meat in taste and smell”, it should not be mixed or consumed with dairy products.

Co-founded by Technion Professor, Shulamit Levenberg, from the Biomedical Engineering Faculty at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology and backed by Leonardo DiCaprio, Aleph Farms has – to date – raised $120 million in funding. It is awaiting marketing approval for its first product – Minute Steak – before it enters the market for the first time.

Other notable animal-free produce startups linked to the Technion include SavorEat, a company that produces 3D-printed burger patties via a robot chef using ingredient cartridges, SuperMeat, which takes cell cultures from chickens and Imagindairy, which develops real milk in the lab without harming animals.

Aleph Farms hopes to launch its Minute Steak in Israel this year, followed by other countries around the world next year.

Meanwhile, Professor Levenberg is working on a host of other exciting innovations, including genetically engineering muscle tissue to cure type-2 diabetes and treating spinal cord injury patients with exosome therapy, which contains three times the amount of growth factors of stem cells, is less invasive and doesn’t rely on human donors.