An Insider’s Briefing: Shaping Technion’s Human Health and Cancer Research
Featuring Technion President Uri Sivan and Distinguished Professor and Nobel Laureate Aaron Ciechanover / Moderated by Andrea Wolfe
When all is said and done, the coronavirus pandemic will bring seismic changes and new ethical questions to the world of medicine. And the Technion will be ready.
Join us to learn about the Technion’s major initiative aimed at advancing the standard of healthcare in the 21st century, and to talk about science and ethics during coronavirus times.
Technion medical breakthroughs have already saved lives around the world, thanks in large part to support from devoted Technion Guardians. Now, in an intimate conversation followed by a Q&A session, Technion President Uri Sivan will share his vision for the new Technion Human Health Initiative (THHI). Launched in August 2020, the THHI combines the expertise of research and teaching hospitals with Technion faculties and industry partners in pharma and biomedicine. This undertaking will be one of the Technion’s largest investments and is critical to the future of Israel.
Distinguished Professor Aaron Ciechanover, founder of the Rappaport Technion Integrated Cancer Center (RTICC), will update participants on the exciting results of Technion cancer projects and his own latest research. He will also discuss contemporary ethical aspects emerging from the coronavirus pandemic, and the revolution of personalized medicine.
Featured Speakers
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Professor Uri Sivan is president of the Technion, a renowned physicist, and holder of the Bertoldo Badler Chair in Physics. His wide-ranging work in nanotechnology and quantum physics has led to numerous patents and applications, including cancer diagnostics. He served as the founding director of the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute (RBNI) at the Technion, which spearheaded the development of Israel’s nanotechnology program. A former pilot in the Israeli Air Force, President Sivan worked at IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center in New York before joining the Technion in 1991.
Distinguished Professor Aaron Ciechanover is founder of the Rappaport Technion Integrated Cancer Center at the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine. Along with Distinguished Technion Professor Avram Hershko and the late Dr. Irwin Rose of the University of California at Irvine, he received the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for characterizing ubiquitination, the process by which the body destroys proteins that are no longer useful. That research has led to the development of anti-cancer drugs including Velcade® and an entire family of immunomodulatory drugs. Prof. Ciechanover earned his medical degree (MD) from Hadassah and the Hebrew University Medical School in 1974. He then has served as a military combat physician in the Israel Defense Forces, received his Ph.D. at the Technion (1981), and following a post-doctoral training at MIT, he joined the Faculty of Medicine in 1984.
Technion Guardian Andrea Wolfe will serve as moderator. Andi is a second-generation Technion supporter, and a member of the ATS National Board of Directors and Technion International Board of Governors. Her parents, the late D. Dan and Betty Kahn, named the Mechanical Engineering Building and generously contributed to the areas of robotics and security. Andi and her husband, Larry, have continued this legacy by partnering with the D. Dan and Betty Kahn Foundation in such initiatives as the University of Michigan-Israel Partnership for Research and Education, facilitating collaboration between researchers at the U of M, the Technion, and the Weizmann Institute of Science.