The Technion’s story has been intertwined with Israel’s for more than a century, from laying the foundations for a new nation to shaping its future.
Researchers have developed a pioneering AI “matchmaker” that pairs together existing cancer drugs for use in nanomedicine. Prescribing a combination of two or more medications is already an established practice – known as combination therapy — that can prove highly effective. But a team at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa, has gone beyond simply identifying separate medications that will work well together.
Several years ago, amateur athlete Hemi Re’em was shocked to discover that his coronary arteries were 90 percent blocked despite his seemingly good health. This set him on a path to cofounding Yopi Technologies. Yopi (Your Online Personal Instructor) is a first-of-its-kind, AI-based wearable device that monitors oxygen consumption through electrolytes in the sweat. The goal is to detect heart deterioration and measure overall wellness.
The wildfires in Maui may finally be fully contained, but the environmental impact left in the wake of the the infernos will last for years to come, experts told ABC News. As the Maui community begins to heal from the wildfires that killed more than 100 people and incinerated a large portion of the island, residents will now start to grapple with the painstaking cleanup and rebuilding phase, an emotional process that could also contain health risks, the experts said. The cleanup process will need to be done “very carefully,” due to the hazards, Kristina Dahl, senior climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists,…
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) affects an estimated 10% of the world, which is just under 800 million people. According to the US-based National Kidney Foundation, 90% of people affected by the disease don’t know they have it at the early stages, allowing it to progress undetected. In some cases, CKD is caught only at “end stage,” when kidneys are failing and require either a transplant or dialysis — a grueling, weekly procedure to remove waste and excess fluid from the blood. The average survival rate of dialysis patients is five years. Curespec, based in Yehud-Monosson in Israel, claims its unique device, Nephrospec,…
A new approach that integrates a minimally invasive, painless microneedle platform may help monitor protein biomarkers in responses to a combination immunotherapy against melanoma. The platform is capable of absorbing the cell-surrounding, biomarker-containing fluid from deeper layers of the skin with an ultra-sensitive, single-molecule detection method (Simoa) that detects often rare, yet relevant biomarkers with higher sensitivity than conventional methods. The researchers provided proof-of-concept for their approach in a mouse melanoma model in which they treated cancerous lesions with a novel therapy. The therapy acts locally on tumor lesions in that it combines non-invasive focused ultrasound (FUS), which generates heat…
A unique “coworking space” for farmers in drought-stricken Rwanda will soon offer local growers a sustainable way to produce crops. Agriculture accounts for a third of landlocked Rwanda’s GDP but relies on rainfall and suffers low levels of productivity. The unique site, including its purpose-built water source and an energy network, was designed by Israeli precision irrigation pioneer Netafim and built in cooperation with the government, which provided $50 million in funding.
Private space companies like Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. and Blue Origin could provide a significant booHow Pst to the speed and frequency of space research projects, according to Moran Bercovici, a mechanical engineering professor at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. Bercovici is involved in the Fluidic Telescope Experiment (FLUTE) with NASA, which aims to revolutionize space astronomy. He feels that private space companies have a great deal to offer scientific research. “They make space more accessible to research teams around the world,” he told MarketWatch. “In the future, the private companies have all the incentives to streamline this…
“When we say agriculture, we think green and plants and land, it sounds very sexy. But the reality is that agriculture is one of the major contaminants in the world, both in terms of groundwater contamination and greenhouse gas emissions,” says Rafi Levi. “And fertilizers are the No. 1 contaminant in agriculture.” Levi is the CEO and cofounder of DOTS (Data of the Soil), an Israeli startup bent on helping farmers cut down on the use of excess fertilizers by providing them with real-time monitoring of fertilizer in the soil. This can save them a lot of money and, of course, protect…
Many medical studies record a patient’s race using only the broad categories from the U.S. Census, which may conceal racial health disparities, a new study reports. Researchers evaluated the performance of clinical risk scores for people of different races in an emergency department (ED). A clinical risk score summarizes the severity of a patient’s symptoms into a single number – the higher the score, the greater the risk of severe health outcomes. The researchers looked at broad race categories, like “Asian,” and more specific subgroups, like “Chinese” and “Indian.” The risk scores performed much better for some subgroups than others,…
Israeli researchers have unveiled a new miniature model of the human heart that they say could be a “game changer” in transforming drug testing and cardiovascular research. The model is a self-paced, multi-chambered replica of the human heart that is no larger than a grain of rice. According to the researchers, it will revolutionize the study of the heart and its functions. The team comprised researchers from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa; and Rehovot-based biotech company Tissue Dynamics Ltd. They were led by Prof. Yaakov Nahmias, an award-winning biomedical engineer at The Hebrew University.
An Israeli company that develops medical treatments using helpful bacteria to fight disease is expanding the clinical trial for its drug to battle cancer. The biopharma startup recently opened a second site for its ongoing clinical trial at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva, near Tel Aviv. The first site is located at Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa, northern Israel. Biomica identifies and selects microbes to treat specific diseases that will enhance how the body’s immune system responds. Biomica is a biopharmaceutical startup working to create microbiome-based therapeutics to treat immune-mediated and infectious diseases. The company’s Co-founder and CSO Yehuda Ringel…
With the ongoing climate crisis and the speed with which it is hitting us, more and more researchers and entrepreneurs are looking for solutions outside of the box. Experts warn that these ideas are very dangerous, that the governments do not fully know how to deal with climate engineering, and that billionaires are looking at this as yet another frontier from which they can profit. In a series of interviews, Calcalist spoke to various climate experts about innovative solutions to tackle the crisis. “We won’t succeed in reducing greenhouse gas emissions to zero,” says Professor Yoram Rosen, head of the…