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.
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Multiple myeloma is the second most common cancer that impacts blood cells. It primarily affects people in their mid-60s or older. Over time, patients become resistant to current treatment drugs that are initially effective. That’s why UB-Therapeutics, a company founded and run by Technion alumni and faculty, is working on a new drug. Existing drugs target proteasomes, which maintain cellular function. The new drug aims to inhibit proteasome activity in cancer cells by binding to ubiquitin, a small regulatory protein found in most tissues. “By leveraging the cell’s own natural processes, we aim to develop a more selective and effective…
ArtiFascia®, a patch-like dural repair graft, recently obtained approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The device – developed by Nurami Medical, a startup in Haifa co-founded by Technion alumna Nora Nseir Manassa – will revolutionize neurosurgery. Dura mater is the outermost layer of the membrane that surrounds the brain and spinal cord, protecting the central nervous system from physical damage. The resorbable device, made of electrospun nanofibers, promotes tissue regeneration of the dura mater while also preventing cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leaks and bacterial penetration sometimes caused by suture holes during surgery. “The necessity to cover the brain with…
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,…
“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…
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…
Imagine juicy burgers sizzling on the grill, made from beef cells without environmental impact or harm to animals. Or cookies that release nutritious protein as they rise in the oven. Teaming up with the nonprofit think tank the Good Food Institute in Israel, the Technion is establishing the Sustainable Protein Research Center (SPRC) to conduct research to develop and help commercialize forward-looking food technologies like these. Professor Yoav Livney, who helped Technion students create the prizewinning “Algalafel,” a falafel enriched with the microalgae spirulina, is leading the endeavor. At a time when the world is battling the dual challenges of…
Gal Frenkel built a wooden deck and pool in the backyard of his home in central Israel the summer after he had sold luxury wedding/bar mitzvah event planner Sky Productions (opening price for an event: $1 million). Frenkel hosted a few parties there, and after the summer he didn’t think much about his pool and deck. When he went out to look at it the following spring, he was shocked. “The whole area looked old and ruined and faded. I was so disappointed,” he tells ISRAEL21c. “I called the guy who installed the deck and said, ‘Nadav, you really messed it up.’…
Common pedagogical wisdom states that the younger a child begins learning a new language, the easier it is for them to acquire. And adhering to that philosophy, Israeli startup Curiosity Robotics has created a friendly, chatty little robot to teach English as a foreign language to preschoolers. Meet Aico, the charming, smiling artificial intelligence teaching tool that is the product of three years of research at Tel Aviv University’s Curiosity Labs. Aico is programmed to use a teaching method devised by British-Israeli educator Helen Doron, which advocates for children starting to learn a second language as early as three months of age. Curiosity Robotics is a…
An Israeli startup has developed a wearable device that can predict the likelihood of an imminent stroke through changes in the carotid artery’s blood flow, potentially helping early intervention and preventing disablity. Strokes are most commonly caused by a clot blocking the essential supply of blood to the brain, and according to the World Health Organization are the second leading cause of death and the leading cause of disability across the globe. Over 100 million people have experienced a stroke worldwide, with one in four adults experiencing one in their lifetime. And for 50 percent of them, that means some form of…
When serial medical device inventor Dvir Keren became interested in developing a minimally invasive way to fill in bald areas caused by androgenetic alopecia — common in both men and women — he did not realize he’d be establishing a femtech company. But that’s what Hairstetics became, for the simple reason that 85 percent of women with androgenetic alopecia are not benefiting from natural hair transplantation procedures for what is called “male-pattern baldness” in men. “At the beginning, he was thinking about males,” says Hairstetics CEO Oren Ne’eman. “But when recruitment for clinical studies started, a lot of women came.” Keren learned that androgenetic alopecia in…
The Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation has announced that it has approved $8 million in funding for nine new projects between U.S. and Israeli companies. Alongside grants from BIRD, the projects will access private-sector funding and boost the total investment in all projects to $23 million. As well as conditional grants of up to $1.5 million, the BIRD Foundation assists by working with companies to identify potential strategic partners and facilitate introductions. The submitted projects are reviewed by evaluators appointed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) of the U.S. Department of Commerce and the…
The weight-loss market is, pun perhaps intended, huge. Recent years have seen the advancement of dieting drugs, but many of these include painful injections and a whole slew of side effects. An Israeli startup, meanwhile, enables people interested in losing a moderate amount of weight to take a pill that leaves them feeling full without drugs. “The idea was to develop a product that can be swallowed through the mouth and which opens up in the stomach to apply pressure on the stomach wall and so produce a feeling of satiety,” Epitomee CEO Dr. Dan Hashimshony tells ISRAEL21c. “That’s something that’s easy…