The European Union recently recognized Dr. Netanel Korin of the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering and Professor Emanuel Milman of the Faculty of Mathematics with prestigious ERC Consolidator Grants totaling about $4.5 million. The Technion professors were selected from an initial pool of 2,453 researchers, then narrowed to 301 winners. Allocated by Horizon 2020, the biggest EU research and innovation program ever, the grants honored scientists with a focus on pioneering research, including multidisciplinary projects.

Dr. Korin won for developing technology to treat brain aneurysms, weakened areas in a blood vessel of the brain that can rupture and cause brain damage or death. In the past, aneurysms were treated by opening the skull. Today, surgeons use a less invasive method involving stents or coils that block the aneurysm, but the procedure itself can cause the aneurysm to rupture.

In his grant-winning research proposal, VasoSurfer, Dr. Korin offers a new strategy that uses liquid with high surface tension to “surf” in blood vessels. The method first isolates the blood vessel’s problematic area to protect it without stopping blood flow. Then, the aneurysm is filled with a biological adhesive that prevents it from rupturing, and eventually leads to complete healing.

Dr. Korin earned his bachelor’s degree from Ben Gurion University of the Negev, his master’s and Ph.D. at the Technion, and conducted postdoctoral research at Harvard University. He joined the Technion faculty in 2015, where his Cardiovascular NanoMed Engineering lab integrates the principles of fluid dynamics, tissue biomechanics, vascular physiology, and biomaterials science into its multidisciplinary research.

Professor Milman was recognized for his research into isoperimetric inequalities — a field aimed at understanding the interaction between volume and surface area. The isoperimetric inequality proves that the area of any region in the plane bounded by a curve of a fixed length can never exceed the area of a circle whose boundary has that length. And if some region has the same length and area as some circle, then it must be the circle. Isoperimetric inequalities play a role in differential geometry, probability theory, and more.

Prof. Milman received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Tel-Aviv University, his Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute of Science, and conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Toronto and at Princeton before joining the Technion faculty as a senior lecturer in 2010.