Technology to improve the tracking of immune system cells is the winning project at the annual projects conference of the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering at the Technion This year, 38 projects were presented at the conference and prizes were awarded to the outstanding posters
The Faculty of Biomedical Engineering at the Technion recently held the annual project conference, where the final theses of the students studying in the fourth year at the faculty were presented. The winning projects earned the students prizes sponsored by Dr. Doron and Liat Adler. First place, and a prize of NIS 1,500, was won by the students Sivan Barash and Shahar Zigron, who developed Technology to improve the tracking of cells in the immune system - Macrophage cells involved in identifying bacteria and destroying them. The technology developed by the two makes it possible to map these cells in an MRI. Such mapping has significant implications for the understanding of many diseases, including heart diseases, and their treatment. The research was done in the laboratory of Dr. Catherine Vandorna from the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering.
The event was attended by 90 students who presented 38 posters to the eyes of 32 judges - faculty members and 13 faculty graduates from the biomedical industry. The students worked on the projects during the last year, which was quite challenging due to the corona epidemic, accompanied by representatives of companies from the biomedical industry and with the support of clinical experts from the Rambam and Ichilov medical centers. The project course is led by Prof. Nathaniel Korin and the practitioner is Merav Blankovitz.
Thinking outside the box
Dean of the faculty Prof. Haim Azhari He said that the presented works express the saying "no one is wise like someone with experience" because in the development of the projects the students were required to go through all the steps necessary to realize their ideas - solutions to specific medical problems. "They were required to embrace their imagination and think outside the box in order to come up with a new and workable solution, and then integrate the knowledge they gained during their studies. This knowledge encompasses all aspects of biomedical engineering and combines a medical background with engineering skills and scientific knowledge. This whole package had to be implemented to provide a real-world solution, and we believe that this practical experience exposed and prepared our graduates for the biomedical industry and a wide range of research in the field."
Second place was won by Amit Frizt and Rotem Shapira al An artificial intelligence based system for birth management Under the direction of Prof. Yael Yaniv, Dr. Joachim Bahar and Noam Kider. In third place - Oral Shahadi and Or Levy Al A model for the simulation of drug penetration into solid tumors Led by Mittal Avrashemi, Dr. Hagit Sasson-Bawer, Dr. Arbel Artzi-Schnirman and Dr. Yossi Shamai. In fourth place - Daniel Cherniavski and Yonatan Balisha al A new concept for the remote detection of cardiac arrhythmias Under the direction of Moran Davidi, Dr. Joachim Bahar and Prof. Yael Yaniv. In fifth place - Mor Ventura and Omari Magen al Semi-automatic classification of corona disease based on lung ultrasound Under the direction of Ehud Tal, Noy Mark, Dr. Lior Lofo and Prof. Dan Adam. A project by Esti Gitman and Carmel Geshri, directed by Nikolai Tiran, Dr. Michal Zivan and Dr. Tzipi Horowitz-Kraus, was selected for the "crowd favorite" category: Evidence for neuronal plasticity based on imaging fMRI. The entrepreneurship project award was won by Zeinat Awad and Assaf Licht for the project LAdjusted, continuous and non-invasive monitoring of the hormone levels of women undergoing IVF, under the direction of Prof. Hossam Haik.
