PRESIDENT’S REPORT 2015
| Newly Created UNESCO Chair at Technion for Sustainable Engineering Date: 13/06/2012 |
 |
| Prof. Mark Talesnick of the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering is the incumbent of the newly established UNESCO Chair in Sustainable Engineering in Developing Communities.
The specific objectives of this Chair are to develop undergraduate and graduate teaching programs in engineering for developing communities, in cooperation with partners; carry out research on engineering for developing communities and disseminate results widely; design, test and apply, jointly with partners, ground-level projects to test and further refine the concept of sustainable engineering; and, provide short-term theoretical and practical training, as well as facilitate visiting professorships. Talesnick reports that the University of Colorado and Kathmandu Universities are also involved and that he will be travelling to Ghana, Ethiopia and Batswana soon to enlist their collaboration as well. Talesnick also spearheads Engineers Without Borders – Technion (EWB). Currently, 739 UNESCO Chairs and 70 UNITWIN Networks in 134 countries provide an innovative modality for international academic cooperation. They act as think-tanks and bridge- builders between research and policy-making, and between academia, civil society, local communities and the productive sector. |
Tag Archives: science
Technion at 100.
You might also like: Together: the story of the century.
Speech for the Opening of the 2012 Board of Governors’ Annual Meeting, Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie.
[Transcript]
One hundred years ago we started from scratch: no foundations, no buildings, no funding for salaries or equipment, no faculty members, almost no engineers, and no reason to believe that this grandiose vision would ever materialize. Stone by stone, the historical building of the Technion started to arise. A well was dug on site – a source of water to be used not only by the Technion’s laboratories and visitors, but by the local community of Haifa as well.
The Technion’s slow and torturous development took place during the era of the two world wars and the establishment of the State of Israel. During the decades since – and in the face of so many wars – the Technion stuck to its vision: striving for peace through scientific activities and collaborations, as well as caring for the advancement, health and security of the State of Israel and the whole of humanity.
What is the Technion today, one hundred years later? Those who look for the answer to this question would have to go around campus wearing a magic gown that would make them invisible, allowing them to enter classrooms, labs, offices and even hospital rooms, without disturbing the usual course of events.
A good starting point would be the heart of campus, where you could join young students sitting on the grass and enjoying a sunny afternoon, holding laptops and talking, drinking coffee, and discussing the latest lecture on computer science, physics or mathematics. If you listen closely, you will hear a mixture of languages – Hebrew (as well as Hebrew with a Russian accent!), Arabic, English (as well as English with a Canadian accent!) – and see couples bent over their computers, speaking Chinese as though they were the only people in the world.
Sitting on the benches at the edges of the lawn, you could see a Frisbee flying from one end of the lawn to another in a skillful Californian style.
Later, you are welcome to tiptoe into the classrooms of the Ullmann building. There you can see hundreds of glittering eyes staring at the young lecturer in front of them, who is writing a complicated equation on the blackboard while students are trying to absorb each and every word. Not a long way from there are the smaller classrooms, where students are absorbed in heated discussions about the right design for an engineering model, or about the right location for a green belt in a new community.
Now you’d be ready for a visit to the research labs, where you could immediately feel the excitement in the air, when a professor and his or her students are waiting anxiously for the results of an important experiment they had been planning for months. Their joyful calls echo throughout the building when the laser beam hits the target, just as they had predicted. You are welcome to join them when they celebrate the successful experiment at the Junta Bar, located in the new Zielony Student Union Building.
If no one is sitting in front of the gigantic Titan, and nobody is working in the cleanrooms at the Zisapel nanotechnology building, you could sneak a peak into the enormous microscope, and even pretend to be Nobel Prize winner Distinguished Professor Danny Shechtman and call out “Eureka”, when you see the atoms twirl and form into a scientific creation never seen before.
But this is not all. If you could sneak into the workshops or the offices of the Technion’s faculties, or the offices at the Senate Building, you could meet our excellent technical and administrative staff members, whose contribution to the Technion’s everyday operation is priceless. On the eastern slopes of the campus hill, at the Center for Pre-University Education, hundreds of youngsters are getting a second chance to become Technion students. On the western slopes of the hill, in the late afternoons, you could join groups of toddlers playing in the sandboxes of the Zielony Graduate Student Village, while their mothers are sitting on a nearby bench, studying for tomorrow’s physics or chemistry test. Later, you could visit patients lying in their beds in Haifa’s hospitals and in other hospitals across the country, where students of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine are taking their first cautious steps in medical diagnosis and treatment, or you could explore the Sohnis Family Research Laboratory for Cardiac Electrophysiology and Regenerative Medicine, where you could admire a process that re-programs a patient’s skin cells into heart cells, thus paving the way to a completely new field of medicine.
These are the many aspects of the Technion’s everyday life, its multifaceted reality.
Seventy thousand graduates and millions of scientists, students, entrepreneurs and civilians around the world have been inspired by the Technion’s work. Since the engineering of that first well in Haifa, the minds of Technion graduates and faculty members have given forth a flow of inventions, new products and innovative services: portable memory devices; the Lempel-Ziv algorithm for information compression; Azilect – a medicine for treating early stages of Parkinson’s and other diseases; the deciphering of the ubiquitin mechanism, which is responsible for protein decomposition in cells; the fascinating world of quasiperiodic crystals; and more.
This year was one of the most wondrous years in the Technion’s history: The Technion has reached its hundredth anniversary with a new Nobel Prize winner – the third Technion scientist in seven years to receive this greatest of honors. At the end of 2011 we received the dramatic announcement that Mayor Michael Bloomberg chose the Technion and Cornell University to establish the new innovation institute in New York City. We could not have wished for better gifts for our 100th anniversary.
All these wonderful achievements could not have been possible without the support of our dedicated and committed friends in Israel and abroad. This group of remarkable individuals, who we honor today with Honorary Fellowships, is a wonderful example of the worldwide Technion family of supporters. They come from Israel, the United States, Germany, Brazil and Britain. Each and every one of them deserves our deepest gratitude, for their long-lasting love and unwavering support of the Technion.
This year, I joined a group of Israeli students who visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. It was a touching experience that affected me more deeply. Together with those talented youngsters – brilliant minds of the future – we stood in that remote place, where thousands of other brilliant minds were annihilated, and we feel and say, “It’s all right. In the end, we won.. We triumphed by the power of justice.”
We, at the Technion, have had a significant role in that triumph.
Speech for the Opening of the 2012 Board of Governors’ Annual Meeting, Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie.
[Transcript]
One hundred years ago we started from scratch: no foundations, no buildings, no funding for salaries or equipment, no faculty members, almost no engineers, and no reason to believe that this grandiose vision would ever materialize. Stone by stone, the historical building of the Technion started to arise. A well was dug on site – a source of water to be used not only by the Technion’s laboratories and visitors, but by the local community of Haifa as well.
The Technion’s slow and torturous development took place during the era of the two world wars and the establishment of the State of Israel. During the decades since – and in the face of so many wars – the Technion stuck to its vision: striving for peace through scientific activities and collaborations, as well as caring for the advancement, health and security of the State of Israel and the whole of humanity.
What is the Technion today, one hundred years later? Those who look for the answer to this question would have to go around campus wearing a magic gown that would make them invisible, allowing them to enter classrooms, labs, offices and even hospital rooms, without disturbing the usual course of events.
A good starting point would be the heart of campus, where you could join young students sitting on the grass and enjoying a sunny afternoon, holding laptops and talking, drinking coffee, and discussing the latest lecture on computer science, physics or mathematics. If you listen closely, you will hear a mixture of languages – Hebrew (as well as Hebrew with a Russian accent!), Arabic, English (as well as English with a Canadian accent!) – and see couples bent over their computers, speaking Chinese as though they were the only people in the world.
Sitting on the benches at the edges of the lawn, you could see a Frisbee flying from one end of the lawn to another in a skillful Californian style.
Later, you are welcome to tiptoe into the classrooms of the Ullmann building. There you can see hundreds of glittering eyes staring at the young lecturer in front of them, who is writing a complicated equation on the blackboard while students are trying to absorb each and every word. Not a long way from there are the smaller classrooms, where students are absorbed in heated discussions about the right design for an engineering model, or about the right location for a green belt in a new community.
Now you’d be ready for a visit to the research labs, where you could immediately feel the excitement in the air, when a professor and his or her students are waiting anxiously for the results of an important experiment they had been planning for months. Their joyful calls echo throughout the building when the laser beam hits the target, just as they had predicted. You are welcome to join them when they celebrate the successful experiment at the Junta Bar, located in the new Zielony Student Union Building.
If no one is sitting in front of the gigantic Titan, and nobody is working in the cleanrooms at the Zisapel nanotechnology building, you could sneak a peak into the enormous microscope, and even pretend to be Nobel Prize winner Distinguished Professor Danny Shechtman and call out “Eureka”, when you see the atoms twirl and form into a scientific creation never seen before.
But this is not all. If you could sneak into the workshops or the offices of the Technion’s faculties, or the offices at the Senate Building, you could meet our excellent technical and administrative staff members, whose contribution to the Technion’s everyday operation is priceless. On the eastern slopes of the campus hill, at the Center for Pre-University Education, hundreds of youngsters are getting a second chance to become Technion students. On the western slopes of the hill, in the late afternoons, you could join groups of toddlers playing in the sandboxes of the Zielony Graduate Student Village, while their mothers are sitting on a nearby bench, studying for tomorrow’s physics or chemistry test. Later, you could visit patients lying in their beds in Haifa’s hospitals and in other hospitals across the country, where students of the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine are taking their first cautious steps in medical diagnosis and treatment, or you could explore the Sohnis Family Research Laboratory for Cardiac Electrophysiology and Regenerative Medicine, where you could admire a process that re-programs a patient’s skin cells into heart cells, thus paving the way to a completely new field of medicine.
These are the many aspects of the Technion’s everyday life, its multifaceted reality.
Seventy thousand graduates and millions of scientists, students, entrepreneurs and civilians around the world have been inspired by the Technion’s work. Since the engineering of that first well in Haifa, the minds of Technion graduates and faculty members have given forth a flow of inventions, new products and innovative services: portable memory devices; the Lempel-Ziv algorithm for information compression; Azilect – a medicine for treating early stages of Parkinson’s and other diseases; the deciphering of the ubiquitin mechanism, which is responsible for protein decomposition in cells; the fascinating world of quasiperiodic crystals; and more.
This year was one of the most wondrous years in the Technion’s history: The Technion has reached its hundredth anniversary with a new Nobel Prize winner – the third Technion scientist in seven years to receive this greatest of honors. At the end of 2011 we received the dramatic announcement that Mayor Michael Bloomberg chose the Technion and Cornell University to establish the new innovation institute in New York City. We could not have wished for better gifts for our 100th anniversary.
All these wonderful achievements could not have been possible without the support of our dedicated and committed friends in Israel and abroad. This group of remarkable individuals, who we honor today with Honorary Fellowships, is a wonderful example of the worldwide Technion family of supporters. They come from Israel, the United States, Germany, Brazil and Britain. Each and every one of them deserves our deepest gratitude, for their long-lasting love and unwavering support of the Technion.
This year, I joined a group of Israeli students who visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. It was a touching experience that affected me more deeply. Together with those talented youngsters – brilliant minds of the future – we stood in that remote place, where thousands of other brilliant minds were annihilated, and we feel and say, “It’s all right. In the end, we won.. We triumphed by the power of justice.”
We, at the Technion, have had a significant role in that triumph.
Microsoft CEO Danny Yamin: New Chairman of Technion Council.
 |
| Danny Yamin with Technion President Peretz Lavie. |
Microsoft CEO Appointed to Leading Technion Position
Danny Yamin, head of Microsoft Israel,
is new chairman of the Technion Council, succeeding Yoram Alster
Danny Yamin, CEO of Microsoft Israel, has been appointed chairman of the Technion Council.
He replaces Yoram Alster, who served in this position for nine years.
The Council serves as the guiding and deciding authority with regard to Technion matters, between meetings of the Board of Governors, which the highest authority of the Technion. Among its powers are supervision of administrative and financial matters, enactment of regulations and appointments, awarding of honorary degrees, and more.
Danny Yamin, who is a Technion graduate, has been serving as CEO of Microsoft Israel since 2004. In recent years he has also held various positions in the Technion, including member of the Council and Chairman of the Technion alumni’s ‘100 Club’.
Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie: “Danny Yamin’s vast management experience in a global organization is essential at a time when the Technion itself is treading deeper into the global arena. The establishment of the Technion and Cornell research campus in New York is one type of the challenges we will be contending with in the coming years, as is the advancement of the Technion in Israel. I am looking forward to working with Danny in his new role, and believe that his vast experience will ccontribute greatly to the way we contend with the new local and global challenges”.
Danny Yamin: “I am pleased to expand my activity in the Technion, an institute which plays a major role in the State of Israel. The relationship between industry and academia is essential to both sides, and it is my hope that together with Technion President Peretz Lavie, the Technion’s management and its Council members, we will continue to realize the Technion’s great potential in Israel and worldwide”.
Microsoft CEO Danny Yamin: New Chairman of Technion Council.
|
| Danny Yamin with Technion President Peretz Lavie. |
Microsoft CEO Appointed to Leading Technion Position
Danny Yamin, head of Microsoft Israel,
is new chairman of the Technion Council, succeeding Yoram Alster
Danny Yamin, CEO of Microsoft Israel, has been appointed chairman of the Technion Council.
He replaces Yoram Alster, who served in this position for nine years.
The Council serves as the guiding and deciding authority with regard to Technion matters, between meetings of the Board of Governors, which the highest authority of the Technion. Among its powers are supervision of administrative and financial matters, enactment of regulations and appointments, awarding of honorary degrees, and more.
Danny Yamin, who is a Technion graduate, has been serving as CEO of Microsoft Israel since 2004. In recent years he has also held various positions in the Technion, including member of the Council and Chairman of the Technion alumni’s ‘100 Club’.
Technion President Prof. Peretz Lavie: “Danny Yamin’s vast management experience in a global organization is essential at a time when the Technion itself is treading deeper into the global arena. The establishment of the Technion and Cornell research campus in New York is one type of the challenges we will be contending with in the coming years, as is the advancement of the Technion in Israel. I am looking forward to working with Danny in his new role, and believe that his vast experience will ccontribute greatly to the way we contend with the new local and global challenges”.
Danny Yamin: “I am pleased to expand my activity in the Technion, an institute which plays a major role in the State of Israel. The relationship between industry and academia is essential to both sides, and it is my hope that together with Technion President Peretz Lavie, the Technion’s management and its Council members, we will continue to realize the Technion’s great potential in Israel and worldwide”.
The Pull of Light – optics innovation from Technion.
 |
| Distinguished Prof. Mordechai (Moti) Segev, Technion Faculty of Physics. |
Developing a real, working tractor beam has regularly been an exercise in frustration: it often relies on brute force attempts to induce a magnetic link or an air pressure gap, either of which falls a bit short of science fiction-level elegance.
The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology’s Mordechai Segev has a theory that would use the subtler (though not entirely movie-like) concept of negative radiation pressure in light to move objects. By using materials that have a negative refraction index, where the light photons and their overall wave shape move in opposite directions, Segev wants to create a sweet spot where negative radiation pressure exists and an object caught in the middle can be pushed around. His early approach would use extremely thin crystals stacked in layers to manipulate the refraction.
As it’s theorized, the technology won’t be pulling in the Millennium Falcon anytime soon — the millimeters-wide layer intervals dictate the size of what can be pulled. Nonetheless, even the surgery-level tractor beams that Segev hopes will ultimately stem from upcoming tests would bring us much closer to the future that we’ve always wanted.
Source: Optics Express
Read more about Distinguished Prof. Motti Segev at the Technion Book of Faces.
The Pull of Light – optics innovation from Technion.
|
| Distinguished Prof. Mordechai (Moti) Segev, Technion Faculty of Physics. |
Developing a real, working tractor beam has regularly been an exercise in frustration: it often relies on brute force attempts to induce a magnetic link or an air pressure gap, either of which falls a bit short of science fiction-level elegance.
The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology’s Mordechai Segev has a theory that would use the subtler (though not entirely movie-like) concept of negative radiation pressure in light to move objects. By using materials that have a negative refraction index, where the light photons and their overall wave shape move in opposite directions, Segev wants to create a sweet spot where negative radiation pressure exists and an object caught in the middle can be pushed around. His early approach would use extremely thin crystals stacked in layers to manipulate the refraction.
As it’s theorized, the technology won’t be pulling in the Millennium Falcon anytime soon — the millimeters-wide layer intervals dictate the size of what can be pulled. Nonetheless, even the surgery-level tractor beams that Segev hopes will ultimately stem from upcoming tests would bring us much closer to the future that we’ve always wanted.
Source: Optics Express
Read more about Distinguished Prof. Motti Segev at the Technion Book of Faces.
Spit it out! How nature joins up with rodents.
Technion researchers discover how the defensive chemicals of a fruit turn a seed predator into a quality seed disperser.
Researchers from the Technion Faculty of Biology have discovered how fruit chemistry alters animal behavior. The researchers found a chemical mechanism that encourages seed dispersal in the fruit of the desert plant ‘sweet mignonette’ or ‘taily weed’.
This mechanism contains stable, non-toxic substances called glucosinolates, which are found only in the fruit pulp and break down into toxic products when the seed, which contains the enzyme myrosinase, is damaged mechanically. Apparently, the compartmentalization of glucosinolates and myrosinase in the fruits of sweet mignonette affects the interaction between the plant and rodents that are known to be seed predators. One of the rodents examined, the common spiny mouse, was even found to be a quality dispenser of the sweet mignonette seeds. This is the first documentation of a chemical mechanism in fruits that encourages seed dispersal by mammals.
According to the directed deterrence hypothesis, defensive chemicals (secondary metabolites) in ripe fruits deter seed predators, but have no or little effect on seed dispersers. Indeed, there is some evidence that birds (seed dispersers) and mammals (seed predators) differ in their responses to defensive chemicals. However, this mechanism was only demonstrated based on differences at the class level, namely differences in vanilloid receptors found in mammals but not in birds.
“Here we present the findings of physiological and behavioral experiments demonstrating the use of defensive chemicals of the mustard oil bomb to encourage broad-range, class-independent (e.g. mammals vs. birds) seed dispersal in sweet mignonette fruits, in order to force a behavioral change at an ecological timescale, converting rodents from seed predators to seed dispersers,” writes researcher Michal Samuni-Blank, who was supervised by Profs. Zeev Arad of the Technion and Ido Izhaki of Haifa University.
“This change is achieved through the unique compartmentalization of the mustard oil bomb, which causes activation of the system only upon seed and pulp co-consumption. This ‘motivates’ seed dispersal which has led to the first ever documentation of a rodent dispersing seeds via seed spitting”.
The research findings demonstrate the power of fruits defensive chemicals to shift the animal-plant relationships from predation to mutualism, and supports the directed deterrence hypothesis at the intraspecific level, in addition to the interspecific level.
Jewelry ~ a whole new matter ~ Technion Nobel Laureate.
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Private Collection: A Jewel for My Wife
Nobel Laureate 2011 Prof. Dan Shechtman
A JEWEL FOR MY WIFE
By Curator: Anat Har-gil
1972, Dayton, Ohio. It all began innocently enough. Zippi, Dan’s wife, was busy in the evenings studying for a Master’s Degree in Sociology, and Dan Shechtman, a postdoctoral fellow, found himself studying stone polishing in the arts center during his free time.
Before long, five pairs of polished stones accumulated. Each pair, a different color. What would he do with them? He found himself attending a silver jewelry making course led by Mrs. Audrey Cray: “A very dear and special woman who taught me that esthetics is not an exact science. “Jewelry is created with feeling, love and patience,”
From that moment onwards, sensitively and delicately, Dan has been creating and designing jewelry. Jewelry for his wife: only for his wife.
The art of jewelry making became incorporated and condensed into the inherent knowledge he already possessed. Working with metal is familiar for Dan since he is a metallurgist. He understands metal; he handles it, in this case, to create his jewelry. The enamel is sealed, at times melting in his hands until it becomes transparent. The metal expands and contracts. Together, enamel, metal and stone merge into a melting pot of
matter and spirit.
The scientific thinking behind his art is very powerful. Yet, at the same time, jewelry making is an excuse for him, a reason to be released from the clutches of the laboratory. The thinking is now visual in form and it begs awareness for its own existence.
Professional knowledge is translated into plastic values, and what really takes place is the transformation of his sketches and his technical ability into a beautiful creation.
Behind every design lies the story. Each piece of jewelry serves as an expression of emotion or the marking of an event. The process is fed, fertilized, and examined by “an audience of one” – his wife Zippi.
When this journey comes to end, it is not yet completed. A ceremony – heartfelt and modest then begins. The piece of jewelry is presented to Zippi as a surprise. Even though she is present before it is even made, she is not a partner in its making.
Dan Shechtman is a research professor in the Faculty of Materials Engineering at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. In the year 2011, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of quasicrystals.
An exhibition of handcrafted jewelry created by Nobel Laureate Dan Shechtman is to be displayed on campus.Designed exclusively for his wife, Prof. Zipora Shechtman, the exhibition showcases 15 unique pieces ranging from earrings to bracelets with a single item — an Aztec-inspired silver belt buckle pictured bottom left — which Distinguished Prof. Shechtman made for himself. The exhibition, curated by Anat Har-Gil, will show June 10 to June 14, 2012, on the 4th floor of the Ullmann Teaching Center at Technion City in Haifa.
Jewelry ~ a whole new matter ~ Technion Nobel Laureate.
Private Collection: A Jewel for My Wife
Nobel Laureate 2011 Prof. Dan Shechtman
A JEWEL FOR MY WIFE
By Curator: Anat Har-gil
1972, Dayton, Ohio. It all began innocently enough. Zippi, Dan’s wife, was busy in the evenings studying for a Master’s Degree in Sociology, and Dan Shechtman, a postdoctoral fellow, found himself studying stone polishing in the arts center during his free time.
Before long, five pairs of polished stones accumulated. Each pair, a different color. What would he do with them? He found himself attending a silver jewelry making course led by Mrs. Audrey Cray: “A very dear and special woman who taught me that esthetics is not an exact science. “Jewelry is created with feeling, love and patience,”
From that moment onwards, sensitively and delicately, Dan has been creating and designing jewelry. Jewelry for his wife: only for his wife.
The art of jewelry making became incorporated and condensed into the inherent knowledge he already possessed. Working with metal is familiar for Dan since he is a metallurgist. He understands metal; he handles it, in this case, to create his jewelry. The enamel is sealed, at times melting in his hands until it becomes transparent. The metal expands and contracts. Together, enamel, metal and stone merge into a melting pot of
matter and spirit.
The scientific thinking behind his art is very powerful. Yet, at the same time, jewelry making is an excuse for him, a reason to be released from the clutches of the laboratory. The thinking is now visual in form and it begs awareness for its own existence.
Professional knowledge is translated into plastic values, and what really takes place is the transformation of his sketches and his technical ability into a beautiful creation.
Behind every design lies the story. Each piece of jewelry serves as an expression of emotion or the marking of an event. The process is fed, fertilized, and examined by “an audience of one” – his wife Zippi.
When this journey comes to end, it is not yet completed. A ceremony – heartfelt and modest then begins. The piece of jewelry is presented to Zippi as a surprise. Even though she is present before it is even made, she is not a partner in its making.
Dan Shechtman is a research professor in the Faculty of Materials Engineering at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. In the year 2011, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of quasicrystals.
An exhibition of handcrafted jewelry created by Nobel Laureate Dan Shechtman is to be displayed on campus.Designed exclusively for his wife, Prof. Zipora Shechtman, the exhibition showcases 15 unique pieces ranging from earrings to bracelets with a single item — an Aztec-inspired silver belt buckle pictured bottom left — which Distinguished Prof. Shechtman made for himself. The exhibition, curated by Anat Har-Gil, will show June 10 to June 14, 2012, on the 4th floor of the Ullmann Teaching Center at Technion City in Haifa.
Physics research brings new strategies for brain tumor treatment.
Modeling the demise of migrating brain tumor cells
Evolution of brain tumor cells under treatment reveal that it is the peripheral tumor cells that need to be targeted
An Israeli physicist has developed a theoretical model to simulate the evolution of highly proliferating brain tumour core cells subjected to treatment by alternating radio frequency electric field. The research, by Alexander Iomin from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology Technion in Haifa, is about to be published in EPJ E¹. In another model, the author examines the possibility of enhancing the level of treatment by targeting the outer area of the tumour.
Iomin introduced a theoretical evaluation of the effect of a standard treatment known as tumour-treating-field (TTF) on the speed of development of a type of brain tumour called glioma. To do so, he adapted a well-established model — the so-called fractal comb model, which looks like the regularly spaced teeth of a comb — based on a mathematical approach called fractional calculus. This model is based on the hypothesis that TTF treatment had limited efficiency in the outer region and would only be effective on the inner part of the tumour, which is characterised by a higher proliferation rate of cancer cells.
By contrast, the peripheral part of the tumour is characterised by high migration and low proliferation rates of cancer cells. In his second model, the author considered glioma cancer as a composite of cancer cells and normal tissue cells. Each cell type exhibits a distinctive polarisation by an electric field, following a pattern similar to fractal geometry. He established a model reflecting the difference between the two types of cells and applied fractal calculus to their geometry. Iomin suggested that because of the fractal nature of cancer cells the TTF treatment might be enhanced at certain frequencies. As a result, the cancer cells’ plasma membrane permeability would irreversibly increase, which could lead to their demise. This approach may constitute an effective non-invasive method for treating brain cancer.
Article extracted from: EurekaAlert.