Tag Archives: Ben Gurion University of the Negev

Do you want that coffee with some graphene on toast?

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These scientists are excited:

For those who prefer text, here’s the Rice University Feb. 13, 2018 news release (received via email and available online here and on EurekAlert here) Note: Links have been removed),

Rice University scientists who introduced laser-induced graphene (LIG) have enhanced their technique to produce what may become a new class of edible electronics.

The Rice lab of chemist James Tour, which once turned Girl Scout cookies into graphene, is investigating ways to write graphene patterns onto food and other materials to quickly embed conductive identification tags and sensors into the products themselves.

“This is not ink,” Tour said. “This is taking the material itself and converting it into graphene.”

The process is an extension of the Tour lab’s contention that anything with the proper carbon content can be turned into graphene. In recent years, the lab has developed and expanded upon its method to make graphene foam by using a commercial laser to transform the top layer of an inexpensive polymer film.

The foam consists of microscopic, cross-linked flakes of graphene, the two-dimensional form of carbon. LIG can be written into target materials in patterns and used as a supercapacitor, an electrocatalyst for fuel cells, radio-frequency identification (RFID) antennas and biological sensors, among other potential applications.

The new work reported in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano demonstrated that laser-induced graphene can be burned into paper, cardboard, cloth, coal and certain foods, even toast.

“Very often, we don’t see the advantage of something until we make it available,” Tour said. “Perhaps all food will have a tiny RFID tag that gives you information about where it’s been, how long it’s been stored, its country and city of origin and the path it took to get to your table.”

He said LIG tags could also be sensors that detect E. coli or other microorganisms on food. “They could light up and give you a signal that you don’t want to eat this,” Tour said. “All that could be placed not on a separate tag on the food, but on the food itself.”

Multiple laser passes with a defocused beam allowed the researchers to write LIG patterns into cloth, paper, potatoes, coconut shells and cork, as well as toast. (The bread is toasted first to “carbonize” the surface.) The process happens in air at ambient temperatures.

“In some cases, multiple lasing creates a two-step reaction,” Tour said. “First, the laser photothermally converts the target surface into amorphous carbon. Then on subsequent passes of the laser, the selective absorption of infrared light turns the amorphous carbon into LIG. We discovered that the wavelength clearly matters.”

The researchers turned to multiple lasing and defocusing when they discovered that simply turning up the laser’s power didn’t make better graphene on a coconut or other organic materials. But adjusting the process allowed them to make a micro supercapacitor in the shape of a Rice “R” on their twice-lased coconut skin.

Defocusing the laser sped the process for many materials as the wider beam allowed each spot on a target to be lased many times in a single raster scan. That also allowed for fine control over the product, Tour said. Defocusing allowed them to turn previously unsuitable polyetherimide into LIG.

“We also found we could take bread or paper or cloth and add fire retardant to them to promote the formation of amorphous carbon,” said Rice graduate student Yieu Chyan, co-lead author of the paper. “Now we’re able to take all these materials and convert them directly in air without requiring a controlled atmosphere box or more complicated methods.”

The common element of all the targeted materials appears to be lignin, Tour said. An earlier study relied on lignin, a complex organic polymer that forms rigid cell walls, as a carbon precursor to burn LIG in oven-dried wood. Cork, coconut shells and potato skins have even higher lignin content, which made it easier to convert them to graphene.

Tour said flexible, wearable electronics may be an early market for the technique. “This has applications to put conductive traces on clothing, whether you want to heat the clothing or add a sensor or conductive pattern,” he said.

Rice alumnus Ruquan Ye is co-lead author of the study. Co-authors are Rice graduate student Yilun Li and postdoctoral fellow Swatantra Pratap Singh and Professor Christopher Arnusch of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. Tour is the T.T. and W.F. Chao Chair in Chemistry as well as a professor of computer science and of materials science and nanoengineering at Rice.

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research supported the research.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Laser-Induced Graphene by Multiple Lasing: Toward Electronics on Cloth, Paper, and Food by Yieu Chyan, Ruquan Ye†, Yilun Li, Swatantra Pratap Singh, Christopher J. Arnusch, and James M. Tour. ACS Nano DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.7b08539 Publication Date (Web): February 13, 2018

Copyright © 2018 American Chemical Society

This paper is behind a paywall.

h/t Feb. 13, 2018 news item on Nanowerk

Water desalination to be researched at Oman’s newly opened Nanotechnology Laboratory at Sultan Qaboos University

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Before getting to the news, here’s some information (for those who may not be familiar with the country) about the Sultanate of Oman and why this water desalination project is very important. From the Oman Wikipedia essay (Note: Links have been removed),

Oman (Listeni/oʊˈmɑːn/ oh-MAAN; Arabic: عمان‎ ʻUmān), officially called the Sultanate of Oman (Arabic: سلطنة عُمان‎ Salṭanat ʻUmān), is an Arab state in southwest Asia on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It has a strategically important position at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. It is bordered by the United Arab Emirates to the northwest, Saudi Arabia to the west, and Yemen to the southwest and also shares a marine border with Iran. The coast is formed by the Arabian Sea on the southeast and the Gulf of Oman on the northeast. The Madha and Musandam exclaves are surrounded by the UAE on their land borders, with the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman forming Musandam’s coastal boundaries.

From the 17th century, Oman had its own empire, and vied with Portugal and Britain for influence in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean. At its peak in the 19th century, Omani influence or control extended across the Strait of Hormuz to Iran, and modern-day Pakistan, and as far south as Zanzibar.[7] As its power declined in the 20th century, the sultanate came under heavy influence from the United Kingdom, though Oman was never formally part of the British Empire, or a British protectorate.

…

Oman has a hot climate and very little rainfall. Annual rainfall in Muscat averages 100 mm (3.9 in), falling mostly in January. The Dhofar Mountains area receives seasonal rainfall (from late June to late September) as a result of the monsoon winds from the Indian Ocean saturated with cool moisture and heavy fog.[39] The mountain areas receive more plentiful rainfall, and annual rainfall on the higher parts of the Jabal Akhdar probably exceeds 400 mm (15.7 in).[40] Some parts of the coast, particularly near the island of Masirah, sometimes receive no rain at all within the course of a year. The climate generally is very hot, with temperatures reaching around 50 °C (122.0 °F) (peak) in the hot season, from May to September.

The Sultanate of Oman’s Ministry of Information’s Omanet.om website offers this about water (from the Water webpage),

Oman is in the world’s arid belt and depends on groundwater and its limited rainfall . The demand for water continues to rise.   A national water resources conservation plan has been drawn up to further rationalise and improve water consumption practices and explore for new groundwater reserves. The Sultanate now has a complete, up-to-date and properly documented database covering all the country’s available and potential water resources, together with details of their status and conditions. Studies on new ways of rationalising water consumption are ongoing.

 Water Resources Management

The approach here is the emphasis on making judicious use of available water resources and reducing waste.

The management plan includes:

Reduction of water loss to the sea or desert

Providing potable water in communities

Developing and improving aflaj systems

Intensification of studies

Changing land use in some regions

Increasing recovery rates of water loss

Implementation of awareness programs

The fact that there is a Middle East Desalination Research Center (MEDRC)suggests an important problem especially in this region. (If you know of any collaborative water projects for other regions, please do let me know about them in the Comments.) From the MEDRC homepage,

MEDRC is a Center of Excellence in Desalination and Water  Reuse Technology established in Muscat, Sultanate of Oman, December 1996.

MEDRC Mission Statement

The mission of MEDRC is to contribute to the achievement of peace and stability in the Middle East and North Africa by promoting and supporting the use of desalination to satisfy the needs of the people of this region for available, affordable, clean fresh water for human use and economic development. This is done through the advancement of desalination technology, education in the technology and training in its use, technology transfer, technical assistance, and building cooperation between nations to form the joint projects and international relationships necessary to meet the needs for fresh water.

The Peace Process to resolve the issues of Israel and the Palestinian National Authority that have troubled the Middle East for almost a century included the establishment of MEDRC to assist in meeting the fresh water needs of the parties involved. This is still the first priority of MEDRC. However, MEDRC’s activities extend to and benefit the entire region and beyond. MEDRC is advancing the use of desalination and waste water reuse thru regional and international cooperation to overcome current and future world water supply deficiencies.

The MEDRC also has a 6 pp. PDF titled: Overview on Desalinated Water in the Sultanate of Oman. So this news about a nanotechnology lab opening in Oman which is focused on water desalination is big news, from the Feb. 19, 2014 news item on Nanowerk,

The Nanotechnology laboratory at Sultan Qaboos University in Muscat, Oman, as a part of The Research Council (TRC ) Chair in Nanotechnology for Water Desalination, was officially opened yesterday under the patronage of Dr Hilal bin Ali al Hinai, Secretary-General of TRC. The state-of-the-art laboratory of the TRC Chair, contains wet-chemistry facilities and analytical equipment rooms, and has been built in a single workspace on the College of Engineering premises. Talking about the activities of the Chair in terms of research and related activities, Prof Joydeep Dutta, the Chair Professor, said that research and development focused on the application of nanoparticles, nanomaterials and desalination processes.

A Feb. 18, 2014 news item in the Oman Observer provides additional detail,

“The Chair aims at innovative research suited to the region, education and training of highly qualified personnel and in increasing public and industrial awareness of nanotechnology, amongst others. The current research group is involved in developing applications that address the needs of those who are without — clean drinking water, cheap energy, unspoiled food and the other necessities required to provide for a decent living. The Chair is focusing on dedicated research and development issues addressing water desalination-both of seawater as well as brackish water”, he said. At present, a few broad themes for research were identified in consultation with the technical committee and work is continuing along these themes. The research themes are “Designer metal-oxide nanostructures”, “Capacitive desalination with functionalised nanostructures”, “Condensation induced renewable desalting”, and “Functionalised micro or nano membranes”.

The unifying concept in the laboratory is to make use of inexpensive wet-chemical methods to fabricate innovative materials and futuristic device components with an eye on its application in water desalination and water treatment. …

Although dated Feb. 19, 2014, a news release on the Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) website appears to have originated the news item on the Nanowerk website and on the Osman Observer website.

I have previously written about water in the Middle East within the context of a June 25, 2013 post regarding a research collaboration between the University of Chicago and Ben Gurion University in Israel. I managed to include a bit about Palestine and its very serious water problem (the Gaza’s sole aquifer may be unusable by 2016) in that post, about 3/4 of the way down.

Renewable, green alternative to oil from Israel’s Ben Gurion University

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A November 20, 2013 news item on Nanowerk features a new technique for creating an alternative fuel developed by researchers at Ben Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Israel,

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) researchers have developed an innovative process to convert carbon dioxide and hydrogen into a renewable alternative for crude oil, which could transform fuels used in gas and diesel-powered vehicles and jets.

The “green feed” crude oil can be refined into renewable liquid fuels using established technologies and can be transported using existing infrastructure to gas stations. The highly efficient advance is made possible in part using nanomaterials that significantly reduce the amount of energy required in the catalytic process to make the crude oil.

A November 13, 2013 BGU news release provides more detail,

As opposed to other alternative fuel sources, such as electric cars, which require additional infrastructure, this green feed would merely replace oil as the input for refineries. [Moti] Herskowitz, the incumbent of the Israel Cohen Chair in Chemical Engineering, is also the VP & Dean of R&D at BGU.  [sic]

The process is patent pending, “and we are ready to take off,” demonstrate and commercialize it, asserts Herskowitz. Bench experiments have been conducted and scale-up should be relatively simple, he says. …

“It is an extraordinary challenge to convert carbon dioxide and hydrogen to green feed,” he says, “The technology is based on novel specially tailored catalysts and catalytic processes. Well-established, commercially available technology can be directly applied to the process developed at BGU. It is envisaged that the short-term implementation of the process will combine synthetic gas produced from various renewable and alternative sources with carbon dioxide and hydrogen. Since there are no foreseen technological barriers, the new process should become a reality within five to ten years,” he says.

Noting that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has made it clear that one of the national priorities of the State of Israel is to develop alternatives to oil, Herskowitz believes that, “As technological breakthroughs, such as carbon dioxide capture from various sources including air and water splitting, become technologically and economically feasible, this process will become the dominant technology for production of liquid fuels.”

Regarding other alternative fuels, Herskowitz maintains that his invention represents a game-changer. “The liquids that have been used over the past decade are ethanol (alcohol), biodiesel and/or blends of these fuels with conventional fuels, as will continue to be done in the foreseeable future. These alternatives are, however, far from ideal, and there is a pressing need for a game-changing approach to produce alternative drop-in liquid transportation fuels by sustainable, technologically viable and environmentally acceptable (in terms of GHG emission) processes from abundant, low-cost, renewable materials,” he says.

The Blechner Center for Industrial Catalysis and Process Development has a proven track record of commercializing applications from its basic research. It developed the Aleol product line of fine aroma chemical products which Makhteshim-Agan has set up Negev Aroma at Neot Hovav to produce.

The news item on Nanowerk offers a brief description of the technology developed at BGU<

The BGU crude oil process produces hydrogen from water, which is mixed with carbon dioxide captured from external sources and synthetic gas (syngas). This green feed mixture is placed into a reactor that contains a nano-structured solid catalyst, also developed at BGU, to produce an organic liquid and gas.

For anyone who’d like some additional information and an Israeli perspective on this work, there’s a Nov. 19, 2013 article by David Shamah for The Times of Israel (Note: Links have been removed from the excerpt),,

While everyone agrees that alternatives to fossil fuels are needed, currently available alternatives require such a major an adjustment in manufacturing and social infrastructure so as to render the whole project untenable.

Besides, said Professor Moti Herskowitz of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, even if the world could be convinced to replace internal combustion engines in cars and trucks with engines that run on electricity, methanol, or other gasoline replacements, there remains one major problem. “If you notice, no one ever discusses alternative fuels for jets. No one wants a problem in the air, which makes jet fuel irreplaceable right now,” Herskowitz said.

Considering the fact that over 10% of crude oil is used for jet fuel, it appears that refined oil is going to be around for a long time.

If you can’t beat ‘em, then join ‘em, says Herskowitz. …

…

“It is envisaged that the short-term implementation of the process will combine synthetic gas produced from various renewable and alternative sources with carbon dioxide and hydrogen,” he [Herskowitz] said at the event. “Since there are no foreseen technological barriers, the new process should become a reality within five to ten years.”

The main issue at this point, said Herskowitz, is developing a cheaper way to extract the hydrogen gas. The technology to do this is well-known, and hydrogen is used to power cars, buses and trucks in many places, but current extraction methods are not cost efficient. The most promising method to produce large quantities of hydrogen at a commercially viable price, said Herskowitz, lies in splitting water (hydrogen and oxygen), extracting the hydrogen component as a gas, and pushing it into the green feed. “We are positive we can do produce hydrogen more cheaply,” Herskowitz said.

Acquiring the carbon dioxide needed for the process, he said, was sadly, very simple, as that pollutant, found in smokestack emissions from refineries, and power, steel and cement plants, is all too common.

Does this method of producing gasoline have a chance against Big Oil? After all, there are plenty of urban legend-type stories about oil companies suppressing methods that claim to turn water into gasoline. …

I recommend reading Shamah’s article for the context he provides about the issues surrounding the use of alternative fuels.

Nanotechnology-enabled water resource collaboraton between Israel and Chicago

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A June 25, 2013 news item on Azonano describes a collaborative agreement between the University of Chicago and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (Israel) to work together and fund nanotechnology-enabled solutions for more water in the Middle East and elsewhere,

The University of Chicago and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev will begin funding a series of ambitious research collaborations that apply the latest discoveries in nanotechnology to create new materials and processes for making clean, fresh drinking water more plentiful and less expensive by 2020.

The announcement came June 23 following a meeting in Jerusalem among Israeli President Shimon Peres, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, University of Chicago President Robert J. Zimmer, Ben-Gurion University President Rivka Carmi and leading scientists in the field. The joint projects will explore innovative solutions at the water-energy nexus, developing more efficient ways of using water to produce energy and using energy to treat and deliver clean water.

There are more details in the June 23, 2013 University of Chicago news release, which originated the news item (Note: Links have been removed),

The University of Chicago also brings to the effort two powerful research partners already committed to clean water research: the Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Ill., and the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass.

“We feel it is critical to bring outstanding scientists together to address water resource challenges that are being felt around the world, and will only become more acute over time,” said Zimmer. “Our purification challenges in the Great Lakes region right now are different from some of the scarcity issues some of our colleagues at Ben-Gurion are addressing, but our combined experience will be a tremendous asset in turning early-stage technologies into innovative solutions that may have applications far beyond local issues.”

“Clean, plentiful water is a strategic issue in the Middle East and the world at large, and a central research focus of our university for more than three decades,” said Carmi. “We believe that this partnership will enhance state-of-the-art science in both universities, while having a profound effect on the sustainable availability of clean water to people around the globe.”

The first wave of research proposals include fabricating new materials tailored to remove contaminants, bacteria, viruses and salt from drinking water at a fraction of the cost of current technologies; biological engineering that will help plants maximize their own drought-resistance mechanisms; and polymers that can change the water retention properties of soil in agriculture.

UChicago, BGU and Argonne have jointly committed more than $1 million in seed money over the next two years to support inaugural projects, with the first projects getting under way this fall.

One proposed project would attempt to devise multi-functional and anti-fouling membranes for water purification. These membranes, engineered at the molecular level, could be switched or tuned to remove a wide range of biological and chemical contaminants and prevent the formation of membrane-fouling bacterial films. Keeping those membranes free of fouling would extend their useful lives and decrease energy usage while reducing the operational cost of purifying water.

Another proposal focuses on developing polymers for soil infusion or seed coatings to promote water retention. Such polymers conjure visions of smart landscapes that can substantially promote agricultural growth while reducing irrigation needs.

Officials from both the U.S. and Israel hailed the collaboration as an example of the potential for collaborative innovation that can improve quality of life and boost economic vitality.

You can read more about the University of Chicago’s March 8, 2013 memorandum of understanding with the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in this March 19,2013 University of Chicago news article by Steve Koppes.

Sidenote: In early May 2013, internationally renowned physicist Stephen Hawking participated in an ‘academic’ boycott of Israel over its position on Palestine. The May 9, 2013 article, Stephen Hawking: Furore deepens over Israel boycott, by Harriet Sherwood, Matthew Kalman, and Sam Jones for the Guardian newspaper reveals some of the content of Hawking’s letter to the organizers and his reasons for participating in the boycott,

Hawking, a world-renowned scientist and bestselling author who has had motor neurone disease for 50 years, cancelled his appearance at the high-profile Presidential Conference, which is personally sponsored by Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, after a barrage of appeals from Palestinian academics.

…

The full text of the letter [from Hawking], dated 3 May, said: “I accepted the invitation to the Presidential Conference with the intention that this would not only allow me to express my opinion on the prospects for a peace settlement but also because it would allow me to lecture on the West Bank. However, I have received a number of emails from Palestinian academics. They are unanimous that I should respect the boycott. In view of this, I must withdraw from the conference. Had I attended, I would have stated my opinion that the policy of the present Israeli government is likely to lead to disaster.”

…

But Palestinians welcomed Hawking’s decision. “Palestinians deeply appreciate Stephen Hawking’s support for an academic boycott of Israel,” said Omar Barghouti, a founding member of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. “We think this will rekindle the kind of interest among international academics in academic boycotts that was present in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.”

Steve Caplan in a May 13, 2013 piece (Occam’s Corner hosted by the Guardian) explained why he profoundly disagreed with Hawking’s position (Note: Links have been removed),

My respect for Hawking as a scientist and person of enormous courage has made my dismay at his recent decision all the greater. In these very virtual pages I have previously opined on the folly of imposing an academic boycott on Israel. The UK, which sports many of the supporters of this policy – dubiously known as the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) – also appears to be particularly fertile ground for anti-Semitism. To what degree British anti-Semitism, the anti-Israel BDS lobby and legitimate criticism of Israel’s policies are related is an inordinately complex question, but it is clear that anti-Semitism plays a role among some BDS supporters.

The decision by Hawking to join the boycotters of Israel and Israeli academics is particularly ironic in light of the fact that the conference is being hosted in honor of the 90th birthday of Israel’s president, Shimon Peres. More than any other Israeli leader, Peres has been committed to negotiations and comprehensive peace with the Palestinians, and he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. At 90, despite his figurehead position, Peres remains steadfastly optimistic in his relentless goal of a fair two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians.

Caplan’s summary of how the ‘Palestine problem’ was created and how we got to the current state of affairs is one of most the clear-headed I’ve seen,

Pinning the blame on one side with a propaganda machine and a sleeve full of slogans is easy to do, but there is nothing simple or straightforward about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. From the very birth of the State of Israel in 1948, the mode by which the Palestinian refugee problem was created has been debated intensely by historians. There is little question that a combination of intimidation by Israelis and acquiescence of the refugees to calls by Palestinian and Arab leaders to flee (and return with the victorious Arab armies) were the major causes of Palestinian uprooting.

To what degree was each side responsible? The Palestinians and Arab countries initiated the war in 1948, vetoing by force the United Nations Partition Plan to divide the country between Israelis and Palestinians – in an attempt to prevent any Jewish state from arising. And at the time, Israelis doubtlessly showed little concern at the growing numbers of Palestinians who fled or were forced from their homes. And later, after the Six-Day War in 1967, the Israelis displayed poor judgment (that unfortunately continues to this day) in allowing her citizens to build settlements in these conquered territories.

Both sides have suffered from poor leadership over the years.

Caplan also discusses the relationship between Israel’s government and its academics as he explains why he is opposed academic boycotts,

… in any case, Israeli academics and scientists are neither government mouthpieces nor puppets. There have frequently been serious disagreements between the government and the universities in Israel, highlighting the independence of Israel’s academic institutions. One such example is the Israeli government’s decision last year to upgrade the status of a college built in Ariel – a town inside the West Bank – to that of a university. This was vehemently opposed by Israel’s institutions of higher learning (and by perhaps 50% of the general population).

A second example is the unsuccessful attempt by the Israeli government to shut down Ben-Gurion University’s Department of Politics and Government – which was attacked for its leftist views. The rallying opposition and petition by Israeli academics across the country who warned of the danger to academic freedom helped prevent the department’s closure.

You’ll note the reference to Ben-Gurion University in that last paragraph excerpted from Caplan’s piece, which brings this posting back to where it started, collaboration between two universities to come up with solutions that address problems with access to water. In the end, I am inclined to agree with Caplan that we need to open up and maintain the lines of communication.

ETA June 27, 2013: There is no hint in the University of Chicago news releases that these water projects will benefit any parties other than Israel and the US but it is tempting to hope that this work might also have an impact in Palestine given its current water crisis there as described in a June 26, 2013 news item in the World Bulletin (Note: Links have been removed),

A tiny wedge of land jammed between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean sea, the Gaza Strip is heading inexorably into a water crisis that the United Nations says could make the Palestinian enclave unliveable in just a few years.

With 90-95 percent of the territory’s only aquifer contaminated by sewage, chemicals and seawater, neighbourhood desalination facilities and their public taps are a lifesaver for some of Gaza’s 1.6 million residents.

But these small-scale projects provide water for only about 20 percent of the population, forcing many more residents in the impoverished Gaza Strip to buy bottled water at a premium.

“There is a crisis. There is a serious deficit in the water resources in Gaza and there is a serious deterioration in the water quality,” said Rebhi El Sheikh, deputy chairman of the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA).

A NASA study of satellite data released this year showed that between 2003 and 2009 the region lost 144 cubic km of stored freshwater – equivalent to the amount of water held in the Dead Sea – making an already bad situation much worse.

But the situation in Gaza is particularly acute, with the United Nations warning that its sole aquifer might be unusable by 2016, with the damage potentially irreversible by 2020.

H/T June 26, 2013 Reuters news item.

Theranostics (nanomedicine) in Israel

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There’s a very intriguing nanomedicine project in Tel Aviv, Israel. Called Nanomedicines for Personalized Theranostics, the project combines diagnostics and therapeutics for a personalized medical experience. From the Oct. 19, 2012 news item on Nanowerk (Note: I have removed a link),

Tel Aviv University [TAU] has been appointed by the Israel National Nanotechnology Initiative (INNI) to lead a consortium on “Nanomedicines for Personalized Theranostics”, a combined system of diagnostics and therapeutic treatments. This consortium of 11 laboratories will be dedicated to developing nano-sized drug delivery systems for the detection and treatment of various diseases. Eight of the labs are TAU-led, with additional participation from Hebrew University Jerusalem, Bar-Ilan University and Ben Gurion University of the Negev.

The ultimate goal is to design a new class of drugs that can destroy faulty proteins in angiogenesis-dependent diseases that involve the growth of new blood vessels from existing vessels — including cancer, infectious diseases and heart diseases — and deliver these drugs safely into the body. Beyond the academic realm, the group aims to create spin-off companies based on licensed technologies they develop, creating the basis for a thriving biotechnology industry within Israel.

The news item provides some insight into the situation in Israel,

Although considered a beacon of research and development, the field of biotechnology in Israel has suffered drawbacks, both in academia and industry. Higher salaries lure the best minds abroad, and international companies have more private capital with which to sustain businesses.

“Israel has amazing intellectual resources, but we are constantly combating budget constraints. With this project, the idea is to create future technologies built on Israeli creativity that also allow us to bring in the brightest people and better funding,” says Prof. Peer [Scientific Director Prof. Dan Peer]. While many great biotechnology ideas were born in Israel, the economic situation stymied the establishment of many more successful companies within the country, he observes. “We want to maintain the advantages that we have in the life sciences while boosting this lagging industry. Our research as part of the FTA [the Focal Technology Area within the INNI] will be a starting engine.”

Prof. Peer hopes that in two years, researchers will be able to start translating their research into practical applications.

The INNI is also working to combat “brain drain” in the academic world by giving TAU and other institutions the means to attract outstanding young researchers back home to Israel, both with funding and with the prestige of the project.

Is there a country in the world that isn’t concerned about ‘brain drain’?