A visit to the bakery usually involves temptation by cupcakes or pastries in enticing hues of orange, pink and purple. What if we could create those vibrant shades of sweet treats without artificial additives and as naturally as bread rises? 

Israeli startup Phytolon (a combination of phyto, the Greek word for plant, and lon, Arabic for color) has developed strains of baker’s yeast that can produce 75 percent of the colors used in the food industry – including shades of orange, red, pink and purple. 

The startup’s yeast produces the betalain pigments that are naturally found in bright red beetroot, sunny yellow cactus fruit and brilliantly purple dragon fruit. 

The special strains of yeast produce these colors through fermentation – a natural process in which microorganisms normally transform sugars and starches into products such as carbon dioxide or alcohol. Phytolon’s fermentation process results in betalain instead.

The startup says it takes a “very short time” to produce large amounts of pigment, which can then be used in confectionery, baking, dairy products and even plant-based meats. 

And unlike natural food coloring, which is traditionally sourced from plants such as beetroot or turmeric, the company says its yeast need far fewer resources to produce its pigments, making it more environmentally friendly and sustainable.

“You don’t need as much land, you don’t need as much water, and you don’t need any pesticides,” Inbal Eshet-Kessler, Head of Product at Phytolon, tells NoCamels. 

For example, says Eshet-Kessler, without the Phytolon method, producing just one kilogram of betalain pigment from beetroot means planting several fields of the plant. 

And, she says, this does not even include the process of extracting the pigments, which commonly requires the use of ultrasound, microwave, pressurized liquid, as well as other methods.

Furthermore, the non-yeast pigments soon lose their vibrant hues due to standard processing and storage, for once they’ve been extracted from plants, the betalains are less stable against heat, light and oxidation. Since the betalains from Phytolon’s fermentation process do not use plant residues, Eshet-Kessler says that the colors are more stable and “show advantageous performance”.

The technology used by Phytolon was initially developed at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot by Prof. Asaph Aharoni and Dr. Guy Polturak. They sought to better understand the ways in which plants produced their betalain pigments, something that had previously not been well studied. 

Aharoni and his team at the Weizmann Institute’s Plant and Environmental Sciences Department successfully mapped the specific genes that control the linked series of chemical reactions that lead to betalain being produced. 

By discovering this, they were able to identify the mechanism needed to produce the betalain pigment, explains Eshet-Kessler.

In 2018, the technology transfer arm of the Weizmann Institute – Yeda Research and Development – signed a licensing agreement with investment company Trendlines Group to give Phytolon exclusive rights to the technology.

Since its creation, Phytolon, which is based in the northern city of Yokneam Illit, has raised around $21 million in investment from investors, including Boston-based Ginkgo Bioworks and Israel’s Trendlines Group. 

The startup has already used its natural colorants in projects with several large US-based food companies and believes its pigment process will receive US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval by next year. 

“The compatibility with different food applications makes our solution quite broad,” Eshet-Kessler explains. 

She says Phytolon’s biggest competitors are the synthetic and natural food coloring companies that already exist on the market. But, she says, many food conglomerates trying to create vibrant colors from natural, cost-efficient sources are more likely to simply turn to Phytolon as an easy solution. 

“Using fermentation technology allows us to make everything more friendly to people and to the planet,” says Eshet-Kessler. “We make plant pigments – only we don’t use any plants.”

The post Creating Rainbow Of Natural Food Colors Is Easy As Baking Bread appeared first on NoCamels.

In 2010, 11-year-old Daniel Yuval was badly injured during a family hike in the Golan Heights when he accidentally wandered onto a snow-covered minefield and detonated a landmine. 

This terrible incident, which cost young Daniel his right leg, is unfortunately not an isolated case in Israel. 

Now, scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have teamed up with biotechnology startup Enzymit to test a new, breakthrough method that uses the E. coli bacterium to sense trace amounts of a chemical that leaks out of buried landmines. 

Thousands of fields around Israel have been laden with mines since the 1967 Six-Day War, with little but yellow warning signs and barbed wire to ward off wayfarers, which can be hard to see. 

Efforts to remove these landmines have been painstaking and slow, especially since the most commonly used method today is still the metal detector – which is both dangerous for the person who must manually enter the minefield in order to use it, and inefficient as it raises the alert on any kind of metal, from discarded shrapnel to old soda cans. 

The bacteria, which has been engineered to light up when it detects the presence of dinitrotoluene (DNT), is simply sprayed above a potential minefield. A drone then flies overhead and snaps a photo using a specialized camera that reveals the location of the mines in luminescent colors.  

E. coli – formally known as escherichia coli – is a bacteria found in the intestines of healthy people. And while most forms of the bacterium are harmless or cause mild stomach upsets, some strains can lead to more severe symptoms.  

The E. coli strain used in the process, however, has been engineered to die out shortly after it is dispersed, ensuring that it poses no risk to human health or the environment. 

Sensitive Solution 

The new mine-detecting method has been under development for over a decade at Professor Shimshon Belkin’s Environmental Microbiology and Biosensor Laboratory at the university.

The team was inspired by the natural properties of E. coli – which use specific proteins to detect DNT, a great source of nutrients for bacteria – to create their solution.

The lab recently partnered with the startup, a move that helped to accelerate their landmine solution by creating a protein that makes the E. coli more sensitive to detecting DNT, while also not giving off false positives. 

After the protein was added to the engineered strain of E. coli, it made the solution five times more sensitive to DNT and gave it much faster reaction times when compared to the original engineered strain.

“The problem with many natural proteins is that they’re not optimal for what humans need them to do,” Enzymit CEO Gideon Lapidoth tells NoCamels.

“Millions of years of evolution have optimized this specific protein to be great for what the E. coli needs, but what we needed was for it to be more sensitive, quicker to react and essentially serve a system that could be operational in real-world conditions,” he says.

Enzymit uses computer algorithms to create enzymes (the proteins that create a chemical reaction) with desirable traits. It then generates a new protein sequence that – when inserted into bacteria turns them into “factories” to produce those traits. 

“Think about your standard microphone, which often picks up background noises,” Lapidoth explains. “The ideal mic would only pick up the voice of whoever is speaking at the moment.

“That’s essentially what we did with this specific protein. We optimized the signal-to-noise ratio, so it doesn’t give off false positives when it detects something – it only gives off a signal when it actually detects the molecule of interest.” 

This process, he says, is already being used by alternative protein companies, who inject DNA that encodes for milk proteins into yeast and extract the protein from the yeast to create dairy products without the need for cows. 

Multipurpose Options 

Enzymit and the team at the Belkin lab have already proven the efficacy of the jointly engineered strain. Now, they’re conducting field testing of the entire solution, which involves dispersing the bacteria and verifying that its luminescence always shows up in photographs. They believe that the system will be operational for “non-civilian use” next year. 

Both teams believe that this solution – which is the first of its kind – can have many use cases. They’re already expanding the bacteria’s capabilities to detect chemicals used in other kinds of explosives, such as RDX. 

The solution’s potential, says Lapidoth, may be able to go even further – from detecting gas and oil leaks, to even being used in airport security.

His computational algorithms have been used to produce prebiotics found in breast milk as well as hyaluronic acid, which is used in cosmetics to reduce scarring and wrinkles and help wounds heal faster. 

Lapidoth himself served in the Magan Unit of the Israel Defense Forces, which rescues people stuck in minefields and deals with mines found outside of a designated minefield. 

“I think what’s exciting for me is that this really shows you the applications of synthetic biology that go way beyond pharma or food,” says Lapidoth.

“The fact that we’ve shown that we can actually take this way beyond those applications for stuff that people haven’t thought were possible shows you its enormous potential,” he says. 

The post Using E. coli Bacteria To Detect Landmines From Afar appeared first on NoCamels.

An Israeli company has produced an insulin-based therapy that strengthens the digestive system of babies born prematurely, helping to stop them from developing life-threatening complications.

And for these babies, every day of proper development is crucial. 

Elgan Pharma says that the preemies who were given its unique therapy reached the ability to absorb all the needed nutrition via their digestive tract and have the central line (a catheter inserted through a vein in their chest) removed significantly faster, in an average of 10 days instead of 15.  

Premature babies are generally born with digestive tracts that are too underdeveloped to break down and absorb nutrition on their own. 

These babies are both tube-fed and given a catheter through a vein in their chest or umbilicus, so that nutrients can be delivered directly to their bloodstream. 

But this places the immunocompromised infants at risk of complications, including the life-threatening illness necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). This disease can cause a major inflammation of the intestine, lead to necrosis of the colon and intestine and even leave babies permanently disabled. 

Elgan’s ELGN-GI treatment is administered orally to the preemies while they are still being tube-fed in order to develop their digestive system more quickly and reach a stage where they can absorb nutrients unaided.

“Part of the reason we founded the company was to figure out if there was a way to help preterm infants to transition faster to a normal functioning digestive system and thrive,” Miki Olshansky, founder and CEO of Elgan Pharma, tells NoCamels.

“And this is exactly what our drug does.”

Elgan – an acronym for Extremely Low Gestational Age Neonates (babies born before the 32nd week of pregnancy) –  is now planning to launch its final clinical trial of the therapy at the end of the year, a necessary precursor to receiving regulatory approval from the United States’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA).  

The trial, taking place at more than 30 health centers in Israel, Europe and the US, will include 400 preterm infants born in the 26th-32nd week of pregnancy. A parallel trial will study the impact of the therapy on 60 babies born before completing the 26th week of pregnancy.

Key Ingredient For Life

Insulin is a hormone produced naturally in the pancreas by most people, but it has other important roles such as stimulating a baby’s digestive tract to function after birth.

It is the key ingredient in the company’s medicine for infants. And, according to Elgan, by giving it orally it also aids in the growth and function of the gastrointestinal tract (GI) to compensate for early delivery. 

In fact, says Olshansky, preterm babies are underdeveloped when they are born because they miss out on the insulin normally produced in the GI tract when their mother is in her third trimester of pregnancy. 

And in the first several days following the birth of a baby, a mother’s milk also has plenty of insulin to help her newborn’s GI tract quickly mature. However, in the case of premature babies, it is not enough to help the digestive system develop to the point where a feeding tube is not needed. 

Elgan says its insulin-based medication compensates the baby for the critical GI development it did not receive in utero.

“Our treatment really harnesses nature’s solution for getting the GI to work well and function,” says Olshansky.

“We take insulin, just as it is found in mother’s milk – and we formulate it in a way that it is dissolvable and stable – so that preemies can receive it orally.”

Olshansky says that premature babies cannot simply be given injectable insulin, as these jabs include stabilizers not approved for infants’ oral intake by the FDA. The drug is also incompatible with the nutrition the preemie receives through a feeding tube, due to its acidity. 

Most importantly, currently approved insulins are injectables indicated for the treatment of diabetes and are not approved for any other condition and cannot be administered in any other way.

According to Olshansky, developing the treatment was a challenging task that few other companies worldwide have ever tackled, to the point that Elgan has no natural competitors. 

In fact, she says, the last time a drug was approved for use specifically for neonates was in 1991.

Neonatal intensive care units are extremely stressful, she explains, and any drug developed for premature babies “has to be perfect.”

And, Olshansky says, Elgan’s results speak for themselves. In a clinical trial, highest-risk preemies who ingested this medication were 80 percent less likely to develop necrotizing enterocolitis – a response unseen with any other drug tested, according to the company.

Elgan was founded in 2018, but research on using insulin to promote a preemie’s development dates back over 20 years and was conducted by two members of the company’s advisory board: Prof. Naim Shahadeh of Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa, and Prof. Raanan Shamir of Schneider Children’s Medical Center in Petah Tikva, who first tested their theory on rats. 

After publishing numerous studies proving the efficacy of insulin in animals, they founded the company with Olshansky. 

Elgan took its first steps as part of NGT, then an incubator for early-stage healthtech startups that encouraged Arab and Jewish entrepreneurship and today a VC fund.

The company is based in Nazareth, where it continues to develop its products in the effort of solving prematurity’s highest unmet medical needs. Elgan was most recently awarded a $2.5 million grant by the European Innovation Council (EIC) to support its final clinical trial.

“There’s a lot of hope that this drug will have a huge impact on the outcome of these babies,” says Olshansky. “And we’re proud to be the ones spearheading the field.”

The post Insulin-Based Drug Gives Preemies A Fighting Chance appeared first on NoCamels.

An Israeli startup is helping plants signal potentially fatal stresses by giving them jellyfish protein that lets them light up when their picture is taken. 

This, Plantell says, not only shows when plants are in trouble but can also help to develop agricultural products that are less harmful to crops. 

Crops make up 85 percent of the food we eat, yet the United Nations says around 40 percent of that is lost to stresses like pests, disease and weather-related conditions. And in many cases, farmers only notice that their crops are failing when it’s too late to act. 

Researchers at Oxford University say that even when a farmer does try to take action to tackle the stress, those steps – usually spraying excessive amounts of environmentally unfriendly fertilizer and pesticides – often further exacerbate the problem. 

Plantell believes it has the answer. It develops genetically modified strains of crops to include green-fluorescent protein (GFP), which is found in the jellyfish Aequorea victoria and is responsible for its fluorescence. 

The GFP has been modified to monitor one of the earliest signs of stress in plants: the release of free radicals, unstable atoms that naturally form during chemical reactions in animals and in plants and cause cell damage, disease and aging. 

Plants release an overabundance of free radicals when they are stressed, and the GFP reacts to them by undergoing a fluorescent change, illuminating the affected parts of the crop in colors that are not visible to the naked eye.

“This technology will help us to create a new generation of biochemical products that will reduce stress in plants, and increase their productivity,” Matanel Hipsch, CEO and co-founder of Plantell, tells NoCamels. 

Test Center 

In its lab in the central Israeli city of Rehovot, Plantell uses highly sophisticated cameras that are sensitive to fluorescence to screen the crops for signs of stress. 

The plant’s picture reveals in less than a minute whether it is indeed stressed and what the causes are, depending on the distribution of light and its intensity in the image. 

The startup uses its technology to fine-tune the biochemical products (fertilizers, pesticides, and other plant products whose ingredients are of natural origin) developed by agro-chemical companies. 

“Farmers right now are buying biochemicals for their crops, but in many cases they are using too much at inappropriate times,” Hipsch says. 

“With our technology, we can fine-tune how much they use it, when and for what to use it, and how long they should wait between each application.” 

Plantell has already used its fluorescent imaging capabilities in a six-month pilot with the Haifa Group, a global supplier of specialty fertilizers based in the north of Israel. This, Hipsch said, led to the discovery that a Haifa Group product actually helped crops become more resistant to external stressors. 

Hipsch says Plantell can screen thousands of different chemical compounds that can be or are already in use for biochemicals by testing them on their GM crop strains. 

“This means that we can assess ingredients that can be used in new biochemicals, validate them, and create these products with agro-chemical companies,” he explains.

The startup receives royalties on the biochemicals made using its technology.

Lighting The Way

Since their discovery in the 1960s, GFPs have been used by researchers to monitor the movement of viruses, artificially introduced genes and proteins within plant cells. 

Hipsch says that Plantell is specifically using the protein to help other agricultural firms estimate the stress in plants and develop and improve their products, and not for purely research purposes. 

There are a handful of Israeli companies using various methods to monitor and protect crops, such as CropX, whose advanced sensors gather data from the soil, and Evogene, which uses biotechnology to create pest-resistance.

Hipsch, however, says that the Plantell solution is more sensitive to stress than these other solutions and can differentiate between different kinds of external stressors.

Plantell’s technology began as research by Dr. Shilo Rosenwasser of the Department of Plant Sciences at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. 

He, Dr. Nardy Lampl and Hipsch worked to further develop the technology and Plantell was born.

The startup is now based out of the Hebrew University’s satellite Agricultural Faculty in Rehovot.

Plantell has raised capital from its pilot with the Haifa Group, as well as from the ASPER-HUJI Innovate, the Hebrew University’s center for innovation and entrepreneurship.

The startup was also a finalist at this year’s MassChallenge Israel core accelerator program, a four-month intensive course that helps entrepreneurs advance their nascent companies.

Hipsch sees his fledgling company as integral to feeding the world as its population continues to grow. 

“By 2050, there will be more than 10 billion people worldwide,” he says. “We need to keep up and cope with this growing population – and what we grow in our agricultural fields must keep up, too.”

The post Jellyfish Protein Lets Stressed Plants Light A Fluorescent Alarm appeared first on NoCamels.

An Israeli startup is working on an injection that could both prevent and treat acute radiation poisoning at nuclear disaster sites, using stem cells from placenta donated by women after giving birth. 

Israeli biopharma company Pluri, which is developing the jab, says it could potentially be administered to first responders following a nuclear meltdown, mitigating the deadly effects of radiation exposure even before they arrive at the site. 

Exposure to high levels of radiation can harm a person’s ability to produce red and white blood cells and platelets – the key ingredients for the body to heal itself – and impair organ function.

The stem cells that form the basis of the Pluri injection, however, boost the production of white and red blood cells and platelets, creating an optimum environment for recovery from the radiation exposure. 

“Once the cells are injected into the muscle, they start to sense the environment, and respond by providing the body with the building blocks it needs in order to recover,” Yaky Yanay, CEO and president of Pluri, tells NoCamels.

Initial studies of the injection found that animals exposed to radiation and then given the jab were over three times more likely to survive than the animals who did not receive the treatment after exposure. 

Furthermore, animals dosed prior to radiation exposure were 18 times more likely to survive, the researchers found. 

Each vial created by Pluri can contain up to 100 million stem cells. According to the company, all the physician needs to do is inject them into the patient. 

Miracle Cells

Stem cells have unique properties that make them ideal for use in medical treatments. Not only do they have the ability to change form and function (known as cellular differentiation), they can also inhibit tumor growth, enhance or suppress the performance of the immune system (known as immunomodulation) and repair damaged tissue.

Pluri’s treatment is created by placing the stem cells inside bioreactors – tanks that provide an ideal environment for them to proliferate and that can grow up to 40 billion cells at a time. 

The cells are “fed” a liquid rich in glucose, amino acids and other substances in order to remain healthy.

Pluri also promotes cell proliferation by imitating the most suitable environment for placenta cells: the human body. They do this by tweaking factors in the bioreactor such as temperature, pH and the combination of gases present. 

“The idea behind our technology was to build a system that mimics the human body – the most complicated, amazing control system – because we believe that it is the ideal way to grow cells,” says Yanay. 

“What we learned is that these systems are extremely efficient for cell growth. It’s actually so efficient that from a single placenta, we can get enough cells to treat more than 20,000 patients.” 

The placentas are only donated by women who experience full-term delivery. Yanay calls this a “very straightforward process,” which has already been approved by the US Food & Drug Administration, the European Medicines Agency and the Pharmaceutical Division of Israel’s Ministry of Health. 

Stem cells found in placenta have been shown to improve the quality of life for patients with spinal cord injuries or multiple sclerosis, among other disorders. 

Pluri is now proving that the cells may have a similar impact on radiation poisoning. 

Radiation harms a cell’s DNA, causing it to prevent reproduction, explains Pluri’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Nitsan Halevy. This means that the body does not create enough red and white blood cells and platelets – among other cells – to remain healthy. 

“This is the acute damage that radiation does,” she says. 

A New Mission 

Pluri has been treating various conditions with its cell treatment since 2001, including muscle regeneration for patients following hip fracture surgery and Graft-Versus-Host Disease – when the immune cells of transplanted tissue attack a patient’s own tissues.

It was only after witnessing the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan that the company thought to apply its technology to radiation poisoning. 

“We saw that nuclear meltdown is something that can happen anywhere,” says Yanay. “That time it was Japan, but Europe is full of very old reactors too.”

After a discussion with a hematologist at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, the team learned that placenta-derived stem cells were suitable for radiation treatment.

At present, there are no other treatments for radiation poisoning that use stem cells taken from a placenta. 

And while the two primary treatments in existence both – like Pluri – encourage the production of white blood cells, the company says its cell-based treatment is unique as it also stimulates the production of platelets and red blood cells.

The Haifa-based firm has signed a three-year, $4.2 million contract with the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to further develop its treatment.

Pluri hopes that the contract will ultimately lead to the purchase of the therapy by the US Strategic National Stockpile – the country’s repository of critical medical supplies – as a countermeasure for radiation exposure.

“Life on Earth begins and ends with cells,” says Yanay. “Our job is to explore and to use the power of this microscopic universe to create products that support the wellbeing of humanity.” 

The post Stem Cells Jab Could Be Key To Defeating Radiation Poisoning appeared first on NoCamels.

Israeli researchers have devised a new way of treating cancerous cells in bone marrow – for the first time taking the therapy directly to the cancer inside the soft, fatty tissue contained within our bones. 

This revolutionary method involves surrounding RNA, a molecule containing instructions for cellular behavior, with targeted lipid nanoparticles that send the treatment straight into the cancerous cells in bone marrow, known as myeloma.

Once inside those cells, the RNA molecules act to inhibit the growth of a certain protein, thereby effectively killing the cancer cells by preventing them from dividing.  

This is the same method of drug delivery as used in the COVID vaccines developed by pharma giants Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. In the case of the vaccines, the RNA recreated the spike proteins on the outside of the coronavirus in order to teach the immune system to produce antibodies to fight them. 

The development is the work of scientists at Tel Aviv University, led by Prof. Dan Peer, the head of the Nanomedicine Laboratory at the Shmunis School of Biomedicine and Cancer Research and TAU’s vice president of R&D, with PhD student Dana Tarab-Ravski. 

The researchers collaborated with counterparts at Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva, one of the largest medical institutions in Israel. The results were published in the Advanced Science journal. 

From COVID To Cancer

Peer tells NoCamels that the lipid nanoparticles act as a “GPS system” for the drugs to target myeloma. 

“We take exactly the same concept as the mRNA [a form of RNA] vaccines,” he says. “On the surface of those particles, we put the GPS system that when you inject it into the bloodstream directs it into the bone marrow. And within the bone marrow, we are going after myeloma cells.” 

Billions of new blood cells are created in our bone marrow every day, including red blood cells, platelets and white blood cells. Myeloma is cancer of plasma cells – the type of white blood cells that make antibodies to fight infection. 

Myelomas in bone marrow overwhelm the other cells there, and because they are closely connected to the blood that circulates throughout the body, can easily spread. 

“People with multiple myeloma suffer from severe pain in their bones, as well as anemia, kidney failure, and a weakened immune system,” said Tarab-Ravski. 

According to Peer, the new treatment destroyed 90 percent of myeloma cells in the lab and 60 percent of the cells in human tissue.

“The efficiency by which our system goes to the bone marrow, specifically to myeloma cells is very high. And before that, without this kind of a smart GPS system, maybe one percent would go to the bone marrow,” he says.

Ordinarily, Peer explains, when particles are injected systemically into the bloodstream, they end up in the liver, whose job is to clean the body’s blood.   

“What we wanted was to endow those lipid nanoparticles – with their RNA drug inside – with the ability to target the myeloma cells inside the bone marrow. This is the whole new thing,” Peer says. 

The targeted delivery system works by equipping the lipid nanoparticles with “a very selective marker” for the myeloma cells in the bone marrow, he explains. 

This involves engineering antibodies to place on the surface of the lipid nanoparticles that will attract them to the unique receptors on the surface of the myeloma cells. While healthy cells in the bone marrow also have these receptors, they are thousands of times more numerous on the myeloma cells. 

As such, the nanoparticles are drawn to the cancer cells and not the healthy cells around them.

“It’s very simple mathematics,” Peer says. 

Future Potential

The premise of the treatment was already being studied when the coronavirus pandemic hit in early 2020, but the rush for a COVID vaccine boosted the work “dramatically,” according to Peer. 

“A lot of money was pushed into the development,” he says. “People saw the engineering challenge here, to put together mRNA and lipids in a controlled manner.”  

In fact, he says, “COVID teaches us that it’s doable.” 

The therapy is still in pre-clinical trials and for now is planned exclusively as a blood cancer treatment, but Peer says that it could theoretically be used to treat forms of metastatic cancers that spread through the bloodstream. 

He warns, however, that penetrating solid tumors that appear in the organs is extremely difficult. Bone marrow is soft tissue, which makes it easier for the drug to reach the cancerous cells. 

Peer also says that the treatment could one day be used to create vaccines for cancers. 

“Unfortunately,” he says, “we are still not there.”

The post ‘GPS For Drugs’ Delivers Treatment Direct To Bone Marrow Cancer appeared first on NoCamels.

An Israeli startup is developing a new protein-based cancer treatment that it says has the potential to address one of the most important oncology targets. ExoProTher says its therapy solely affects the mutated cells that form tumors, and, unlike other treatments, does not affect healthy cells.  

Now being tested in the preclinical stage, the drug uses the p53 protein, which suppresses tumors. The p53 molecules bind to damaged DNA and tell cells with irreparable DNA damage to go into apoptosis (cell death). This prevents cells with damaged DNA from grouping together and forming tumors. 

Israeli scientists Lana Volokh and Alex Tendler co-founded the startup (whose name derives from EXOsome PROtein THERapy) in 2017, to develop a drug using protein from chicken cells. 

They say there are no apparent side effects from the treatment and claim it could even replace chemotherapy, which is one of the most common cancer therapies. More than half of oncology patients worldwide were treated with chemo in 2018. 

Chemotherapy targets cancer cells to stop them from reproducing but healthy cells are also damaged during the process as the drugs cannot distinguish between them. This causes multiple negative side effects such as hair loss, intense nausea, anemia, and damage to memory and concentration. 

Tumor Terminator 

P53 was first discovered in 1979 when scientists noticed the protein sticking to infected cells and signaling antibodies to fight infection. In 1989, the gene that produces the protein was determined to be a tumor suppressant. 

Dr. Tendler claims nobody has succeeded in developing a therapy based on the p53 protein delivery until now. 

“Twenty years ago, it was discovered that when the healthy protein interacts with the p53 mutated cells, the mutated proteins prevent the healthy ones from working,” he tells NoCamels.

“We solve the biggest problem by the usage of protein from other species. We use the protein from chicken cells, which is proven to be able to perform its function in human cells, but not to the point where the mutated human proteins can prevent it from working,” he said. 

“We solved this problem by usage of xenogeneic protein (protein originating from other, non-human, species). We use the protein of chicken origin. We successfully demonstrated that chicken p53 protein is able to perform its anti-cancer function in human cells while it is not inhibited by mutated p53 protein.”

Dr. Volokh says nobody has previously considered using chicken protein. 

 “Our approach is distinct from all of the current companies in the active substance, how we deliver the protein, and how the whole product is going to look,” she says. 

“Chicken protein is similar enough to function in human cells but not to the point where the mutated protein molecules can prevent them from working,” Dr. Tendler explains. 

The two scientists decided to explore p53 protein as cancer treatment when they realized that even though the cornea (the outer layer of the eye) is continually exposed to UV radiation from the sun, it is extremely rare to see that part of the body stricken with cancer. 

“It turns out that there is a huge amount of p53 protein in the cornea, already packed in the nanovesicles released by corneal cells,” says Dr. Tendler. 

Nanovesicles are tiny sacs particles that transport materials in and out of cells. 

“Those vesicles are released by corneal cells into extracellular spaces, and circulate throughout the cornea. Those vesicles can even be found in tears. When there is a mutated p53 cell, it instantly gets healthy protein from the neighboring cells.  So this is a local defense mechanism against cancer.”

In fact, says Dr. Tendler, 60 percent of cancers are associated with mutation of the gene encoding the p53 protein. 

By delivering p53 proteins through extracellular vesicles, the healthy proteins can drive the mutated cells into apoptosis and restore the body’s natural defense mechanisms against cancer.

Based in Haifa, ExoProTher is currently funded by Israeli investing giants Israel Biotech Fund and Peregrine Ventures. 

In their preclinical trials, Drs. Tendler and Volokh say they were able to significantly prolong the lives of mice with tumors and substantially reduce metastasis (the spread of cancer cells throughout the body). They were also able to show that the drug has no toxic side effects. 

Furthermore, they say, their drug will be suitable for a range of cancers. 

“We have screened a lot of different cancers,” says Dr. Tendler. “We see the ability to affect and potential to cure very different cancers. Colon cancer, brain cancer, lung cancer, ovarian cancer.” 

Cost Effective

Dr. Volokh also believes ExoProTher’s protein therapy can drastically reduce the cost of cancer treatment, highlighting the price of therapies that are tailored to the patient’s own individual genetic makeup. 

“There are many therapies today where blood is derived from the patient and the doctors engineer the drug substance to match that particular profile of that patient, which means that the drug is not applicable to anyone else,” she says. 

“That’s what makes certain therapies so expensive. But in our case, the drug will be an off-the-shelf product ready for administration, applicable to almost every type of cancer where p53 function is affected. This fact will allow large-scale manufacturing of our substance and make the therapy affordable.  The vesicles can be administered through standard injection and also through inhalation.”

A 2019 study by the Mesothelioma Center found that over 60 percent of cancer patients in the US reported financial struggles following their diagnosis. In fact, the American Association for Cancer Research says that the annual cost of cancer care in the US will likely reach around $246 billion by 2030, a 34 percent rise since 2015.

Tendler and Volokh say their protein therapy could initially be used alongside other treatments, including chemotherapy, and eventually even replace them. 

“We expect synergy between chemotherapy and our treatment,” Dr. Tendler says. 

“Our drug will be able to sensitize the tumors to chemotherapy and reduce the amount of chemo drugs that the patients will need, thus reducing chemotherapy’s side effects. This will probably be the first step before it becomes a standalone drug.” 

Dr. Volokh says their goals for the rest of 2023 are to continue lab trials and ensure higher yield and reproducibility rates for the drug substance, which are important for mass manufacturing. 

“Actually, Israel has a very strong leadership position in all that is about the p53 protein. Israel has a very rich history of discovery and characterization of p53-related mechanisms. Our ambition is to develop a p53 targeting drug here in Israel and make p53 an actionable clinical target. That’s our vision,” says Dr. Tendler. 

“There is not a single drug yet like this. It has the potential to make a huge impact.”

The post New Protein-Based Cancer Drug Does Not Affect Healthy Cells appeared first on NoCamels.

Israeli scientists have developed a new drug to treat Alzheimer’s disease following a recent discovery about how people lose their memories. 

The creators of the drug, which is currently undergoing preclinical trials, say it could potentially be life-changing for people living with Alzheimer’s. 

The disease – the most common type of dementia, which affected up to 40 million sufferers worldwide in 2023- is known to have no cure. Furthermore, there are still no agreed-upon causes of the disease, even though it was first diagnosed in 1906.

The ailment breaks down the neural synapses – the channels through which neurons (nerve cells that send messages to the whole body) communicate in the brain. This atrophies key areas of the brain and ultimately causes a significant loss of brain functionality.   

The new drug from Herzliya-based startup MemoryPlus blocks two proteins in the brain from interacting and causing the breakdown of neural synapses, something which exacerbates memory loss. 

The development came after the researchers discovered high levels of PTEN, one of the two proteins, in the brains of late Alzheimer’s sufferers. 

A different protein, amyloid beta, is believed to be one the primary causes of Alzheimer’s, as it causes what is called amyloid plaque to build up in the brains of people with the disease. The plaque forms in the spaces between the nerve cells, which disrupts cell function in memory – and most treatments for Alzheimer’s focus on this plaque. 

MemoryPlus, however, focuses on disrupting the interaction between PTEN and another protein called PSD-95. 

The company was founded in 2018 by Dr. Shira Knafo of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; Prof. Gal Ifergane, director of the neurology department at Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva; and Ben-Gurion University business school alum Ehud Netta. 

Two years earlier, Knafo’s Molecular Cognition Lab discovered that as well as causing cancer when it mutates, the PTEN protein also impairs brain functioning both when there is a surplus of it and when it interacts with PSD-95 in the synapses. 

“Until now, the PTEN protein was only known in relation to cancer. We found out it’s also doing something unrelated. It’s doing something to the brain function and plasticity and learning and memory,” says Knafo.

Knafo’s lab had examined the postmortem brains of people who had had Alzheimer’s disease and found high levels of the PTEN protein in the neural synapses. 

“When there’s too much of the PTEN protein, it becomes toxic to the synapses. What we saw is that in Alzheimer’s disease, the [surplus] PTEN protein enters the synapses and causes them to be much weaker. When they become weak, they can’t pass information that well, and then you see loss of brain function and memory because the synapses are considered to be the place of information storage.”

Furthermore, PTEN often interacts in the synapse with PSD-95, which is a scaffolding protein that helps relay information between the cell membrane and nucleus more quickly. 

Both proteins are important when functioning independently, but when they interact with each other, they can cause synaptic depression that leads to more memory loss. 

Knafo’s lab developed a peptide (the building blocks of proteins) that would interact with PSD-95 and thereby prevent PTEN from doing so. 

The peptide not only blocks the harmful interaction between PTEN and PSD-95, Knafo says, but it can also prevent the toxic buildup of PTEN and preserve the neural synapses and cognitive function. 

Drugs (such as memantine and cholinesterase inhibitors) are given to Alzheimer’s patients to boost messenger chemicals in the brain crucial to memory and learning, which helps reduce symptoms of the disease. However, Knafo says that unlike MemoryPlus’ treatment, these drugs cannot prevent the destruction of further nerve cells.  

Major pharma companies such as US-based Biogen and Eli Lilly are also developing new drugs for Alzheimer’s, but these treatments target amyloid beta and Knafo does not see them as competitors.

“It’s true that they got rid of amyloid beta, but they didn’t improve memory,” she says. 

“We are working on completely different aspects of Alzheimer’s. Amyloid beta can stay in the brain as long as we can bypass it. We are working on the synapses.” 

The peptide is administered orally and is currently undergoing preclinical trials in the UK, China, Hong Kong, and Israel. 

Knafo explains that peptides have the advantage of being able to target very specific proteins, which means that they tend to have less side effects. However, she says that peptides can be less stable and more easily degraded by enzymes in the blood.

The company is also looking at small molecules as a new way of delivering the treatment, after screening thousands of synthetic small molecules in a five-year long study with the University of Hong Kong. 

“Small molecules can enter the brain more easily, but they may have some side effects. We currently have five different synthetic small molecules that do the same thing as a peptide. Once we test them and find the right one, we will take it all the way to clinical testing.”

Both the peptide and small molecules would work in the same way, by binding to PSD-95. This would prevent PTEN from binding to it and damaging the neural synapses as a result.

“We’re not trying to cure Alzheimer’s yet, but improve the symptoms,” says Knafo. 

The post Protein-Busting Drug Could be New Era For Alzheimer’s Therapy appeared first on NoCamels.

An Israeli researcher has patented a way of using a patient’s tears to diagnose Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s – the two most common neurodegenerative diseases in the world – in their pre-symptom stages. 

Neither Alzheimer’s (up to 40 million sufferers worldwide in 2023) nor Parkinson’s (8.5 million sufferers worldwide in 2019) has a specific method of diagnosis or a real cure. 

Early detection is crucial for both diseases, however, as treatments to slow the progression of both are more successful the sooner they are administered. 

Current diagnosis for both diseases relies on a review of a patient’s medical history, neurological and physical examinations, cognitive and functional assessments and brain imaging. 

Aviv Mesika, a graduate student at Bar-Ilan University’s Faculty of Medicine, says his LacriScan diagnosis test uses tears, which are both easily accessible and intrinsically linked to the central nervous system.  

Because of these two factors, “we can identify a component in the tears that reflects processes in the brain, and in the early stages before the patient with Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s develops clinical symptoms,” Mesika tells NoCamels.

While there is currently no cure for the diseases, swift detection can allow for more effective management of them, he says. And by improving the treatment, so too can they improve the quality of life of the patient and the family. 

“Therapy in late stages is ineffective,” he says. 

The diagnostic process itself is based on the commonly used Schirmer Test that monitors tear production, which involves inserting a paper strip inside the lower eyelid to gather the fluid. 

Once collected, the tears undergo Mesika’s patented analysis, looking for biochemical markers (hallmarks) of the two diseases. The two ailments, he explains, “have a shared identity.”

This shared identity can also manifest in similar symptoms, such as cognitive decline (although this is more commonly associated with Alzheimer’s), reduced coordination, sleep disruption, memory loss and psychotic indicators like delusions, paranoia, and hallucinations. 

Practical Pathology

Mesika was already working with the use of tears as a diagnosis tool during his research into a rare genetic disorder called NGLY1 deficiency, which has less than 100 cases worldwide, but five instances in the same family in northern Israel. And one of the symptoms of NGLY1 deficiency is alacrima, or abnormal tear production. 

At this point, he says, he was inspired to develop the same method of gathering tears to test for neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, given the close connection between tears and brain functioning. Mesika’s innovative diagnostic process was developed under the supervision of Prof. Tzipora Falik-Zaccai and Dr. Golan Nadav of Bar-Ilan University.

While similar tests for neurological diseases using tears have already been developed, Mesika says that his method differs in two ways: a more sensitive test response and analysis that looks for multiple brain chemical markers of the two diseases. 

Mesika was one of a handful of outstanding medical students to be selected for the 2023 National BioInnovators scholarship run by Israeli pharma giant Teva. The program, which includes a $10,000 grant and mentoring from industry leaders, was this year awarded to doctoral students and post-doctoral trainees whose research focused on brain disorders. 

The objective of the program, which began in 2020, is to teach its participants to transform their ideas into viable, innovative businesses that solve a medical issue. Mesika’s test has already landed him a spot among the final 10 candidates in the students’ R&D competition and he hopes to claim first place. 

The test is still very much in the initial stages of development, and Mesika says there are still some outstanding questions that he must answer, such as how early in the development of the disease the test can successfully diagnose patients. Clinical trials, he says, will be carried out in collaboration with medical centers in Israel.  

Mesika envisions his test as becoming a commonly used weapon in the arsenal to battle both Alzheimer’s and Parkison’s. 

“The idea is to develop a non-invasive screening test for early identification of a predisposition,” he says. “It could be like the screening test for breast cancer or colorectal cancer.”

The post Tracking Your Tears In Early Test For Alzheimer’s And Parkinson’s appeared first on NoCamels.

An Israeli engineer who underwent repeat cancer treatments has created a handheld scanner to track miniscule traces of cancer cells in real time during surgery, aiming to eradicate the need for multiple invasive procedures.  

Several years ago, Dov Cohen, a senior engineer at Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), had to undergo complicated surgery to remove a cancerous tumor. 

But just one week after an arduous procedure, he was informed that the cancer was still in his body. 

Due to the difficult nature of his first procedure, Cohen elected not to have another round of surgical intervention. 

“I was lucky to survive the first operation, which was very complicated, and I wasn’t going to take another chance,” he tells NoCamels.

Many cancer patients must go through repeat treatment to remove tumor cells that had been missed during prior surgical intervention. Approximately 50 percent of patients with bladder cancer, for example, develop recurrence after cystectomy, and up to 46 percent of pancreatic cancer patients who undergo surgery develop a recurrence.  

Cohen opted for aggressive radiation therapy instead, and decided to seek a solution to improve the success rate for tumor removals for cancer patients worldwide.

And in 2019, he co-founded the startup NuTek and began developing the Rainbow Probe, a handheld scanner that surgeons will be able to use to determine in real time whether there are any remaining cancerous tissues still in a person’s body, once they have surgically removed the tumor and while the patient is still on the operating table.

The probe uses hyperspectral imaging technology, which casts light on the body part that is being operated on. Cohen explains that because different tissue reacts differently to light, analyzing the reflected light will reveal the remains of tumors. 

NuTek says its innovation lies in its ability to miniaturize the tech used for hyperspectral imaging, and put it all in the handheld device that the surgeon can use during procedures. 

Hyperspectral imaging is already used in many applications, from agriculture (to detect foreign bodies in grain) to surveillance (to produce very high resolution imagery). 

The technology has been tested in the medical field in recent years. However this requires the use of equipment, which, while becoming more compact, is still cumbersome. 

A single scan using Rainbow Probe takes 10 to 20 seconds, and surgeons will be able to repeatedly scan the body part to build an overlapping, high-resolution photo that can be wirelessly transmitted to a screen for viewing. 

With a push of a button, the scanner will mark up the image, highlighting any cancerous tissue in red. Furthermore, the scanner head will also place dots of ink on tissue inside the body that it determines to be cancerous, helping surgeons to remove every trace of the disease. 

NuTek is this month testing its technology in a pre-clinical trial in Austria, where the company has partnered with the Medical University of Graz. Doctors there are using it on dozens of breast cancer patients to ensure that no cancerous tissue remains after surgical removal of the tumor.

Cohen expects the Rainbow Probe to be commercially available within the next three years. It will first be used in breast cancer surgeries, he says, and later expanded for use in surgeries to remove brain, liver and pancreas tumors. 

The scanning head of the device will also be able to aid in other kinds of surgical procedures in the future, and according to Cohen even be attached to endoscopic (procedure that allows a doctor to view the inside of a person’s body) and laparoscopic (abdominal surgery that does not require large incisions) instruments.

Real Time Advantage 

When a tumor is surgically removed, the surgeon also removes some extra tissue around the tumor (known as margins), which is sent for examination by the pathologist to ensure it doesn’t contain tumor cells. If the margins do test positive for cancer cells, follow-up surgery may be needed. But, says Cohen, it is difficult to pinpoint the precise location on the body where the cancerous cells in the margins came from. 

There is currently no standardized way of being able to tell in real time whether any tumor cells are left following surgery and lab testing of the margins remains common practice. 

Technologies are currently being developed to address this issue, although Cohen says that none scan the patient’s body in real time during surgery and only scan the removed tissue and margins. 

These companies include MarginProbe (developed in Israel by Dune Medical Devices and acquired by Virginia-based Dilon Technologies) and ForeSee by Chicago-headquartered Diagnostic Photonics. Both analyze the margins of a removed tumor to determine whether additional tissue should be removed, and both have FDA approval. 

Cohen says that unlike his competitors’ devices, the Rainbow Probe scans the area in the patient’s body in real time during surgery – not just the tissue that has already been removed – and guides the surgeon with its tiny ink dots.

“It’s like Mobileye or Waze for the surgeon: it gives him the full picture in real time,” he says. 

NuTek has received over $2 million in grants from the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG), a national funding agency for industrial research and development, as well as over $50,000 from the European Space Agency business incubator center. 

In December 2020, the company won first place in the Merage 45+ Entrepreneur Competition, an annual competition that helps Israeli entrepreneurs above the age of 45 (and women of all ages) gain the exposure, recognition and funding that they need. It was chosen from 400 competing startups to receive a $100,000 grant by the Merage Institute, a foundation that strengthens the economic growth between Israel and the US through innovative initiatives. 

NuTek’s team includes CTO Ofer Braun, former director of space hyperspectral imaging at Israeli defense firm Elbit Systems, and Medical Director Prof. Hanoch Kashtan, director of surgery at the Assuta Medical Center, Israel’s biggest private hospital chain. 

“From space, we can see ants on the ground,” says Cohen. “How come a surgeon, who is centimeters from my body, cannot see the remaining cancer tissue?”

The post Scanner Hunts Tiny Cancerous Cells In Real Time During Surgery appeared first on NoCamels.

For many millions of people living with conditions like diabetes that affect blood flow, a minor cut or a scratch can have grave medical consequences. 

People with these conditions struggle with wounds that heal easily in others, leaving them vulnerable to serious infection that in some cases can be fatal. 

Now an Israeli startup has created a “bandage” made from your own blood to heal these potentially life-threatening wounds that the body cannot fix by itself.

The solution devised by MedTech company RedDress stimulates the healing process, all by using your own blood to make a clot outside the body.  

People with diabetes, a condition that the World Health Organization says affects more than 400 million across the globe, can experience poor blood circulation, meaning that the body’s blood cannot deliver the nutrients needed for cell regrowth in wounded areas.  

Blood clots are the first line of defense when our bodies suffer a wound or trauma that causes bleeding due to a breach of a blood vessel. Clots are a gel-like substance formed by coagulating blood that stems the bleeding, which is why you do not suffer massive blood loss after a minor injury like cutting your finger with a knife. 

Clots also have other jobs. The second one is releasing hormones to tell the body that there has been an injury that needs healing. The body knows that in order to heal the wound, it needs to send in white blood cells to regenerate the blood vessels.

The third job is to provide a kind of “scaffold” to support the healing process carried out by the nutrients as they regenerate damaged cells. 

But when your blood flow is restricted by disease, creating a clot and sending those white blood cells and other nutrients to the site of the wound can be problematic. 

‘Tricking’ The Body Into Healing

The “ActiGraft” treatment takes a very small amount of your blood to create an external blood clot using a patented method, RedDress CEO Alon Kushnir explains. The process requires about 20ml of blood, compared to the 500ml that is an average blood donation.

The clot is created inside a small, transparent case by mixing the blood and RedDress’ unique formula. After several minutes, the mixture forms into the clot and can be removed from the case.

The newly created clot is then applied directly onto or into the non-healing wounds, stimulating the growth of cells that are needed for repair. 

“We take the blood clot and we transplant it back to the patient’s body. When we do that, we trick the body into thinking there is a bleeding wound. And the body restarts the healing process and starts to heal the wounds that it didn’t heal before,” Kushnir tells NoCamels. 

Kushnir cites the example of a woman whose diabetes had caused such severe ulcers that left her wheelchair-bound. The RedDress treatment, he says, healed her wounds. 

“Literally, we fixed her foot, and she could walk again after three years,” he says. 

The treatment is also suitable for non-healing wounds such as pressure sores, an issue that affects people who are bedridden or suffer mobility problems. They are caused when constant pressure on a body part stops the blood flow to an area of skin and the cells die off. 

It is also suitable for anal fistulas caused by ailments such as Crohn’s Disease, when an unhealed ulcer creates a channel that runs from the intestine through the surface of the skin close to the anus.  

“We take the blood, we mix it and then inject the blood into the fistula. We fill it up, and heal it,” Kushnir says. 

The company was founded in 2009 by Kushnir’s father Igal, a physician who invented the external blood clot process. Both father and son have extensive experience in the MedTech sector. 

“My father initially had an idea on how to protect burn victims. We took the idea and we developed it and we started working on it in the lab. We found that it’s very powerful for different applications, and we never looked back,” Kushnir explains.

The treatment is used in more than 30 countries around the world, including Brazil, Turkey and France. 

In Israel, it is used by the country’s largest health maintenance organization, Clalit, which provides care to more than half of the population. Israel has a strong MedTech sector, and in 2022 was ranked sixth in the World Index of Healthcare Innovation, above the US, the UK, Denmark and Belgium.

The company received FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) clearance to treat non-healing wounds like ulcers and fistulas in 2020, and the clot is in use in American hospitals and clinics. 

Now RedDress hopes to expand to treat other kinds of injuries. 

“The technology can be applied all over the human body. It can be applied in bones, in tendons, in cartilage, in nerve cells. Whatever cell has problems regenerating, by using the blood clot, we can force the body to start with regeneration and start healing,” he says. 

These advances, however, are still in the trial stage and are 5 to 10 years away. 

For now, the company is satisfied with its results, helping people who previously believed they could not be helped. Kushnir describes a patient with multiple fistulas who said he could never go to the beach with his kids. 

“After two weeks of treatment, he came for a checkup. And he said: ‘I went to the beach yesterday.’ This is the type of thing that drives us.” 

The post Bandage Made From Your Own Blood Treats Non-Healing Wounds appeared first on NoCamels.

A breakthrough therapy for a rare and potentially fatal form of lung disease treats patients at home with a short, weekly or biweekly session with a nebulizer – a machine that turns liquid medication into an easily inhaled mist. The therapy delivers a new RNA treatment to sufferers for whom standard medication does not work. 

More than 70,000 people worldwide suffer from cystic fibrosis (CF), a genetic condition that creates a potentially deadly buildup of thick mucus in the lungs and other passageways in the body.  

And while drugs are on the market to help alleviate the symptoms of the chronic disease, around 20 percent of CF sufferers have a rare form of the illness that cannot be treated by conventional medicine. 

But Jerusalem-based startup SpliSense says its new treatment can help those patients for whom traditional solutions do not work, using RNA (Ribonucleic Acid) technology to rebalance the proteins in the body that cause the condition. 

“It’s an unmet need for a small patient population and is now in clinical studies,” SpliSense CEO Gili Hart tells NoCamels from the recent BioMed conference in Tel Aviv.

SpliSense also develops treatments for large but still unmet indications that are considered muco-obstructive diseases, such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which cause a buildup of mucus in the body.

Mucus is the first line of defense in the lungs, Hart says, and it protects the organ from pathogens and particles. 

In a healthy body, mucus is made up of almost entirely water, with some two percent being solid proteins. 

“If a patient suffers from muco-obstructive disease, like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or asthma, the mucus is thicker and they are generating much more mucus, because it’s more concentrated, more viscous,” Hart says. 

“This is because the amount of those solid proteins significantly increases to 10 percent. And if you have 10 percent solid mucus it gets stuck, you can’t clear it and you cannot breathe. You have an obstruction. 

“This generates inflammation because bacteria love mucus and this leads to lung function deterioration, and people die from it.”  

SpliSense’s inhaled RNA treatment reduces the levels of those solid proteins by inhibiting their production in the lungs. 

“And by that we restore the balance. Patients can clear the mucus, breathe better and improve their lung function,” she says.  

“We tailor the mechanism based on the disease.”

RNA is found in all living cells in the human body. It is created from DNA in our cells, and then used as the blueprint to make the proteins that the body needs for each and every process it carries out. 

“RNA is really the final stage of generating proteins that are actually the active portion within our body,” Hart says. “Everything in the end is driven by proteins.”

Inside the body, an adapted RNA sequence has three ways of using proteins to treat a disease: by blocking them; by modifying existing mutations within them; or by restoring them to full functioning. The CF treatment uses all three methods. 

“It’s a unique and innovative approach to really try to address diseases using small, very neat RNA sequences,” Hart says. “It’s a different concept.” 

Most recently, RNA technology was used in the development of coronavirus vaccines, making it very popular and validated as a therapy, according to Hart.

Due to the technology’s versatility, ease of large-scale production, safety and potency, it was also used for many years previously in the creation of vaccines for cancer and other diseases.  

“We’re using small sequences of RNA to really control the expression of future proteins,” Hart says. 

“It gets into the different kinds of cells in the target region in the lungs that we are aiming for. It binds specifically to a complementary sequence on the RNA within our body.”

Because of the method through which the medicine is delivered, the treatment is directed at the part of the body that is directly impacted by the disorder.

“We deliver our RNA by inhalation with a nebulizer,” Hart explains. “The advantage of doing that is that it’s really organ specific. So you have the advantage of giving it specifically to the lungs. 

“This means it doesn’t really get anywhere else, so the safety profile of our drugs is very promising, because you don’t expose any other organs to something that they shouldn’t be exposed to. We are only treating the lungs, where the disease comes from.” 

A small proportion of the medication might enter the lymph nodes or be distributed to peripheral parts of the body through the bloodstream, but, Hart clarifies, the levels are so low they are essentially ineffective.

The number of people actually suffering from a rare form of CF is small, making the treatment what Hart calls an orphan – a therapy that is not deemed cost effective by pharmaceutical companies and relies on government or private funding.  

The therapy is currently in stage two trials, meaning it is undergoing testing in a group of several hundred people. But because of this orphan status, SpliSense is eligible to apply for accelerated approval from both the American Food and Drug Agency (FDA) and the European Union’s European Medicines Agency (EMA). 

Among the investors in the technology is the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, the United States-based leader in searching for a cure for the condition. It contributed more than $8 million of the $28.5 million SpliSense raised in its latest funding round. 

“They really believe in our technology,” says Hart.  

The post Taking A Deep Breath To Treat Rare Lung Disease appeared first on NoCamels.

You wouldn’t think it, but a field of flowers can be a pretty noisy place. Not because of the chirping birds or the buzzing bees… but because of the sounds the plants make themselves. 

For the first time ever, Israeli researchers have been able to prove that plants do indeed make noise. They picked up the popcorn-like popping sounds – which are normally beyond the hearing range of the human ear – using ultrasonic microphones. 

This discovery changes our understanding of the natural world, and there is much the researchers from Tel Aviv University have yet to understand. Specifically, who or what is listening to these noises, and why.

And with this discovery, there is the potential to monitor whether a plant is struggling against an unseen pathogen and prevent it from spreading to an entire field, without intrusive action. Farmers may also be able to more effectively water their crops and apply insecticides. 

“Animals communicate all the time, making sounds and responding to sounds, so it would be quite silly and maladaptive for a plant to be completely deaf and mute,” Prof. Lilach Hadany, of the School of Plant Sciences and Food Security, tells NoCamels. 

“Yet this is how plants were perceived for a long time.”

So she started thinking about it theoretically. “I thought perhaps I could find a good reason for plants to be deaf and mute despite the fact that animals are communicating with sounds all the time, but I didn’t find any good explanation,” she says. 

Hadany led the groundbreaking research, together with Prof. Yossi Yovel, Head of the Sagol School of Neuroscience.

The sounds the plants make vary from species to species, and are different in noise and frequency depending on the kind of stress they are under – for example when they are dehydrated, have been cut, or are infected with a virus.

“There are more sounds as dehydration increases, and then it declines,” Hadany explains. “So when a tomato plant is completely dry and miserable [but not dead yet], it doesn’t emit any sounds.”

A cut plant, on the other hand, only emits noises for several hours. And when plants are not stressed, she says, they are very quiet, making less than one sound per hour.

Hadany is not sure how the plants make the noise just yet. The current theory is that it has to do with cavitation, when the tension of water within plant tissues becomes so high that it abruptly turns into gas bubbles and emits an ultrasonic pop. 

The plants emit sounds ranging between 40 and 80 kilohertz – completely out of the human hearing, which is up to 16 kilohertz. 

“Bats make sounds in these ranges all the time, and mice, dogs and cats can partially hear within it,” she says. 

Expensive and sensitive recording equipment was used to capture the sounds for the first time.

The ultrasonic microphones, which could record sounds at frequency between 20-250 kilohertz, were placed at a distance of about 10 cm from each plant.

Until that point, they had and only been used for zoology and never for plant sciences research. According to Hadany, this is because people simply did not consider the possibility that plants could make sounds so never thought to record them. 

The study mainly focused on tomato and tobacco plants, but wheat, corn, cactus, and henbit (a close cousin of purple dead nettles) were also recorded.

Hadany and the other researchers first placed the plants in an acoustic box in a quiet, isolated basement with no background noise and recorded them. 

They then placed the plants in a greenhouse with a great deal of background noise. Some plants had not been watered for five days, some had their stems cut, and others were untouched.

The recordings were then analyzed by specially developed machine learning algorithms, which learned how to distinguish between different species and different types of sounds, and were ultimately able to identify the plant and determine the type and level of stress from the recordings. 

What Hadany now wants to figure out now is who or what is using the information contained within the sounds, and who or what is benefiting from it. 

“One group could be animals, like a moth laying eggs,” she says. “It could choose between a plant emitting sounds and a plant that does not.

“The second [direction of our research] is possibly that plants may be responding to these sounds too, and preparing themselves for stress by using water more efficiently, closing their stomata [pores], and putting up a global defense against pathogens,” she says. 

“But I think there is a wider potential in all this question of bioacoustics because it means that there is another layer of information everywhere – about plants and how it may be affecting plants or other animals. It may be relevant to ecosystem functioning, to conservation, and to understanding when a certain environment is stressed.”

The post Pop! Snap! Groundbreaking Study Proves Plants ‘Talk’ appeared first on NoCamels.

A Canadian drink made headlines in 2018 when it was touted as being able to pack a similar buzz to booze, despite not containing even a single drop of alcohol. 

Users later reported that they indeed felt no desire to consume alcohol after ingesting it, experienced no ill effects, and had no urge to continue using it.

Tens of thousands of bottles were reportedly sold before the country’s health department halted its distribution, because it emerged that it was using a synthetic compound similar to amphetamine. 

That company has since shut down, but the idea of using this specific psychedelic to treat alcoholism was adopted by Israeli biotech firm Clearmind Medicine, which now owns the global patents for the synthetic compound MEAI (5-methoxy-2-aminoindane). 

And, after years of developing the compound to fit pharmaceutical standards, Clearmind just this week got the green light to use its novel drug in clinical trials to treat people with alcohol use disorder.

Participants will take MEAI-based oral capsules once a day for 10 consecutive days, and report their drinking patterns and craving for alcohol during this trial period. 

“We’re very optimistic about the potential of MEAI to be an effective and safe treatment for alcoholism,” says Dr. Adi Zuloff-Shani, CEO of Clearmind Medicine.

“In principle, we are trying to solve addiction problems. It can be anything between drug abuse, alcohol abuse, obesity and more. The first indication we’re pursuing is alcohol use disorder, or alcoholism.”

“We are the only company that is developing this compound. There’s a lot of excitement and noise around psychedelics right now, but most companies are investigating the same compounds, meaning psilocybin and LSD and MDMA, etcetera.”

Zuloff-Shani admits that they don’t fully understand the mechanism that causes a person to feel a buzz while also removing the desire to ingest alcohol. All they know, she says, is that it somehow affects serotonin and dopamine receptors, the hormones that play a role in regulating mood and emotion, as well as other neurotransmitters. 

“You can just enjoy the sociable feeling that you get when you consume alcohol, but without all the adverse events associated with alcohol drinking,” she says.

In experiments using animal models, the treatment demonstrated the same results. The animals that were trained to like alcohol and were treated with the MEAI-based drug saw an immediate and significant reduction in alcohol consumption.

“We still offered them the two bottles. They could choose between water and alcohol, and we saw that in the MEAI group, they immediately did not choose alcohol over water.” With the animals that were not treated with the drug, she says this wasn’t the case. 

“This supports the information received in the human testimonials,” says Zuloff-Shani. 

Psychedelics have been used to treat addictions in the past, but she believes that MEAI is the best among them for two reasons. 

Firstly, most psychedelic treatments are administered alongside psychotherapy, which makes the process complicated, expensive, and inaccessible to many.

“This is because other psychedelics are very potent, they’re hallucinogens, they need to be taken under the specific guidance of a psychiatrist,” she explains.

“MEAI is only considered to be a psychedelic because it gives you the sensation of drinking alcohol.

“We developed it to be something that people could take by themselves in their own privacy, and they won’t need psychotherapy, per se, for receiving the treatment. It will be more affordable.”

Secondly, she says that the treatment is the best one that can be offered to an alcoholic – because it allows you to experience the effects of alcohol while still abstaining from it. 

“You don’t need to stop enjoying this feeling that you get from alcohol. You just don’t need to consume alcohol in order to get this feeling.”

Since 1950, only three treatments for alcoholism have been approved by the FDA. The most recent and most popular one, Vivitrol, is very expensive, and comes in the form of a monthly injection. Expense aside, the main problem is that it only has an efficacy of 30 percent.

“I really, really believe that we can offer something that is much more efficacious, and less expensive than Vivitrol, the treatment that leads the entire market,” says Zuloff-Shani, who has more than 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. 

The trial will take place at Israel’s largest hospital, Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan. Clearmind aims to conduct additional trials in the US in the coming months.

The post Biotech Firm Using Psychedelics To Treat Alcohol Addiction appeared first on NoCamels.

A revolutionary schizophrenia treatment developed in Israel, which makes it easier for adult patients to manage their illness, has been granted approval by the US Food and Drug Administration, clearing the way for it to reach Americans in need as soon as this month. 

Pharmaceutical companies Teva of Israel and Medincell of France have teamed up to produce the Uzedy injection, which allows for the slow and controlled release of the existing drug risperidone using unique new SteadyTeq technology. 

The injection works by containing the medication inside a substance (polymer) that gradually degrades, releasing the drug in increments. 

“Medincell actually came up with the platform itself,” says Eran Harary MD, Senior Vice President of Teva’s Global Clinical Development and the company’s lead on the project. 

“The secret then was to come up with a formulation. It requires a lot of work to come up with the right formulation with those polymers,” he tells NoCamels. 

That work, he says, was done by Teva in Israel and started 10 years ago. The medication is also being produced by the company in Kfar Saba, in central Israel. 

“We use our global teams, but I can tell you that it was orchestrated by the excellent teams in Israel,” Harary explains. “So although we ran it globally in the US, Europe and other places, I think in this specific case, it was really orchestrated from Israel.” 

The injection makes it easier for schizophrenia patients to treat the mental illness without taking medicine on a regular, repeated basis, something that can prove to be a challenge for sufferers whose symptoms can include disruptions to thought patterns and to behavior. 

The long-term, chronic condition can manifest itself in a variety of psychological symptoms, including hallucinations, confused thoughts or speech and disconnection from emotion. Sufferers can also experience acute schizophrenic episodes, during which they cannot differentiate between real and imagined situations. 

“Some people actually term schizophrenia as being the cancer of mental disorders. Schizophrenia affects the way you behave, think, your perception about the world around you,” says Harary, whose professional background is in psychiatry.  

According to Teva, around one percent of the global population will suffer from schizophrenia at some point, with approximately 3.5 million Americans currently diagnosed with the condition.

Around four in five schizophrenia patients have multiple relapses in the early years of treatment, primarily due to difficulties maintaining a regime of oral medication. 

“We have in many cases quite good medications; we have the antipsychotics that can improve the lives of many patients,” Harary says. “But one of the problems with schizophrenia is that you have a treatment non-adherence within a year and a half. There are studies showing that within a year or year and a half, about 70 percent of the patients are not adhering to the full treatment.” 

Aside from the non-adherence causing patients to relapse, he says, the failure to take the medication can actually exacerbate the condition, making the work into a more stable solution all the more urgent. 

“Every time a patient relapses because of not taking the medication, there’s harm to the brain and the long-term prognosis is much worse,” he says. 

“So the need was to come up with something that will enable patients to be treated and covered for a long period without them needing to adhere on a daily basis to medication. And there’s where the long-acting injectable has come into the picture.”

The pre-filled syringe comes in monthly or bimonthly doses, and allows for the medication to reach full efficacy within six to 24 hours of receiving a single dose of the injection. 

“The idea was to come up with an innovative approach, meaning creating a formulation of a very effective drug, but to come up with a subcutaneous injection, like a flu shot, under the skin that can treat the patient and cover the patient in terms of treatment for a month and even two months. And the peak therapeutic level can be reached within a day,” Harary says.  

The injection has completed its Phase 3 clinical trials, during which its one-month dosage was found to massively reduce the risk of a schizophrenia relapse when compared to a placebo.

“We were able to decrease the likelihood of relapses by up to 80 percent. In our studies, that’s huge,” Harary explains. 

He says that the Uzedy slow-release system could potentially be used in other treatments and that research is underway to explore this possibility.  

The jab is expected to be available in the US this month and in other parts of the world soon, pending approval from various health authorities. 

“We’re working on that,” Harary says.

“Uzedy embodies Teva’s commitment to bringing innovative advances to patients and to providing people living with schizophrenia an important new treatment option that was designed to address certain treatment challenges and may decrease the risk of relapse,” said Teva CEO Richard Francis. 

“The approval of the first product formulated with our technology is a pivotal moment for MedinCell and for the many patients who will benefit,” said MedinCell CEO Christophe Douat. “We are committed to supporting patients through innovative therapy options.”

According to the two companies, the medication will go on the market in the US with a monthly wholesale price of $1,232-$3,080, depending on the strength of the dose included. These prices are not expected to be passed onto the American consumer. 

The post Slow-Release Jab Set To Transform Schizophrenia Treatment appeared first on NoCamels.

A 14-year old boy dying from diabetes in a Toronto hospital became the first person in the world to receive an insulin injection in 1922. Within 24 hours, his high blood glucose levels dropped to near-normal levels and he lived to tell the tale.

For the next 60 years, insulin derived from pigs and cattle was used to treat countless millions of diabetics.

But it was imperfect, complex and expensive to produce, and it caused allergic reactions in many patients. Then, in the early 1980s came another breakthrough – synthetic human insulin.

Today insulin, and a plethora of other products like alcohol, antibiotics, vitamins, and citric and lactic acid, are made through fermentation – chemical processes caused by organisms like bacteria, yeasts, and fungi.

But they are still complicated processes, and manufacturers cannot scale up production to meet the demand for all of the food, pharmaceutical, and cleaning products that we use daily.

Israeli startup Enzymit has simplified things. CEO Gideon Lapidoth says his company’s computer algorithms can design “new to nature” enzymes to order.

“Enzymes are the basic elements you need for life,” he says. “Right now, there’s an enzyme in your eye that’s converting light energy into chemical energy, and that’s how your brain sees the world. And when plants photosynthesize, an enzyme takes light energy and turns it into sugar.”

“So really, the possibilities of what you can do with the right proteins are endless. There’s nothing you can’t do with the right protein.

“What we’re saying is, we don’t need the entire bacteria. That’s just a waste of space, a waste of energy, and a waste of resources. All we need are specific enzymes, which are just the molecular machines that actually do the chemistry.”

Enzymes are the proteins that create a chemical reaction. Enzymit tells its algorithm a specific protein sequence that results in an enzymatic process, and inputs the traits it desires – like being extremely heat resistant. The algorithm then generates a new sequence that, when created industrially, will preserve all the functionalities of the original protein.

The algorithm generates enzyme designs on computers and translates it into DNA code. Enzymit works with several companies around the world that literally print the DNA to be used in industrial processes. Beyond that, the startup also employs its algorithms in its own sophisticated machine to create enzymes. 

“It’s almost like ordering something from Amazon. You go on the website, type in your sequence or design, they send you DNA, you put the DNA into bacteria, and the bacteria produces your protein,” explains Lapidoth.

Numerous companies have already used Enzymit. One is a producer of hyaluronic acid, which is used in cosmetics to reduce scarring and wrinkles, and help wounds heal faster.

The substance is traditionally extracted from rooster combs in butcheries – which is expensive to produce. Enzymit was able to create it with its computer program.

Another project it’s working on is developing enzymes to produce prebiotics (food for healthy bacteria) that are normally found in breast milk. 

Many infant formula companies want to introduce these prebiotics into their products, but cannot as they are currently only produced through fermentation and are expensive to manufacture. 

“Infant formula in the next few years will not just be a replacement, but a one-to-one simulacrum (fake version of something real) of human milk,” says Lapidoth.

Enzymit is now developing enzymes that will literally be able to break down plastics in a matter of hours, as part of a consortium headed by the Israeli Innovation Authority.

“We know we can do pretty much everything with enzymes. It sounds like I’m exaggerating, but I’m not. We just didn’t have the right enzymes until now.”

Lapidoth says there was never a need for Mother Nature to evolve enzymes that can degrade plastic, for example, because materials made with such long carbon chains aren’t natural. 

“Nature is very, very efficient. It only builds what is absolutely needed. But the problem is that we don’t have the time to wait for organisms to develop these enzymes naturally.”

And until now, researchers have gone into various ecosystems to try and find proteins to fit what they need. 

“This is an extremely inefficient expedition. A much more desirable way is to just engineer it. Describe what you need, and I’ll build it for you.”

The post Designing The Enzymes That Mother Nature Didn’t appeared first on NoCamels.

There’s a kids’ game in which a line of players whisper a word or a phrase to their neighbor.

It’s called Broken Telephone in the US, or Chinese Whispers in the UK. The winner is the first team to accurately transmit the message all the way along the line.

Plants do the same thing. They have no brain but are still able to pass on messages to each other.

They can, for example, perceive warning cues from neighboring plants that are experiencing a water shortage.

They respond by closing the pores in their leaves and preparing for drought.

Professor Ariel Novoplansky, who has been researching talking plants at Israel’s Ben Gurion University of the Negev, says it shouldn’t come as a surprise.

“Any living creature emits and perceives a lot of information from the environment,” he says.

Put a houseplant in a dark corner and it will in many cases, tilt towards the window. It compares light levels from different directions and actually decides where to find sunshine.

But Prof. Novoplansky says plants do more than simply receiving and responding to what they perceive.

They emit “messages” – chemicals from their roots – that can be sensed by their neighbors, either as a “deliberate” act by the first plant, or an act of “eavesdropping” by the second.

He and his colleagues set up a row of five plants – Augustine grass or stenotaphrum secundatum – in individual pots. Each plant had all but two of its roots removed. 

They were arranged so that each plant had one root in its own pot, and one in its neighbor’s, like a line of children all holding hands. 

They then played the phone/whispers game mentioned earlier. They starved one of the roots of the first plant of water, but carried on watering the others. 

They wanted to see if, somehow, the first plant would convey the drought warning to plant number two (which was still being watered). 

And if plant number two would pass the message on to plant number three (also still being watered) and so on. They did. The first neighbor responded within a few minutes, and the message took less than an hour to reach plant number five.

Every plant along the line got the message and responded by closing their pores.

“The plant is not sensing any drought, but it senses that its neighbor is sensing drought,” says Prof. Novoplansky.

“So, the neighbor is suffering from drought, but the broadcasting of information from the roots of the stressed neighbor is affecting the unstressed neighbor.

“If my neighbor is suffering right now, I just might be suffering from the same drought tomorrow morning.

“A drought-stricken plant is releasing meaningful information. We could later demonstrate that it is a chemical cue which is being exuded from the roots and sensed by the roots of the neighbor.”

He’s almost certain that the plants release a stress hormone through its roots that can be perceived by the neighbors. 

So far, so amazing. But there’s more. Plants don’t just talk. They also remember and plan ahead. They are conditioned by their past, and that affects future decisions. 

It is all part of a general phenomenon called phenotypic plasticity, says Prof. Novoplansky.

That means genetically identical plants can respond in different ways depending on their precise, immediate environment and past experiences.

“To perceive and anticipate the future, you don’t need a brain, all you need is a system that can compare different options and store variable states, which is what plants have,” says Prof. Novoplansky.

They may be simple brainless organisms, but they can still plan ahead, assessing future threats to their supply of sunlight.

Many plants can sense whether they expect to experience light competition with their neighbors long before they actually experience any shade.

They can distinguish between direct sunlight and light that’s been filtered through or reflected from plant canopy.

Based on that information they will decide where they need to grow to seek maximum sunlight.

The plant also recognizes that responding to overwhelming or unbeatable challenges, such as a high man-made building or an extremely tall tree, will be a waste of precious resources and time. 

Equally they don’t expend their efforts on a much smaller rival. They choose their battles, and only take on similar-sized competitors.

“This is a very important logical aspect in evolution by natural selection,” says Prof. Novoplansky.

A plant will only fight for light if it needs to, and if it’s a winnable fight. That decision can be affected by the plant’s evolutionary past and developmental background and history .

If it’s a sun-loving plant, that is evolutionarily accustomed to open habitats, where it is expected to compete for light with similarly-sized neighbors, it will respond very aggressively to the presence of neighbors, long before it is shaded by them.

By contrast, a plant that is used to being shaded by a much taller tree would forego fighting it for light.

A plant’s ability to sense its neighbors can be critically important. That’s one of the topics of Prof. Novoplansky’s current work.

He’s researching the dead-nettle, so named because it looks like a nettle but doesn’t sting.

It has two types of flowers – big, open, attractive and nectar-rewarding expensive flowers that attract pollinator insects.

And tiny, unattractive closed flowers that don’t offer nectar but can self-pollinate. Such “cheap” flowers are good if the plants are growing under poor conditions or when pollinator insects are scarce. 

They can determine the ratio between large open regular flowers and small closed, self-pollinating ones (cheaper, but with the drawbacks of in-breeding).

“Our study shows that dead-nettles can change the proportion of open flowers according to the presence of potential reproductive partners,” says Prof. Novoplansky.

“While opening expensive flowers could be worthwhile when the probability of pollination by pollen from other plants is high, self-pollination would be a sensible frugal option when no reproductive partners are available.”

The post Talking Plants Survive By Playing Kids’ Broken Telephone Game appeared first on NoCamels.

We’ve all pulled a cucumber out of the fridge, only to find it’s shriveled, shrunk and moldy.

In the US alone, households waste over 30 percent of the food they buy – even though most supermarket fruit and veg are either sprayed with a preserving wax or wrapped in clear plastic.

Israeli startup Sufresca has developed a natural alternative to both. It’s a spray that allows the produce to breathe – and can add weeks to its life. 

The spray is designed to replace both the wax coating and plastic wrappers and will cut down both on disposable packaging and on food waste. 

“We develop edible coatings for fruits and vegetables to prolong their shelf life,” says Tal Marmur Sirota, VP of R&D at the company. 

“Our two main aims are to reduce the massive food waste, and reduce the use of plastic, which is currently the most popular solution to preserve fresh fruits and vegetables.”

Sprayed produce can last days longer at room temperature, or several weeks longer in the fridge.

The coating, made of natural ingredients, like water, fatty acids and polysaccharides, is odorless, tasteless, and is less than a micron thin – or a thousandth of a millimeter.

Fruit and vegetables use up their store of nutrients after they’re harvested and lose water through their skin. So they wilt and dry out. 

But Sufresca’s new coating slows down both these processes – whether the produce is being shipped across the world, or sitting on someone’s kitchen counter. 

“Imagine our solution is like a net: the produce still has holes between the molecules that gives it the ability to breathe,” says Efrat Boker Ferri, Co-founder and CEO. “We can adjust the solution for each kind of produce.

“The uniqueness in our solution is that it’s natural. It works with vegetables and fruit, and the results are better than any competitor.”

Every kind of produce needs to be coated with a slightly different mix of the same ingredients, depending on their water content, and their peel or skin, and each fruit and vegetable has its challenges.

“Peppers, for example, don’t have the same water content as a tomato,” says Marmur Sirota, who helped the startup produce its prototype for coating peppers.

So far, the company has developed coatings for cucumber, mango, avocado, tomato, garlic, onion and pomegranate seeds.

The idea for the startup began as a bet. Amos Nussinovitch, Sufresca’s Co-founder and a professor at the Faculty of Agriculture, Food, and Environment at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, was studying edible coatings.

A colleague bet him that he couldn’t preserve peppers – which are 90 percent water, resulting in them shriveling quickly and losing nutrients. After 15 years of research, he finbally proved them wrong. 

Sufresca will soon start selling its sprays for use in packing houses – after the produce has been cleaned and treated with antibacterial materials.

It’s cheaper than the wax currently used, and it’s a like-for-like replacement, which means the packers can apply it using existing machinery.

Unlike rival solutions, such as Apeel’s edible coating, it doesn’t need specialist equipment, and can even be applied by hand.

“Even developing countries that may not have packing houses will be able to apply the coating,” she says.

Produce can arrive under-weight at distributors because it loses moisture during transit, says Marmur Sirota. That can cause problems if, for example, a 10kg crate of peppers arrives at the retailers weighing just 9.5kg.

So if these companies that supply the materials to packing houses can preserve their fruits better, retailers will keep coming back for more of Sufresca’s products.

The solution will likely appeal to European distributors most. Last year, France banned the use of plastic packaging for 30 types of fruits and vegetables. This year, Spain is expected to follow suit.

And given that an average of 70 percent of citizens across 34 countries want to end plastic (according to a poll of more than 23,000 adults), more countries are likely to join them.

The post Natural Spray Adds Weeks To Life Of Fresh Fruit And Veg appeared first on NoCamels.

Professor Raphael Mechoulam, the father of cannabis research, has passed away at the age of 92.

His pioneering work in Israel directly improved the lives of millions of patients across the world who now benefit from the drug’s medicinal properties.

Throughout a long, passionate and distinguished career, he made more contributions to the field of cannabis research than anyone on the planet. He once described it as an addiction from which he did not want to be cured.

In 1963, he and his research partners were the first to reveal the structure of cannabidiol (CBD), a key ingredient in cannabis, and a year later they discovered the structure of THC (delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol), the primary psychoactive component of cannabis.

It is impossible to underestimate his contribution to medical science globally and its understanding of cannabis as an effective treatment.

His groundbreaking work helped shed light on its therapeutic potential, and has paved the way for the modern medical marijuana movement, treating epilepsy, PTSD, chronic pain, cancer and countless other conditions.

He was feted during his lifetime both as counterculture hero and as a highly respected scientist. High Times, the US magazine that advocates the legalization of cannabis, described him simply as “The Man”.

But as Mechoulam told several interviewers he was not a smoker. He was a passionate researcher.

He and his colleagues went on to discover anandamide, sometimes called the “bliss molecule,” in the 1990s. They called it ananda, the Sanskrit word for supreme joy.

“We looked for a Hebrew name,” he told a journalist, “but as you may well be aware, Jews are not very happy. We have a lot of words for being down and so on, but not so many words for extreme joy.”

Prof. Mechoulam kept on researching long after he officially retired from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

As late as 2021, working with a biotechnology company in the US, he discovered a “new” cannabis molecule which could prove powerful enough to replace steroids and opioids.

He was born on November 5, 1930, in Sofia, Bulgaria, and emigrated to Israel with his family in 1949 to escape persecution. His first research was on insecticides, during his time in the Israeli army.

He earned his undergraduate degree in chemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and went on to complete his doctoral studies in organic chemistry at the Weizmann Institute of Science, in Rehovot, near Tel Aviv, Israel.

He worked on postdoctoral research at the Rockefeller Institute in New York before returning to The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he was later appointed Associate Professor in 1972 and Professor of Medicinal Chemistry in 1975.

He became fascinated by the effects of cannabis on the brain, but found there was no established way to obtain supplies for experiments. So he improvised.

“We got our material from the police,” he said in a CNN interview in 2014. “I just went to the police and took five kilos of hashish. And I didn’t have a car at that time. I was in the bus carrying five kilos of hashish with people saying there was kind of a strange smell. We tested that on a few volunteers including ourselves.”

He said the police kept on supplying him with “samples” for the next 40 years.

“Morphine had been isolated from opium in the early 19th century,” he said. “Cocaine had been isolated from coca leaves in the mid-19th century. And here we were, mid-20th century, and yet the chemistry of cannabis was not known. So it looked like an interesting project.”

His discovery of THC was a major breakthrough in cannabis research, and paved the way for further exploration of the plant’s properties.

Mechoulam continued to study its effects on the brain and nervous system throughout his life, and was instrumental in identifying the endocannabinoid system, a complex network of receptors and neurotransmitters that plays a key role in regulating pain, mood, appetite, and other physiological processes. His discoveries are the foundation of medical cannabis research as we know it today.

“I have spent most of my life decoding the mysteries to be found within this incredible plant,” he said. “I would like to see my colleagues forge ahead with their investigations, advancing even further the acceptance and integration of cannabinoids in traditional medicine.”

He maintained a lifelong passion not just for researching cannabis, but for prescribing it to those who would benefit.

He spoke of his frustration that an investigation carried out in 1980 by the Hebrew University and the Sao Paulo Medicine Faculty of Santa Casa, in Brazil, found encouraging signs that cannabidiol, a non-psychoactive component of cannabis, could reduce seizures in epilepsy patients. But they were ahead of their time. Cannabis was still stigmatized as a solely recreational drug.

“Who cared about our findings? No one!” he said. “Did we have to wait 30 years? We could have helped thousands of children, and we didn’t.”

Having said that, part of his legacy today is the fact that more than 123,000 patients in Israel are currently licensed to have cannabis prescribed by their doctor – that’s one in 73 of the population.

Hebrew University President Asher Cohen paid tribute to Prof. Mechoulam, saying: “Most of the human and scientific knowledge about cannabis was accumulated thanks to Prof. Mechoulam. He paved the way for groundbreaking studies and initiated scientific cooperation between researchers around the world. Mechoulam was a sharp-minded and charismatic pioneer.”

Prof. Yossi Tam studied under Prof. Mechoulam and now heads his own lab at the Hebrew University developing cannabinoid-based therapeutics. He said: “On this heartbreaking day, I bid farewell to my dear mentor, colleague, collaborator, and friend, Raphael Mechoulam.

“More than two decades ago, as a student, I was fortunate enough to meet Raphi, and little did I know how much of an impact he would have on my life.

“Throughout my career, Raphi has been my guiding light, always there for me, supporting me through every important step.

I’m absolutely sure that his groundbreaking research will continue by thousands of researchers all around the globe.”

David (Dedi) Meiri, an associate professor at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and a colleague of Mechoulam’s said in an online tribute: “This is a very sad day for me, for the science community and for the cannabis community. Professor Raphael Mechoulam or as we called him Raphi, was one of the greatest scientists I ever met and was my teacher and mentor in many aspects. I truly believe he deserved a Nobel prize!”

Over the course of his career, Mechoulam received numerous awards and honors including the Israel Prize in Chemistry, the Rothschild Prize in Chemical Sciences and Physical Sciences, and the Heinrich Wieland Prize. He was also a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In addition to his research, Mechoulam was known for his advocacy on behalf of medical marijuana. He was a vocal proponent of the therapeutic potential of cannabis, and worked tirelessly to promote its use in treating a wide range of conditions, from chronic pain and epilepsy to PTSD and cancer.

He founded The Hebrew University Multidisciplinary Center for Cannabinoid Research in 2017.

Two years ago, to mark his 90th birthday, the 31st International Cannabinoid Research Symposium was held in Jerusalem for the first time.

Prof. Mechoulam leaves behind his wife Dalia, son Roy and daughters Dafna and Hadas. His funeral was being held today, Sunday, March 12, in Jerusalem.

The post Farewell To The Father Of Cannabis Research appeared first on NoCamels.

A new source of sustainable energy could soon be powering airplanes, cargo ships, and even home heaters – and it’s made of maggots. 

More specifically, the oil extracted from the larvae of Black Soldier Flies (BSF) that’s been genetically modified by an Israeli startup.

BugEra is developing a breakthrough technology to breed the larvae so they have twice the amount of oil in their bodies. 

The company supplies the eggs or larvae to BSF farms, which grow them, dry them, squeeze out the golden oil, and send them to be refined into biofuel, a kind of renewable energy that supplements fossil fuels like oil and gas. 

Most biofuels are derived from crops like soybean, wheat, and corn, which require big plots of land and large quantities of pesticides.

BSF larvae, on the other hand, can be grown in trays of organic waste, like kitchen scraps and animal manure, in around two weeks.

The problem is that BSF farms can’t produce enough of it on an industrial scale. So BugEra basically grows its larvae to be twice as fat as regular larvae – up from 30 percent to 60 percent oil content. 

“We’re trying to solve three problems at once with the magnificent black soldier fly,” says Yoav Etgar, CEO of the startup.

“First is upcycling organic waste, which is hazardous to the environment (it produces methane as it decomposes, a potent greenhouse gas). Second, we are solving the problem of huge demand for biofuel, which is constrained by the availability of sustainable crops.

“The third problem is that the black soldier fly is not commercialized [for biofuel] today because of the low volume of oil in the larvae. And that’s where our technology comes into place.”

Etgar says that no other company has genetically engineered the fly subspecies in this manner. BugEra will supply its larvae to BSF farms by the end of the year, which will extract the oil and send them to be refined into biofuel. 

Dr. Anna Melkov, CTO, says: “The fatty acid composition is unique among these insects. They have very high values of lauric acid, which is perfectly suited for biofuel production.”

High amounts of lauric acid enhances the properties of biofuel produced from it, like the lowest temperature the fuel can flow without starting to form crystals that can clog the engine.

Realistically, BSF cannot address the entire biofuel market, which is equivalent to nearly two million barrels of crude oil per day – around six percent of the world’s energy use.

Instead, BugEra will supplement the growing market so fewer fields of crops will need to be planted. 

“So you save a lot of area, you save a lot of water, you save the usage of pesticides, you save the usage of chemical fertilizers, you save trees from being cut down,” says Etgar. “And it’s more beneficial to use crops oil like soy for human and animal nutrition and not for producing biofuels.”

Beyond that, using BSF for biofuel can help address our growing mountain of waste – because the flies feed on pretty much anything, including hazardous organic material.

“This insect is particularly suited to recycle the nutrients from the waste streams of humanity,” says Melkov. “They can grow on animal manure, kitchen scraps, and agricultural waste.” 

Once the startup finishes developing its prototype strain, it will sell and license the eggs and larvae to different BSF farms, which will grow, breed, and rear the genetically modified flies, one generation at a time. Every few months, BugEra will supplement the colonies with pure strains from its laboratory. 

It believes that with its technology, it can enhance additional traits of the fly and develop different strains to be used in other industries. In the future, it may even give the flies new traits – like the ability to function as a biopesticide and fight against specific fungi and bacteria.

“These companies are looking to diversify their offering,” says Etgar. “BSF farmers are producing protein, and they’re all trying to sell it to animal feed manufacturers or to aquaculture feed manufacturers, and they need an edge.

“We believe that the BSF industry needs and should expand to a new and a huge market, like biofuel, which has a massive demand. With our offering we double the oil for a lower cost of operation, which could be a very profitable business for those farms.”

BugEra isn’t the first to harness the qualities of BSF. The larvae are already used as feed for livestock, poultry, and seafood, supplementing their diets with more protein and fats.

Companies have even started to sell BSF oil as skin-care products, claiming it can rejuvenate and lead to more youthful-looking skin. 

And last year, researchers found that the oil may alleviate symptoms of colitis, a chronic digestive disease.

BugEra is based in Be’er Sheva, and originated in the Ben Gurion University of the Negev in 2020.

It is also part of the Israeli Innovation Authority Israeli BSF consortium, a group of academia and private companies researching together ways to optimize the flies’ diet, the manufacturing process of protein and oil, genetics, the behavior of the colony, and ensure there is no colony collapse.

The post Made From Maggots: New Fuel For Planes And Ships appeared first on NoCamels.

More and more patients are being prescribed cannabis to ease chronic pain and other problems. And more and more people are consuming weed recreationally in “edibles” rather than smoking it.

Both groups face the same problem. The human body struggles to absorb cannabis because it isn’t water-soluble. 

Researchers in Israel have found a way around the problem. They trick the body into thinking the cannabis is food – by binding it to protein.

So instead of waiting up to two hours, people using cannabis in its edible forms will feel the effects in just 15 minutes.

That will make a huge difference both to those craving relief from a painful condition, and those who simply want to get high quicker (where legal).

“What we’ve created is a natural protein carrier that ‘Ubers’ the cannabis through your system,” says Rafi Cohen, Chief Business Officer at Day Three Labs (DTL), the company that has developed the technology.

“So it bypasses your digestive tract naturally because your body thinks it is absorbing and digesting protein.”

It draws inspiration from the way we digest food, and says it’s the first in the world to successfully bind protein to cannabis.

It took six years to develop the patented technology – called Unlokt because it unlocks the body’s ability to digest cannabis – at the company’s pharmaceutical research lab in Yeruham, southern Israel (the company itself is headquartered in Denver, Colorado, USA, where cannabis is legal).

It turns whey protein or chickpea protein into tiny, nano-sponges that bind themselves to the THC (the psychoactive ingredient) or other cannabinoids (cannabis compounds that affect our body and our brain). They become water-soluble as a result, and far easier for the body to digest.

Day Three Labs – which takes its names from the creation of plants on the third day (Genesis 1.11) – says its breakthrough technology is already being used for recreational products.

Rolling it out for medical use, which will target a variety of chronic illnesses, will take longer because of the R&D involved in developing specialized formulations for each condition.

The company can create enough protein to be used in thousands of products every day. The proteins are used by manufacturers for any kind of edible, like candy, tablets, and beverages.

There are 700 strains of cannabis, and each one produces slightly different effects – like increasing energy, inducing a state of euphoria, or easing symptoms of neurological conditions like epilepsy.

Regular edibles can’t produce these effects, and generally cause users to experience a state of ‘couch lock’, or intense sedation. 

But those who consume edibles infused with DTL’s Unlokt technology can actually experience the effects of the particular strain they’ve ingested, the company says. 

“For a cannabis user this can be very important if they want to have a particular experience in the morning or afternoon, or if they’re using a specific strain for their shoulder pain, Parkinson’s or nausea,” says Cohen.

“We give our protein-based ingredients to the cannabis manufacturer, and they do with it what they do.”

DTL’s proteins are already being used by several US companies, in the cannabis-legal states of Colorado and California to develop gummies.

And in North Carolina, a company is using them to develop tongue strips, dissolvable tablets, gummies, sprays, and more.

Beyond that, DTL is working to find the perfect cannabinoid formulations for patients suffering from a variety of chronic disorders.

Its first drug development program was aimed at those struggling with insomnia and other sleep disorders, and after three years of R&D, products infused with the protein and cannabinoid formulations are just about set to hit US shelves.

Dr. Shimon Lecht, Chief Innovation Officer, says: “In our vision, we see cannabis as a rich source of active ingredients that we need to understand and develop into real therapies.

“Our aim as drug developers is to not only help people get as high as possible – but to actually help people.”

Most recently, DTL has embarked on a drug development program to find the perfect formulation for Parkinson’s Disease.

“For the last 30 years, there has been nothing out there to really help them,” he says. 

“We are able to isolate the different cannabinoids and create a proper formulation that is tailored to Parkinson’s, or sleep disorders, or other medical needs, and combine it with our delivery system, which is our technological innovation,” says Cohen. 

“These patients won’t need to smoke and stay at home because they’re high all day. And there are no side effects because it’s an all-natural medicine.”

Day Three Labs is also partnered with CanNegev, a government-backed technological incubator to support entrepreneurs and startups in the south of the country. They hire individuals with higher education in the Negev to help them with their research.

The post Breakthrough Unlocks The Potential Of Edible Cannabis appeared first on NoCamels.

Bacteria from processed meats led to the world’s worst ever outbreak of listeriosis, in South Africa in 2017, killing over 200 people.

It wasn’t an isolated incident. In fact, there are 600 million cases of foodborne diseases every year. 

Food companies work tirelessly to clean their facilities and prevent outbreaks – but disinfectants survive on surfaces for just a matter of minutes before they decompose due to exposure and UV light.

Israeli startup Bio-Fence has developed an additive that makes disinfectants last for weeks, even months. 

It can be mixed with nearly any coating or paint to be applied to walls and floors, so that when the surface is sanitized with a disinfectant, it prevents the growth of bacteria for much longer. 

In the food industry, the coating only needs to be renewed every five years, says the company’s CEO and Co-founder Ofer Shoham. And in the span of those five years, disinfectants can be sprayed onto surfaces and last for weeks, as opposed to mere minutes.

“Our technology creates a film or coating that can stabilize powerful biocides (chemicals that destroy harmful organisms) like chlorine and give them a long-lasting ability,” he explains. 

“The advantage of chlorine is that it’s very safe. We use it in drinking water, and we wash fruits and vegetables with it. The only problem with it is that although it’s powerful, safe and efficient, it only stays active for a few minutes until it decomposes.

“We take the good things about chlorine – its safety, and the way it rapidly kills any microorganism – and extend its activity on surfaces,” he tells NoCamels.

“So the surface is protected from recontamination. Any bacteria that lands on the surface meets a concentration of chlorine and will be immediately destroyed.”

Listeriosis is fatal in 25 percent of cases, even when treated with antibiotics, and 90 percent of people who get infected with it are hospitalized in the ICU.

They can experience fever, muscle aches, and convulsions. Pregnant women can even experience miscarriages, and pass on the life-threatening infection to their newborn.

It primarily plagues food-production plants, and while other foodborne bacteria stop multiplying at refrigeration temperatures, it will continue, albeit slowly.

This isn’t a comforting thought, given that most of our food comes from these facilities. 

Petra Bischoff, a South African woman who regularly ate cold cuts, was infected with listeriosis during the 2017 outbreak, and was in the ICU for nearly a month.

When she awoke from her coma, she had to re-learn how to speak, walk, and eat.

“To be a baby at 69 isn’t easy,” she told Food Safety News. “When I look in the mirror I look at a strange person. I don’t know this person.”

Shoham says his company’s additive is a new chemical, based on organic material and synthesized in a way that creates the ability for chlorine to bind to it. The bond is just strong enough to prevent it from decomposing, but weak enough so that it can dissolve into bacteria’s outer layer of water and kill it. 

In 2021, Bio-Fence put its product to the test in a pilot with a leading Israeli hot dog producer.

The manufacturing plant had suffered from continuous listeria presence on its floors, despite strict sanitation procedures up to three times a day. Listeria was detected in 91 percent of the daily floor samples for three weeks before the pilot began. 

After Bio-Fence’s enhanced coating was applied to the floors and lower parts of the walls, the pathogen was completely undetectable. 

“We want to solve the most challenging problems,” says Shoham, a food hygiene sales director for 37 years at Diversey, a leading American detergent and sanitizer provider, before founding Bio-Fence.

“It’s nice to have a product that can kill 99.99 percent of the bacteria on your kitchen counter,  but anyone can deliver that. We are trying to take on the most extreme and difficult tasks, because once we succeed there, we are creating an impact.”

Bio-Fence is expanding beyond food to the healthcare sector. It has an upcoming pilot with a leading medical facility in Israel, in which it will test a concentrated, water-based spray.

“The surfaces of hospitals and clinics need a more intense type of cleaning and sanitation, and they are not straight surfaces,” explains Lior Dudaie, VP of Business Development and Marketing at Bio-Fence. “This is why the application needs to be modified.”

Hospital staff will simply need to insert a chlorine tablet into the formulation and spray it on surfaces that are high sources of contamination, like bed frames, cabinets, and door knobs. The film will be active for seven days. 

“By applying that coating on these surfaces, we are providing a long-lasting antimicrobial activity that is totally destroying the bacteria and preventing any growth of other bacteria,” says Shoham. 

“What we’re introducing makes it so that the staff doesn’t have to do anything special or different from what they do today.”

Shoham says that there is no other company like his. And because Bio-Fence is not claiming to launch a new antimicrobial product, it doesn’t need to apply for regulatory approval. All it is doing is introducing a compound into existing products to stabilize disinfectants. 

“We are not inventing or modifying the current product which has been used to kill bacteria like chlorine. The only thing we do is bind and stabilize them on the treated surfaces.”

Shoham says that the chemical and paint/coating industries, the two sectors his company intersects, have not experienced innovation in decades. If anything, there are more and more regulations restricting the use of chemicals because of their overuse and misuse, which decreases their efficacy against bacteria and prevents innovation. 

And the paint and coating industry is also very conservative – the only solution they have, he says, is silver ion, which kills bacteria, but leaches from the paint into the environment, causing toxicity in water reservoirs, and poisoning fish and algae. 

Bio-Fence does not yet have a commercial product, but has added its technology to coating and paint companies for various projects for the food industries of the US, Israel, and most recently, Brazil. 

And if the spray for the healthcare industry is approved, they will produce it themselves and partner with health industry distributors to sell it to hospitals and clinics.

Bio-Fence was founded in 2018. It is currently raising funds to invest in sales and marketing in the EU and US, and launch its healthcare tech in the hospitals in the US. 

The post Disinfectant Lasts For Months, Not Minutes appeared first on NoCamels.

Startup breeding billions of high-protein Black Soldier Flies for livestock

Flies are the food of the future. Maybe not for humans, but certainly for animals. Flies eat absolutely anything, breed like crazy, they’re extremely high in protein, and they’re much more sustainable as a foodstuff than anything that grows in the ground.

Chickens love them, pigs love them, so do fish and shrimp. But farmers who have the skills and expertise to rear chicken or pigs aren’t necessarily too hot on the advanced biology and entomology needed to cultivate billions of flies.

FreezeM, a startup based at Kibbutz Nahshonim, in central Israel, takes the pain out of the process by breeding and supplying ready-to-use flies – in suspended animation, so they can easily be transported.

It is breeding one particular species of fly – the Black Soldier Fly (BSF) – on an industrial scale. It’s not alone in doing that, but the breakthrough is that it’s able to manipulate their metabolism, halting their growth for two weeks.

Farm animals don’t actually eat the insects themselves. It’s more complicated than that. Farmers buy packages of neonates – the larva, or maggots that have yet to hatch into flies.

They feed these neonates on anything from agricultural waste to brewery by-products, but before they progress to the pupa stage, when they become flies, they process them into protein meal, and that’s what they feed to their livestock.

FreezeM says it’s addressing a desperate need for sustainable alternatives to soy and fishmeal, the most widely-used proteins for animal feed.

The company takes its name, FreezeM, from its early involvement in freezing BSF eggs (rather than larvae). Now it is also able to pause their development, at room temperature, after they hatch into larvae.

“The challenge is to do this at scale,” says CEO Dr. Yuval Gilad, who jointly founded the company with Dr. Idan Alyagor and Dr. Yoav Politi, from the Weizmann Institute of Science.

“You need to produce very large amounts in a very efficient and consistent manner in order to replace existing components in animal feed.”

Until now farmers who wanted to feed insect protein to their animals had to grow their own flies. That’s a difficult, unpredictable and expensive business. FreezeM does that for them, simply and sustainably.

It deliver boxes of tiny, BSF larvae – each less than 0.5mm – in suspended animation and the farmer revives them simply by opening the package and placing them on organic waste.

In just two weeks they grow to 8,000 times their original size. That’s not a mistake. “It’s equivalent to a baby growing to the size of three elephants in two weeks,” says Gilad.

No wonder the BSF is known as nature’s “ultimate recycling machine”. The larvae grow and grow into a high-quality food source, containing 45 per cent protein and 30 per cent fat.

A box of 32 small plastic packages of BSFs – called PauseM – measures 40cm by 40cm and would fit neatly on an ordinary chair.

In two weeks the neonates inside that box will grow into a 260kg mountain of grown larvae. A 60cm by 60cm box will yield two tons of larvae. And a 160cm by 160cm box will grow into 60 tons.

“You can then process them into insect meal – which is the protein powder – as well as insect oil, and fertilizer. The oil and the insect meal go into animal feed, or to pet food,” says Gilad.

Laying chickens actually prefer the unprocessed larvae to the corn they’re usually fed. They peck themselves less – a known problem in poultry farming – and produce more eggs. But for most other animals the larvae are turned into protein.

“We completely separate the reproduction part from the growing and rearing part. That’s our unique value in the supply chain,” says Gilad.

“We’re aiming to become the seed company of this industry, to provide the ready-to-use larvae to the farmers so they won’t have to breed them by themselves and deal with flies, how to mate them, how to make more eggs and how to hatch them.”

The number of farms using insect protein is still minuscule, but Gilad predicts massive growth in the coming years. FreezeM is now collaborating with Hermetia, a partner in Germany, to provide large-scale customers who want thousands of packages a day.

“The insect protein industry is in its infancy so its proportion of the total animal feed market is close to zero at the moment,” says Gilad.

“We’re not even scratching the surface. The entire animal feed market is half a trillion dollars per year. But insect protein is only just beginning to be incorporated into animal feed.

“However it is growing rapidly and is expected to reach $3 billion a year in 2030 with an annual growth rate of 30 per cent.            

“So far most of it is going into pet food. There are already over 40 brands of dog and cat food that have an insect base, and it’s a $70 billion industry.

“We need to change now and this is the solution. Take the waste, turn it into protein and feed the farm animals with it.”

And what about people eating insects? “If you look back, lobsters, now considered a premium food, used to be a food for prisoners. And people in the Western world didn’t eat sushi until recently.

“So you do see changes in what people eat, but I don’t think it will happen that fast with insects.

“Even if I could convince you that it’s good to eat insect protein, there’s a yuck factor. People find it disgusting.

“But people are happy with a salmon that ate insects, or a chicken, or its eggs. And they’re happy to feed their dog with insects.”

The post Food Of The Future: Nature’s Ultimate Recycling Machine appeared first on NoCamels.

Startup says they taste great and are good for the planet

Mushrooms are like icebergs. They’re mostly hidden below the surface.

What we eat is just the “fruit” that appears above ground. At least 70 percent remains underground… and under-used.

But Kinoko, a startup in Israel, is cultivating the tangled network of thin fungal threads called mycelium into a high-protein food.

Mushrooms will grow on any organic material – straw, manure, agricultural waste, banana skins, even cardboard.

Kinoko has developed a patented method of using lentils and other legumes as the “substrate”, or nutrition source.

And instead of growing mushrooms as we know them, it grows filamentous fungi – a species that has no “fruiting body” and is 100 per cent mycelium.

In just four days the mycelium grows around the lentils to create a ready-to-eat burger, sausage, meatball, kebab or patty. There’s no further processing. What you grow is what you eat, with the lentils still clearly visible.

And it tastes great, according to CEO Jasmin Ravid. “It’s natural, has a clean taste, and is a combination between lentils and mushrooms,” she says. “You can still feel the lentils, but the texture is completely different.

“Vegetarians say it really tastes like meat to them, but most people say that it tastes like a delicious non-meat, plant-based option.”

Mushrooms are 90 per cent water and contain just three per cent protein. But Kinoko’s combination of mycelium and lentils is higher in protein than ground beef or tofu.

The company, named after the Japanese word for mushrooms, is based in Rehovot, central Israel. It has a production site that is already operating in Ashdod, in the south of the country.

And it aims to produce a tonne of Kinoko every month, with just two staff members running the factory.

Most of the world’s population relies on animals for protein. But that’s not sustainable, says Ravid.

“At the rate the world’s population is growing, if we want to carry on eating animals as our main protein source, we’ll need two and half planets by 2050.

“That’s in order to have enough land and enough water, aside from the CO2 emissions, which is probably going to destroy the climate by that point.

“We’ve been so focused on eating animals and eating plants that we’ve never looked into the mushroom kingdom.

“It has millions of different strains of organisms and they have an amazing ability to create what we are looking for in our nutrition.”

Mushrooms are more like animals than plants in the way they break down carbohydrates into high quality protein, she says.

“If you look at the tree of life, mushrooms are genetically closer to animals at the DNA level. If you eat a portobello mushroom steak it doesn’t have a plant texture. It’s kind of a bouncy, juicy texture. And the flavor is much more umami. It has a different flavor than plant ingredients.

“And the mycelium actually grows in the same structure as tissue in animals’ bodies, and the texture resembles meat.”

There’s a global rush to develop alternative proteins – cultivated meat and fish, for example – to a point where they can be produced on an industrial scale at the same price as the “real” thing.

But Ravid says Kinoko’s technology is simple, tested and proven. And unlike most other products, it’s not attempting to mimic meat.

“Dr. Daria Feldman, our CTO, has been working in this field for 12 years and has won every award possible. She’s a brilliant scientist working with fungi fermentation, first on green energy and biofuels and then switching to food production. She came up with our solution.

“She really understands how to make highly nutritious products in a short period of time, and how to make fermentation really affordable and really scalable.”

Kinoko is produced using an “overlooked” process called solid state fermentation. Most of us associate fermentation with beer, when yeast turns sugar to alcohol, but the term also covers baking bread or making Camembert cheese, when yeast cultures are mixed with curdled milk.

“I can almost count on one hand the companies that are doing solid state fermentation, which is what we are doing on a commercial level,” says Ravid.

“A lot of companies are doing liquid state fermentation, which is like beer brewing, growing the microorganism in a big water tanks. And almost no one is doing solid state. So it was kind of overlooked.

“Also, most companies are focusing on trying to mimic texture and taste of specific kinds of animal products, like shrimp or cream, or chicken filet.

“Right from the beginning we wanted something that was an alternative to eating animals but it didn’t have to be a replica.

“We don’t need to convince people that they are eating beef or chicken or shrimps. We just need to have convenient, affordable, tasty, and nutritious products.”

Kinoko grows at room temperature into the shape of whatever mold it’s put into. They just add a few milliliters of fungi mycelium to each kilo of lentils. After four days the mycelium has grown and woven itself around the lentils, and is ready to be eaten, frozen, or refrigerated.

It sounds simple, but fungi can be hard to please. “They are a bit of a delicate organism. So the main challenge is to keep the fungi happy,” says Ravid.

“We like to think about our process as more like agriculture than food production. We are growing the main dish. Just take the finished product with some olive oil and some salt, put it in the oven, and that’s it.

“It’s not just another highly processed food ingredient like many of the plant-based solutions out there.”

The company aims to scale up Kinoko production, at an affordable price. “If we want to get a lot of the human population to move from animal food to our fungi-based food, it has to be affordable, and not a premium product,” says Ravid.

The company was founded through the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s tech transfer company Yissum.

The post Growing High-Protein Mushroom-Based Burgers In Just Four Days appeared first on NoCamels.

Brand-new treatment stops tumor cells from ‘hiding’ and is being tested in the US

​​Cancer therapies have improved greatly since chemotherapy was first used to treat the disease in the 1930s. The newer immuno-oncology treatments – which use substances made by the body’s own immune system to combat cancer – don’t carry the same toxic side-effects that chemo does. 

The problem is that immuno-oncology treatments don’t work on certain cancers, like lung, ovarian, and breast cancer, because these cancers produce high amounts of a specific protein known as the poliovirus receptor (PVR), which prevent immuno-oncology treatments from being effective.

But a brand-new drug that was developed by an Israeli company is being tested on cancer patients right now – and it may open the door for immuno-oncology to treat millions of people who were so far ineligible.

“What we’re trying to solve is the issue of lack of response for the majority of patients to the currently approved immuno-oncology therapies,” says Fabian Tenenbaum, CEO of Nectin Therapeutics, the company behind the novel treatment. “Only about 20 percent of the patients that benefit from those therapies see a durable response that stays with them over time.”

In normal tissues PVR is barely produced, but when produced in high concentrations, it prevents the immune system – and immuno-oncology treatments – from killing cancer cells.

“The fundamental discovery behind our treatment is the role that PVR, a common receptor on cancer cells, plays in avoiding our immune system,” he tells NoCamels. “It essentially sends the immune system a ‘do not eat me’ sign.”

One of the most common types of immuno-oncology therapies are immune checkpoint inhibitors. When our immune system attacks invaders like bacteria and viruses, it uses a system of ‘brakes’ called checkpoints to stop it from attacking healthy cells too.

But cancer cells can sometimes use certain proteins – like PD-1 and PD-L1 – to hide from the immune system.

Immune checkpoint inhibitors ‘release the brakes’ on our immune system to kill cancer cells by blocking such proteins. The problem is that when tumors have high levels of PVR, they surpass these drugs and tell immune cells not to attack the cancerous cells. 

Nectin’s treatment – called NTX1088 – blocks the PVR so that the PD-1 and PD-L1 therapies can get the job done. “By blocking PVR, we can see in the animal models that we can turn on a much more significant and efficient killing of the tumor cells by immune cells, and eradication of the tumor.”

The company was established in 2017 after Pini Tsukerman, Chief Scientific Officer, discovered the way this protein affected the immune system during his research at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem – along with Prof Ofer Mandelboim, who is on the Scientific Advisory Board of the company, and fellow researchers from the University of Rijeka in Croatia. 

“They essentially figured out the role that this family of proteins and receptors play in the interaction between the immune system and the tumor cell,” says Tenenbaum. 

One of Nectin’s main goals is to greatly reduce the need for chemotherapy.

“For many patients it has had an enormous impact both in terms of being really well tolerated, and delivering really potent results, essentially enabling your immune system to fight cancer the way it’s designed to do.”

Tenenbaum does caution that in cases where cancer is advanced, chemotherapy is generally still the only option.

The Jerusalem-based company recently gave its first patient a dose of its novel treatment as part of a clinical trial at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and will include up to 90 patients with locally advanced and metastatic solid tumor, or cancer cells that have broken away from their original tumor and formed a new one in other organs.

“The study starts by dose escalation, where we slowly increase them until we get to what we believe to be the efficacious doses,” says Tenenbaum. Half of the patients will be evaluated with only Nectin’s treatment, while the other will be treated with both immune checkpoint inhibitors, and the company’s drug. 

He’s hoping to glean critical information from the trial – like how PVR levels vary in different kinds of tumors, and how much it prevents patients from seeing results when using immune checkpoint inhibitors. 

“If PVR plays the role that we believe it does, then it could be affecting a very large number of patients – but it’s hard to say exactly what percentage.”

Next year, the clinical trial will test Nectin’s drug in combination with the PD-1 and PD-L1 therapies. 

“We can potentially help a very, very large number of patients, because you’re dealing with some of the most common cancers, including lung and colorectal cancer.”

“The goal is to deliver the optimal benefit to the patients. If you look at melanoma, for example, it is one of the best examples where immuno-oncology has played a very successful role in both delivering survival rates that were unheard of a few years ago, as well as reducing the need for chemotherapy.”

Nectin Therapeutics has around 10 employees, and has raised over $30 million from investors including aMoon Fund, Peregrine Ventures and Integra Holdings.

The post Drug Could Bring Immunotherapy To Millions Of Cancer Patients appeared first on NoCamels.

Nanoparticles destroy virtually all bacteria and viruses

Germs are everywhere. Think Covid, think superbugs, salmonella, norovirus, and the common cold.

Now imagine you could embed something into paint, fabrics, plastics and other materials that can kill up to 99.999 per cent of bacteria and viruses. And it never wears out. And it is affordable.

Nanosono, a startup based in Yokneam, central Israel, says its doing exactly that. It has developed nanoparticles – less than a millionth of a millimeter – made of zinc oxide and copper oxide.

The opportunities are endless. The nanoparticle, known as Quactiv, was originally designed as a powdered additive for fabric and then to paint, to reduce the number of hospital deaths from from infection-related diseases.

“You need one kilogram of Quactiv in two tonnes of paint to get the antimicrobial action,” says Ori Bar Chaim, the company’s CEO. That’s a concentration of just 0.0005 per cent. It’s cost-effective, non-toxic and environmentally friendly, he says.

“The additional cost for antimicrobial paint comparing to normal paint is really nothing. We tested a sample of paint after three years and found it was still just as effective”.

So a hospital, nursing home, school, public building, and anywhere else where hygiene is critical can paint its walls with water-based acrylic antimicrobial paint and it will keep on working indefinitely.

Here’s the science that allows the nanoparticles to operate as an “antimicrobial firewall”.

Two mechanisms of action work together. One is the electrostatic interaction between the positive charge of the nanoparticles and the negative charge of the microbes. The second is the release of specific free radicals (reactive oxygen molecules) that destroy the functionality of the microbes. All that means is that it’s like a magnet that keeps on being magnetic, no matter what.

The company soon realized its patented product had many other potential uses beyond the Q-Paint additive. In a clinical environment it can be embedded in the material used to make bed sheets, surgical drapes, in the uniforms worn by doctors and nurses, in facemasks, bandages, on metal surfaces, on plastic surfaces and beyond.

The Quactiv ingredient has already been embedded into facemasks to block Covid, and is now being developed for bandages and dressings, where it will not only destroy infection, but will also be embedded with painkilling drugs.

“Paint was the first application where we proved not only that the concept works, but that it could be mass-produced,” says Bar Chaim.

The company has gone on to develop many other applications. “With non-woven fabrics, we have embedded our technology into the fiber itself. We don’t coat the fabric, the Quactiv is inside the fibers,” he says.

The fibers destroy all kinds of bacteria – including those responsible for the smell of sweat – which opens up new opportunities for sports clothing embedded with Quactiv.

The nanoparticles could also be embedded into plastic for packaging fruit, vegetables and other foods to destroy bacteria and extend their shelf life.

Today he says the company’s main focus is Q-Derma, an antimicrobial ointment for burns, cuts, dry skin, infected wounds, and mycosis (fungal infection). It has many other uses in skincare products, cosmetics and pharmaceutical products.

“One of our partners, an Israeli manufacturer of cosmetics for L’Oreal, Unilever and others, took a sample of our Q-Derma, they tested it on real people, and they found out that our formulation is very effective as an anti-acne, anti-fungal and anti-psoriasis product.”

Nanosono, founded in 2015, is developing antimicrobial solution for existing companies to incorporate into their products.

“We are a technological company, meaning that we really want to focus on our labs, on the development of the research and really to be the leader in the world today in terms of finding their antimicrobial solutions,” says Bar Chaim.

There are rival products on the market and under development that can also be readily incorporated into a wide variety of materials. Some are organic, made of quaternary ammonium (commonly used in disinfectants), PHMB (a disinfectant and antiseptic), while others use metals including silver (which is expensive) and copper and zinc, like Nanosono. But alternative solutions cost more, degrade over time, and may contain toxic chemicals, says Bar Chaim.

He says Nanosono is now moving from research and development to the commercial stage.

“In the past few months, we signed commercial agreements with the natural partners of Nanosono, with paint companies, with coating companies, with cosmetic companies and with textile companies.”

The company is targeting markets in the US, Europe, China and India, he says.

“We have already signed a commercial agreement with one of the largest paint manufacturers in Israel. They tested many antimicrobial solutions on the market, and together we are now performing a pilot in an Israeli hospital,” says Bar Chaim.

Future plans could include coatings for other materials, such as stone and marble surfaces – and spaceships.

“Just imagine a kitchen with the marble surfaces that are antimicrobial. There is also a big issue for astronauts. Some cannot complete their mission, because of infections.

“They are suffering because the spaceship is actually full of microbes, but if we are able to solve the problems of the space operation, then we have an added value.”

The post Everlasting Germ Killer, In Paint, Fabric, Plastic And More appeared first on NoCamels.

Computer scientists achieve what was “impossible” a few years ago

Researchers can now use AI to extract vital information from a breast cancer biopsy in seconds rather than weeks.

They’re harnessing the power of deep learning to discover whether a particular protein is preventing the patient’s own body from attacking a tumor.

A team of computer scientists at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa, has achieved what was thought to be impossible only a few years ago.

They have trained a computer to determine the presence of PD-L1, a protein that effectively provides “password protection” for the tumor, and stops the immune system from attacking it.

Armed with that knowledge, doctors can go on to prescribe immunotherapy drugs which are able to break the password and allows the body’s defenses to kick in.

The researchers taught the AI to identify PD-L1 by showing it biopsies from thousands of patients.
In tests the neural networks – or artificial ways of “thinking” – that they developed were able to correctly determine the presence of PD-L1 in 70 per cent of cases. In the other 30 per cent of cases the AI wasn’t wrong – it just wasn’t able to reach a conclusion.

It’s a huge step forward, that could ultimately lead to machines diagnosing patients, although it’s yet to reach the success rates of human pathologists.

Having said that, it is far quicker, far cheaper, and it has the potential to become more consistent and more reliable.

Doctors currently send a patient’s biopsy, or tissue sample, to the pathology lab. A basic test using two simple dyes – hematoxylin and eosin, (known as H&E staining) – is enough to tell whether the patient has cancer, and how advanced it is.

But further analysis of that biopsy, to establish the presence of PD-L1, requires much more intricate staining and is a long and complex procedure. A patient will typically wait two weeks or more for the lab to give them a yes or no.

Prof Ron Kimmel, Dr Gil Shamai and Amir Livne, all working at the Technion’s Taub Faculty of Computer Science, realized that AI may offer a solution.

They reasoned that it may be powerful enough to see patterns in the “basic test” that would allow it to determine the presence of PD-L1 without the advanced tests at the pathology lab.

They were right. They know it works because they’ve compared its findings with those of human pathologists. They know it’s looking for visual patterns no human could detect. But as is the way with so-called “black box AI”, they don’t know what they are.

“One question we’re always being asked, at least by doctors is how the hell AI managed to see that,” Dr Shamai tells NoCamels.

“We invented the AI, we built it, and we made it work, and we know that it’s working.

“We know the exact computation, but the computation is complex and we cannot comprehend it and really understand how the prediction was done.

“This is a general thing in advanced AI, it’s considered black box, it can do amazing things, but you can’t interpret them in an intuitive manner.”

A study detailing their research, entitled Deep learning-based image analysis predicts PD-L1 status from H&E-stained histopathology images in breast cancer, was recently published in Nature Communications.

“This is a momentous achievement,” said Prof Kimmel. “The variations that the computer found are not distinguishable to the human eye.

“Cells arrange themselves differently if they present PD-L1 or not, but the differences are so small that even a trained pathologist can’t confidently identify them. Now our neural network can.”

The AI looks at a digital scan of the patient’s biopsy and gives a near-instant answer.

The team trained it with digital biopsy images from 3,376 patients that were tagged as either expressing PD-L1, or not.

They then tested it with 275 images it hadn’t seen before, to assess whether it could correctly predict the presence of PD-L1. It was right 70 per cent of the time, and in 30 per cent of cases it was unable to say, because it couldn’t spot a pattern.

In the cases where it disagreed with the human pathologist, a second test proved the AI to be right.

“Seven years ago a clinician came up with this idea that maybe we can predict a lot of these proteins by applying artificial intelligence to a digital scan of the biopsy, with just the basic staining,” said Dr Shamai.

“It sounded like a crazy idea. They told us it couldn’t be done so of course, we had to prove them wrong.”

Scanning biopsies rather than viewing them through a microscope is a recent innovation, as are the advances in deep learning. Together they’re what made the team’s breakthrough possible.

But they still had to locate enough scans to teach the AI, and they faced numerous challenges because the files were enormous, and came in a variety of formats that had to be standardized.

“We’ve been growing these in the last three years. I have expanded this idea, with collaborations with medical centers and more data,” said Dr Shamai.

“We now have more clinicians, pathologists and oncologists advising us. And now we have a team of around 19 students, 12 doing their first degree, and more who are master’s or PhD students.

“We have three developers who are working with us, we have two students from the Faculty of Medicine doing the data collection and we have many more ongoing studies.”

At present the test can be used as quality assurance to check the work of human pathologists, but the team is refining the technology all the time. Dr Shamai believes that, in time, it could be authorized by the FDA for use as a diagnostic tool.

Prof Kimmel said: “We expect AI to become a powerful tool in doctors’ hands. AI can assist in making or verifying a diagnosis, it can help match the treatment to the individual patient, it can offer a prognosis.

“I do not think it can, or should, replace the human doctor. But it can make some elements of doctors’ work simpler, faster, and more precise.”

The post AI Can See “Invisible” Clues In Breast Cancer Biopsies appeared first on NoCamels.

Prof teaches computers what motivates real people in the real world

Algorithms are everywhere, making decisions that affect all our lives, from traffic lights and bus timetables to Facebook and Spotify. Whether we realize it or not, we have all developed our own algorithms, and we use them on a daily basis.

We use an algorithm to tie our shoelaces, make a cup of coffee, sort laundry, drive a car or follow a recipe. An algorithm is nothing more than a precise list of step-by-step instructions. Algorithms that power lunar landings, banking and finance, robotics, autonomous cars, you name it, are all, essentially lists of instructions, albeit very sophisticated ones.

They may be executed by huge computers, but the algorithms themselves start life as ideas generated by human brains, and sometimes those ideas need a tweak.

Prof Inbal Talgam-Cohen, of the Technion Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa, takes a particular interest in refining algorithms to become more effective, and to take account of what motivates real people in the real world.

She studies Algorithmic Game Theory, employing math and computer science models to understand how self-interest skews the way people interact with algorithms. Put simply, they think they can beat the system by telling lies.

Her work is rooted in the research by Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström, for which they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2016.

They were concerned with Contract Theory – the relationship between, for example, shareholders and top executive management, insurance companies and car owners, or a public authority and its suppliers.

And they tackled questions such as:

Should healthcare workers, and prison guards be paid fixed salaries, or should their pay be performance-based?

To what extent should managers be paid through bonus programmes or stock options?

Should teachers’ salaries depend on (easy to measure) student test scores or (harder to measure) skills such as creativity and independent thinking?

As a computer scientist, Prof Talgam-Cohen is addressing the same sorts of issues, but her interest is in what she calls “incentive-aware algorithm design” – how computers can help achieve better outcomes.

“When we’re designing an algorithm we can use tools from economics and from Algorithmic Game Theory to kind of anticipate what effect it’s going to have on the people it’s interacting with,” she says.

“Maybe we’ll redesign it, even giving up a little bit of what we’re originally trying to achieve with the algorithm, but in such a way that it will actually work in the real world.”

We are, ultimately, rational and selfish. We want the best for ourselves and our families. So we are not necessarily honest, straightforward and selfless in all our dealings with other people, let alone with computers.

Prof Talgam-Cohen recognizes that people will always try to manipulate algorithms. So her mission is to design them in a way that incentivizes all parties involved to strive for what she calls “fruitful cooperation” rather than the current default, when people trying to outwit the machine.

“Our aim is to design algorithms that better serve society,” she tells NoCamels, “by adapting them for the real word and taking account of things as they actually are.

“Algorithms are all around us, really influencing us, and making decisions for us, what we’re going to buy, what content we see, what opportunities we get.

“The problem is that classic algorithm design has not kind of taken that into account, the fact that it’s influencing and interacting with people, and people are going to react strategically in their own self interest.

“It doesn’t matter if the algorithm is doing the best thing for society, I’m still going to be rational and do what’s best for me.”

Google is a great example, she says. It runs powerful algorithms to rank websites. But people do whatever they can, buying links and using other “Black Hat” techniques to trick the algorithm into giving them a higher ranking.

We also find manipulation in the “real” world, such as the famous case of the badminton players in the 2012 Olympics. Four teams, from China, South Korea and Indonesia were thrown out of the women’s doubles competition for deliberately trying to lose their matches, so they’d be drawn against weaker rivals in the next round.

They were disqualified for the offenses of “not using one’s best efforts to win a match” and “conducting oneself in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport”.

Prof Talgam-Cohen says her aim is to incentivize people to cooperate rather than manipulate the system.

“With a more principled, theory-based approach, we can maybe avoid the cat and mouse game. We can design the algorithm to begin with so that the people can put their effort into achieving outcomes that are positive for society.”

She identifies examples of the practical applications of her work as motivating people to protect the environment more, achieving a fairer allocation of school places, and introducing performance-related payments on freelance platforms.

“Say you’re choosing a school for your kids,” she says. “Will you tell the truth? It’s not clear. The top school may be your first choice, but you know there’s a lot of demand, so you may opt for the third or fourth as a safety net.

“So you’ll try to manipulate your answer. If we take that into account, we can really make a huge difference.”

She says sophisticated parents will manipulate more and less sophisticated parents will manipulate less, so it’s important to level the playing field.

“You can design the allocation algorithm so you can tell parents that if they lie, there’s no way they’ll get their child into the school they prefer.”

In environmental protection she says the key problem is the fact that people don’t have the right incentives.

“What we want to do is incentivize land owners not to pollute so much and maybe to plant trees on their lands. They’re beginning to use money for that and use payment-based incentive schemes but I don’t think they’re optimized yet. What we do best in computer science is to optimize and we can really take these systems and make them better.”

She also sees potential on Fiverr, TaskRabbit and other online marketplace for freelance services. 

“When people go on these platforms, to get a logo designed, for example, they’re writing it on a computational platform. So why not use the power of computation to really get the contract, to get it much more optimized than it is today,” she says.

“A lot of prices now are set by algorithms, what’s not being realized yet is how you can tie the prices to the performance.

“For example, if somebody is designing my website, maybe I don’t just want to pay them, I want to say that I expect to see an increase in visitors to my website.

“And for every extra visitor, over a baseline before the redesign, there will be an agreed payment.

“The freelancing agent is working in a really complex environment, juggling different contracts for different employers and employers are also juggling a lot of contracts with different providers.”

“Theoretically, you could use a classic contract, but in reality these platforms are so different from a classic economic setting, with tons of data that the algorithm could use to personalize the contract.”

Her work recently earned her five years of funding from the European Research Council, designed to help scientists who excel early in their careers to pursue their most promising ideas.

“It’s amazing in terms of the opportunities that it opens up,” she says. “I can hire researchers who have expertise, and already know, a lot about algorithms and incentives, and machine learning, and optimization and build an even stronger research group than I have today.

“I envision one team working on optimizing the contracts, another team will do the same thing, but really think about simplicity, and robustness. And one team will think about how to resolve differences if you have contracts that contradict each other.”

The post Designing Better Algorithms To Make The World A Better Place appeared first on NoCamels.

Startup infuses alcohol into creams for a smoother taste

For those who like the effects of alcohol, but can’t stand the taste, an Israeli startup has an edible answer. 

It’s developed a unique way to infuse booze into a cream you can eat as a pudding, spread on a pastry or even use as a doughnut filling.

And it’s removed the astringency – or sting – so that the alcohol tastes much smoother.

Combining alcohol with creams and confectioneries has, until now, been impossible in the food industry.

The molecular structure causes it to separate itself from food products. In fact, alcohol has been used in the past to separate protein from milk. 

CreamCol uses a patented method to combine any alcohol – vodka, whiskey, even liqueur – with whey (milk) protein and water to create creamy, pudding-like products. The secret process varies with each type of alcohol it uses, but involves specific temperatures and methods of combination.

“It all started from the problem that I didn’t like any type of alcohol, but I still wanted to be able to enjoy it when I went out with my friends,” says Irena Geller, Founder and CEO of CreamCol.

“We offer a new way of enjoying alcohol. Until now, all the innovation in the alcohol space involved improving the taste of beer or wine.” 

No other company has been able to make alcoholic creams. The closest has been Tipsy Scoop, a New York City company that infuses up to 5 per cent liquor in ice cream.

CreamCol doesn’t use any chemicals or other products to stabilize the combination – its process makes it so that alcohol is the stabilizer itself between it, the protein, and the water. 

“After combining the three ingredients, we add sugar, milk, or anything else to make it tasty and sweet.”

Geller, who has a background in food technology and biotechnological engineering, initially wanted to create ice cream with a high percentage of alcohol. Her husband Tomer, who worked out at the time, suggested a high-protein ice cream.

To her surprise, she saw that her mixture did not melt at room temperature. She carried on experimenting and found that the more alcohol she added to the specific amount of protein, the more viscous her products turned out.

CreamCol can infuse up to 40 per cent alcohol into its products, although the first line of creams it’s bringing to market will have between nine and 12 per cent. 

“The texture remains uniform and stable for months, with a longer shelf life and built-in protection against microbial spoilage because the alcohol is locked in,” says Jonathan Henen, Technical Director of CreamCol.

Geller says that the creams can be sold as standalone alcoholic puddings, alcoholic spreads, and infused in many different pastries and desserts like chocolates, eclairs and custard-filled doughnuts. 

“The products we can produce with our technology are endless,” she says. 

The process won’t work with all types of protein, but CreamCol is working on a line of creamy alcohols based on soy-protein, for vegans and people who are lactose intolerant.  

“The consumer doesn’t need to like alcohol at all, because we’ve changed the texture, taste, flavor, and mouthfeel of alcohol. For people who don’t like it, they get a much smoother experience that is a lot easier on the throat,” Henen tells NoCamels.

“You don’t have the astringency you have when drinking vodka, whiskey, or high-alcohol products. It just makes it into a fun product to eat and consume.”

CreamCol envisages bars, hotels, cruise lines, airlines, and other places of entertainment serving it as chasers. And consumers can take it on the dance floor, too, because it won’t spill.

“We see people eating alcohol, just like they drink it, at pubs and clubs, or at home with friends and family. It’s difficult, because we need to change and educate market consumption patterns,” says Geller.

“But I think from the feedback we’ve received, we see that people want to enjoy alcohol in another way. They want something new.”

Alcoholic cream is absorbed more slowly into the bloodstream than liquid alcohol, but the end result is the same, says Henen.

The startup, which is based in Afula, Northern Israel, is collaborating with a big European dessert company based in Italy, which is looking to infuse its creams into its desserts. It is also planning to infuse a well-known German brand of alcohol into its creams.

CreamCol hopes to market its first line of original creams on its website within the next six months.

Recently, CreamCol’s cream also helped an Israeli chef win a cooking competition to mark 70 years of Israeli-Japan relations. Chef Ronit Brand used the startup’s product in her matcha dessert. 

CreamCol is currently holding events at Israeli university campuses and will use the feedback to decide which flavors are most popular.

The post Booze Pudding: Introducing The Alcohol You Can Eat appeared first on NoCamels.

Prof’s plan to generate oxygen as rocket fuel for NASA missions

It’s been half a century since man last walked on the moon, but the space race is now on again.

NASA’s first lunar landing since Apollo 17 is planned for 2025, when four crew members are due to blast off in Artemis III. And they’ll be followed by a series of crewed missions aimed at exploring not only the Moon, but Mars as well, by 2035.

Generating power on the moon is a vital part of the program. You need power to create oxygen. And you need oxygen, in part to allow human visitors to breathe, but primarily as rocket fuel.

The Moon is set to become a gas station, of sorts, allowing rockets to re-fuel for their return to Earth, or fill up for their onward journey to Mars.

The Moon has no atmosphere, but oxygen is available if you heat lunar soil to extremely high temperatures. And that requires power.

There are no fossils fuels on the Moon, and there are no wind, wave or hydropower options. So NASA, and other space agencies as well, have been investigating the only two possible sources – nuclear and solar.

An Israeli expert, Prof Jeffrey Gordon, from Ben-Gurion University, has come up with solution that could swing things in favor of solar. He doesn’t work for NASA, but they’ve taken a keen interest in his idea.

There are some big pluses to harnessing solar energy on the Moon. No atmosphere means no clouds, so sunlight is guaranteed. But a “day” on the Moon lasts for just over 29-and-a-half days, so half of that will be “night” with no sunlight at all. That’s a minus.

Storing power in batteries is complex and expensive enough on Earth, but every kilogram of equipment sent to the Moon costs $1 million.

So the challenge is to provide a constant supply of power, at any time of the day or night, while keeping the hardware to a bare minimum.

Prof Gordon’s solution, put very simply, is to install a ring of photovoltaic solar panels – as used on Earth – around one of the Moon’s poles, so that at any point in its rotation, some of them are in the sun and generating power.

Theoretically they could be spaced out around the Moon’s equator, but that would require a lot more heavy infrastructure connecting them to each other and to the reactor – the machine that heats lunar soil so it releases oxygen. Circling the poles means everything would be manageably close together.

Prof Gordon, of the Department of Solar Energy and Environmental Physics, says the ideal position for the solar panels would be around three degrees latitude away from the poles.

He published his paper, entitled Uninterrupted photovoltaic power for lunar colonization without the need for storage in the journal Renewable Energy in February.

“Less than two days after I published it, I was contacted by the director of the solar power division of NASA in Cleveland, Ohio,” he tells NoCamels.

“He said they were having a conference in August on various aspects of solar power in space, and lunar colonization was now high on our agenda and our priorities. He said, ‘We would love it if you would come and present this and discuss it with us’.”

Prof Gordon says his solution could prove to be “noticeably superior” – as measured by weight of equipment transported to the Moon against electricity production – to either of the options currently being considered by NASA, namely nuclear reactors or solar with battery storage.

“On the moon, we have two factors working in our favor. One is there’s no atmosphere, so if you can point at the sun, no matter what latitude you’re at, you obtain the same solar intensity,” he says.

“The other is that the tilt of the moon is small, so the seasonal dependence is much smaller.”

Polar latitudes on Earth don’t get enough radiation from the sun to make solar energy worthwhile, but on the Moon they do. And because there’s no weather to factor in, the amount of sunlight they receive is completely predictable.

NASA says it will need thousands of tons of oxygen a year for “colonization” – a term that sounds like huge populations re-settling 240,000 miles from home, but refers mostly to the production of propellant for rockets.

They run partly on hydrogen, which can’t be produced on the Moon, and mostly on oxygen, which can. “There’s soil everywhere on the Moon and it’s 45 per cent oxygen by composition,” says Prof Gordon.

“It’s just that the soil has to be decomposed into pure oxygen in the metals. The amount required to launch rockets from the Moon is much less than on Earth because the gravitational pull on the Moon is one-sixth that of Earth.”

Prof Gordon is convinced his solution for energy on the Moon is better than existing options, but he must wait to see what NASA will say.

“Our new strategy is more than a factor of 100 better than solar with battery storage. It is also at least a factor of six superior to the solution now being contemplated by NASA of nuclear reactors driving conventional turbines and generators,” he says.

The post Using The Sun To Power A “Gas Station” On The Moon appeared first on NoCamels.

Startup develops a stay-fresh coating from wood pulp that CAN be recycled 

Nanocrystals from wood pulp are replacing the waterproof film that currently makes it impossible to recycle billions of cartons and other items of food packaging.

The cardboard or paper itself is very often recyclable, but it’s impossible to separate it from the thin plastic or aluminum lining that stops liquids leaking out, or air getting into sealed packets of dry goods.

That means millions of tons of waste are being dumped instead of being recycled.

Melodea, a startup based in Rehovot, central Israel, has addressed that problem by developing a unique way of using cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) – the natural building blocks of all plants – to create a new generation of “barrier coatings” for food packaging.

They do everything that traditional so-called “eco-barrier” coatings do, protecting the contents from oxygen, air and water vapor, but they are fully recyclable.

“You know, if you open a bag of chips, it has this aluminum-facing inside,” says Shaul Lapidot, Co-founder and CEO of Melodea.

“So it’s plastic covered with a very thin layer of aluminum. And that gives you the long-term protection from all of these substances: from moisture, from oil, and from oxygen.

“We apply the same properties by coating plastic or paper with our solution, which is based on materials that we extract from natural fibers, from plant fibers.

“It’s a fraction of the plant fiber that we chemically extract and disperse in water, which is turned into a transparent gel because of the very, very small size of the particles. And we formulate them into products.”

The company extracts CNCs from forestry wood pulp, the raw material used to make paper, on an industrial scale.

It originally used waste products from the paper and forestry industries, but found it was more sustainable and economical to produce it directly from wood pulp.

Wood waste contains a lot of contaminants, and treating it in order to extract CNCs has a heavy environmental and economic cost. 

Unlike plastic, which has a significant carbon footprint and a serious impact on our environment, cellulose is both widely available – it is found in all plants – and is biodegradable.

“It comes in the form of sheets, like very thick pieces of paper. We chop it, put it in a reactor, and use acid to selectively extract the cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs),” says Lapidot.

“And then we separate the CNCs from the acid, wash them and we end up with this dispersion.”

It can then be applied to paper, plastic and other packaging. It’s just as effective, and has the same shelf life as non-recyclable coatings.

Other companies have created eco-barrier packaging as well, but Lapidot says that they do not maintain their performance in areas with high humidity. He says that Melodea’s products have the best performance when compared with the competition. 

“We have our own environmental chamber where we actually take products and put them there with our coatings for a long period of time, and compare them to the existing eco-coatings in the market. And we have seen that we are better.”

Melodea’s manufacturing plants in Israel can produce hundreds of tons of materials a year. It has recently expanded to a manufacturing plant in the US, where it will boost its production capacity to thousands of tons a year. 

It already demonstrated the feasibility of its products in the US, and expects its first commercial products to be used for a variety of packaging in early 2023. 

Melodea’s solution is currently being used for the manufacture of paper-based pouches, lids, molded pulp trays, and more.

That said, the barrier coatings have their limitations. They mainly focus on dry products, including coffee beans, chocolate, and hard cheeses, as well as non-food products like washing powders. In the long-term, Melodea aims to expand to liquid packaging too. 

Packaging accounts for more than 40 per cent of all plastic produced. Hybrid packaging, which uses primarily paper-based products with a thin plastic layer, serves as a good ecological alternative to it.

But recycling it, which involves the separation of paper fibers from the plastic or aluminum coating, is more difficult and costly than plain-paper recycling.

For example, in 2019, less than one per cent of paper cups, trays and dishes made of paper-based hybrid materials were recycled in the EU.

Because these recycling methods are more sophisticated, they need to be collected separately at points of disposal – they cannot be recycled together with regular paper items. And consumers often do not pay close attention to proper recycling guidelines.

“During the recycling process, they wash the plastics before they process them,” Lapidot tells NoCamels. “Our coating is water-washable – it just goes away, and then you can simply recycle the plastic.”

Melodea has several customers, a majority of which are in the US. It also has a pipeline of other products based on CNCs, and is working on applications for electronics, like touchscreens and antennae.

The post Nanocrystals Save Tons Of Food Packaging From Being Dumped appeared first on NoCamels.

New process creates natural alternative to synthetic preservatives

Scientists are using drug development techniques to create a healthy alternative to chemical food preservatives.

They “educate” bacteria to create proteins that can preserve food safely without any of the health concerns associated with the benzoates, sorbates, propionates, nitrites, and other chemicals we see listed on food labels.

“What we’re trying to do is maintain our functioning food supply chain while providing healthy alternatives to food preservatives,” Fabian Trumper, Co-founder and CEO of Israeli food tech startup Bountica, tells NoCamels.

Food manufacturers around the world use synthetic antibacterial agents to destroy bacteria or prevent mold growth. Bountica does the same thing by fermenting organic matter into a tasteless powder or liquid that is added to food in tiny amounts.

They use a process called precision fermentation, in which microbes break down organic compounds (like sugars) and are directed to produce a specific product – namely, proteins that act as food-safe preservatives.

The process is normally used to develop new drugs, and has never before been used for food. 

“Just a handful of companies in the world are using this process for products that are not for pharma, and we are one of them – some of them are using it for agriculture, for example,” says Trumper.

He says the proteins they create are fully digestible and safe to consume, unlike synthetic alternatives, and he hopes to achieve the regulatory approvals they need soon, so they can start selling to manufacturers. 

Of course, he won’t divulge the source of the protein. “In a way, it’s inspired by nature, though we took a lot of effort to improve it,” he says. 

“There hasn’t been a major breakthrough in technology that suddenly enables what we’re doing, but a gradual evolution of our understanding of biology to the point where this process has become economical.”

“We consume preservatives on a daily basis, because basically 75 per cent of the food we eat today is processed and includes them,” says Trumper. “Though they are a small component of our food, preservatives have major implications.”

Research conducted on preservatives such as benzoates and nitrates suggest that they can weaken the heart tissues and increase the chances of cardiovascular disease and breathing problems, as well as transform into carcinogens. 

And other chemicals such as BPA can interfere with puberty and fertility, increase body fat, and cause problems with the immune system and nervous system.

The American Academy of Pediatrics warned that these harms are often worse for children, because they are smaller and their bodies are still developing, so the dose of any given chemical ends up being higher.

The protein created by Bountica is tasteless, does not affect the nutritional benefits of the food, and breaks down in our bodies after we consume it.

Microbes are grown in a big vat and are fed organic matter and minerals to create these proteins. Scientists use small electrical pulses and specific increases in temperature to encourage the bacteria to create them instead of other byproducts.

“We have educated our bacteria to produce byproducts that we need – proteins – and then we extract them,” says Trumper, whose company is based in the northern Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona.

“The end product is a concentrated powder or liquid that we use in very small amounts.”

All the fungi that spoil food share the same metabolic pathway – a series of connected chemical reactions that feed one another. Bountica targets a very specific protein function, disrupting its functionality, and inhibiting the growth of all fungi. In other words, it actually stops the development of the cell structure of yeast and other contaminants. 

“It’s like throwing a wrench in a sequence of moving cogs,” says Trumper. 

The waste from the fermentation process is organic, and is made up of 60 per cent protein. It can be dried and sold to be used as fertilizer, or as a source of protein for animal feed or pet food.

“There are other solutions that are trying to extend shelf life, but they either compromise on the nutritional value, or they compromise on the health benefits or the environmental safety. So we’re trying to address the need without compromising on all those aspects.” says Trumper.

Other companies are looking at edible coating to replace packaging, but this solution is not applicable to most types of processed food. Essential oils such as cinnamon, lemongrass and oregano are also used to inhibit the growth of harmful microorganisms, but they are very concentrated and change the taste and smell of food. 

Bountica plans to improve the effectiveness of its proteins and the production process, and it is already in discussion with potential partners to be used in pilot studies at the beginning of next year.

Bountica is also in talks with interested companies in Israel, Europe and Asia that are waiting for them to finish testing their product. 

Bountica is part of the Fresh Start food-tech incubator, established in 2020 and led by the Israel Innovation Authority, with partners Tnuva, Tempo, OurCrowd, and Finistere Ventures.

The post Israeli Scientists ‘Teach’ Bacteria To Preserve Food Safely appeared first on NoCamels.

Muscle growth molecules speed up production and increase yields

The race is on to get lab-grown meat onto your dinner plate.

Scientists already know how to cultivate stem cells into beef, chicken or pork as a sustainable alternative to farming livestock. The challenge now is to develop that process for large-scale production, and achieve “price parity” – so that a burger grown in the lab costs the same as a burger from a cow.

ProFuse, a startup in based in Kiryat Shmona, northern Israel, says it can cut production times by a third, increase yields by two-and-a-half times and significantly reduce costs, all by adding a microscopic catalyst to the process.

It all started with a chance discovery during experiments on mice. Dr. Tamar Eigler-Hirsh, Co-Founder and Chief Technical Officer, was carrying out her post-doctoral studies at the Weizmann Institute of Science, in Rehovot, looking into how they regenerate muscle tissue. 

She had a “light bulb moment” in her quest to find out why some muscle regenerates (skeletal muscle after a gym session) and some does not (heart muscle after a heart attack).

She then spent the next six years researching and developing the muscle growing process she’d identified, until she was able to replicate it in lab grown meat.  

As much as 90 per cent of the meat we eat is muscle. The key to cultivating meat in the lab is fusing cells together so that they form long muscle fibers.  It’s a process that can happen spontaneously in the lab, under the right conditions. But it’s very slow, and it produces small amounts of meat.

ProFuse has developed “small molecules” that meat cultivators can add to the mix to act as a catalyst, speeding up the process, and increasing yields.

Cultivated meat is an evolving industry. It’s not yet available in our supermarkets and restaurants, but it’s not far off. Singapore is the only country so far to give it regulatory approval. In December 2021, it said that US company Eat Just Inc. could sell its GOOD Meat brand of chicken nuggets. Other countries will inevitably follow and the potential market is vast ($140 billion by 2030, and $630 billion by 2040, according to estimates).

The world’s first cultivated meat burger hit the headlines in 2013, with a $330,000 price tag. Professor Mark Post, who created it in his lab at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, said six years later that the production costs had already plummeted to about $9.

Bringing down the price is critical and inevitable. “Our mission statement is to enable the vision of cultivated meat by reducing its cost and improving its quality,” says Guy Nevo Michrowski, ProFuse CEO. “The goal is to reach price parity with farm-grown livestock.”

Because it can develop more high-quality muscle faster, the process costs less, he says, and it doesn’t involve any genetic modification or antibiotics.

Rather than producing finished products, ProFuse plans to supply its biotechnology-based media supplements to cultivated meat companies to speed up their processes.

“If we don’t revolutionize the way we produce meat, we are not going to have enough meat by 2050 because the demand is going to double,” Michrowski tells NoCamels.

“And there is no way to scale up the cavemen methods that we are using today to grow meat. That’s why a new technology space is growing called cultivated meat, which is basically developing an industrial process for growing meat in a factory with no obvious involvement of animals, simply by taking one cell and growing it to be a steak.

“For this process to be successful, it needs to be achieved in price parity with farm originated meat, and it has to be tasty and nutritious, otherwise, nobody will buy it. For this to happen, there is a big challenge of how to scale it up.”

ProFuse helps scale things up by accelerating the lab growing process. “In order to make muscle, you start with stem cells and grow them into culture,” says Michrowski.

“You have to give them a specific signal that tells the cells to change their identity and to become muscle. Essentially, we found a way to enhance that signal by using molecules that we add to the cells.”

After 24 hours the cells begin to grow muscle fibers. “The simple process takes about 40 days, and would yield 1kg of meat. With us it takes 27 days, and yields 2.5kg of meat.

“And the cost savings is much higher than just the time saving, because it’s also what you actually get out of that time.”

The “small molecules” it produces are so small that all customers currently need is less than a pinch of salt, but when they scale up to full, industrial production they’ll use more.

Michrowski says: “The challenges are cost reduction and scale up and quality of the final product. You need to solve a lot of problems for all of those challenges to be met.

“We are not a single solution for all the challenges – cost reduction and scaling up and quality of the final product – we are part of an array of innovative, brilliant breakthroughs across the industry.

“However, we address muscle production, which generates 50 per cent of the cost of mass production.”

The post Microscopic Ingredient Could Cut Price Of Lab-Grown Meat appeared first on NoCamels.

Trial and error: Millions struggle to find the right medication to treat their depression

Hundreds of millions of people struggle with depression worldwide, and finding the right antidepressant can require a lot of trial and error.

But with a simple blood sample, physicians will soon be able to get a list of the antidepressants that will work best for patients, together with details of the side effects they are likely to experience. 

Over 60 per cent of patients are prescribed more than one medication until they find something that works. And in the meantime, their symptoms can get worse. 

Israeli health tech startup Genetika+ is using Nobel Prize-winning technology to replicate a blood sample and turn it into a “brain-in-a-dish” – so they can determine which antidepressants would be most effective.

The blood is first turned into stem cells – the body’s raw materials from which all other cells with specialized functions are generated – then into frontal brain neurons, which originate in the region of the brain that is responsible for emotion and is most affected by mental illness. 

Hundreds of these neurons are put in a dish, and are exposed to over 70 different antidepressants to see what the patient’s unique reactions to each medication would be.

“We help you find out which drug gets to the brain, what it does in the brain, and whether you can tolerate the side effects,” says Talia Cohen Solal, CEO and Co-founder of Genetika+, which will market the service as NeuroKaire.

Depression affects 300 million people globally, and as a result of COVID-19, these numbers have risen at least threefold in the United States alone. 

“Once somebody actually gets the strength to go to a physician and say ‘look, I need help,’ there’s this trial and error process where a patient has to try multiple drugs in their body, testing drug after drug and experiencing a ton of side effects,” Cohen Solal tells NoCamels. “It’s just a guessing game until they get the right drug.”

Some patients need to try six or seven types of medication until they find what works for them. It can then take six to eight weeks for the medication to start working, leaving them struggling for over a year.

In the meantime, patients can experience a whole slew of side effects, including nausea, headaches, fatigue, and sexual dysfunction.

Genetika+ will suggest several antidepressants, because even the best medication can stop being effective. One in five people find their antidepressant stops working within two years because they build up a tolerance, or because of stress, interactions with other medications, or drug and alcohol use. 

The brain-in-a-dish technology also indicates whether they will be able to tolerate the side effects. Cohen Solal says other companies can only tell a patient whether the drug will affect them, but not what it will do to their brain.

“We’re bringing a precision medicine tool to help physicians get to the right drug for the right patient,” she says. 

Cohen Solal was always interested in mental health, and as a child she was exposed to cousins who were struggling with depression. Seeing how it affected her family, she understood that the disease needed to get so much more attention.

Throughout her postdoc and independent research at Columbia University, USA, she saw technologies that could bring new opportunities to people’s lives and improve them. After making Aliyah, Cohen Solal, together with Dr. Daphna Laifenfeld, founded Genetika+ in 2018.

The product is still undergoing R&D and has clinical sites in Israel and in Philadelphia, and is expanding to more sites across America. It recently won €17.5 million of grant funding, the maximum possible grant, from the European Commission’s Innovation Council Accelerator for high potential start-ups. Genetika+’s proposal was selected from over 1,000 applicants.

Genetika+ plans to launch commercially in the US and in Israel by the end of 2023. 

The post ‘Brain-In-A-Dish’ Helps Patients Find The Right Antidepressant appeared first on NoCamels.

Breakthrough egg tech could save billions from the hatchery cull

Soundwave technology is saving male chicks from being suffocated at birth – by turning them into females.

Half of the 15 billion chicks that hatch every year in commercial operators globally are slaughtered because they’re worthless. Male chicks cannot lay eggs or fatten up enough to be sold as poultry. 

But as Europe continues to legislate against the culls, Soos, a startup in Beersheva, southern Israel, is pioneering a sex-reversal process that literally turns chick embryos inside the egg from male to female.

“We transmit sound vibration during most of the incubation period, and control environmental conditions by changing the humidity and temperatures within the incubator,” says Yael Alter, CEO and Co-founder of Soos. 

The eggs are stored in trays fitted with speakers that cause the eggs to vibrate during their three-week incubation. Even the researchers at Soos aren’t quite sure why it works, but they know that it increases the female percentage from 50 to as much as 80. Across the poultry world, that could translate into saving up to six billion male chicks.

Many non-mammals change their sex during the incubation period due to environmental conditions. Bearded dragons, for example, hatch as females in temperatures higher than 89 F (32 C), even if they are genetically male. 

The sex of a chicken embryo isn’t determined until six days into its three-week incubation period. At that point the gonads (primary reproductive glands) either develop into ovaries or testes according to the individual’s chromosomes. 

Soos exploits this by introducing sound vibration energy to the incubation period, which increases the likelihood of ovary development even among male chicks.

In other words, the chickens are still genetically male, but are biologically female. 

Each “smart tray” in the hatchery is equipped with motion sensors that measure the sound vibration energy that the eggs sense, and transmission devices that transmit sound vibration to the incubated embryos. The vibration moves across the tray all the way to the eggs, making the egg a membrane transmitting the sound to the embryo. 

Nashat Haj Mohammad, Co-founder of Soos, discovered the phenomenon himself in his hometown of Kaukab Abu al-Hika, an Arab-Muslim village in the north of Israel. He manages a blood laboratory in an Israeli hospital, and raises chickens in his backyard as a pastime.

Haj Mohammad first noticed that more female chicks were hatching than males when he moved the coop near a utility pole in his yard. He initially thought it had something to do with its magnetic field. It took him five years of experiments – including placing the coop in various locations, and playing sounds at different volumes and at different times – to determine exactly which conditions led to more female chicks being born. 

Alter and Haj Mohammad met at a poultry conference, and embarked on lab experiments with “layers” (egg-laying hens) in Israeli hatcheries. They spent years refining the sex-changing process. 

Technologies that identify the sex of incubating eggs exist, but they require the use of expensive equipment, and the procedures can be dangerous for the egg. The most commercial technology involves making a hole in the eggshell to extract a liquid for gender identification, which can occasionally cause an infection and kill the embryo.

“The egg industry is the only one in the world that throws away 50 per cent of its annual production,” Alter tells NoCamels. “Our technology could be a game changer.”

The company’s technology has already been commercialized on an egg farm in Upstate New York, which has 1,200 “reverse chicks”, and on one of the biggest egg farms in Israel, which has 200. Their eggs aren’t marketed any differently than the ones you see in your supermarket.

Soos is also leading two R&D pilots, one with Amadori, one of the leading companies in Italy’s agro-food sector, and the other with the biggest producer of eggs in Belgium.

Soos wants to expand worldwide and have more commercial pilots to encourage the egg industry to adopt its technology. “The farmers are very conservative – if something works, it works, and they see no reason to change that,” says Alter. Within the next two years, the company wants to raise $20 million, and focus on expanding into hatcheries across the US and Europe.

The post Soundwaves Save Male Chicks – By Making Them Female appeared first on NoCamels.

Researchers identify “bacterial signature” linked to the stress disorder

Researchers say a simple saliva sample could help diagnose Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in soldiers.

They’ve found a strong link between the presence of certain bacteria, found during DNA sequencing of saliva samples, and cases of the disorder.

The team at Tel Aviv University believe they can develop the technology based on this “bacterial signature” into an objective test for the disorder, to be used alongside assessments made by psychologists and psychiatrists.

They also say they may ultimately be able predict a person’s vulnerability to PTSD, regardless of whether they are exposed to severe trauma. They could then be deployed away from combat situations.

What the researchers have not yet established is whether the newly-discovered bacterial signature is the result of having suffered from PTSD, or whether people who already have that signature are those who are more likely to develop PTSD.

Their study (published in Nature’s Molecular Psychiatry magazine) involved 200 IDF (Israel Defense Force) veterans from the first Lebanon war in 1982.

About a third of them suffered from PTSD, but had never been officially diagnosed, so were not recognized by the Ministry of Defense.

The plight of soldiers suffering PTSD was highlighted last April when Itzik Saidyan, severely traumatized by the 2014 Operation Protective Edge conflict in Gaza, set himself on fire outside a Defense Ministry office for injured soldiers.

Saidyan, 27, who survived after months of intensive care, said he’d struggled to receive the care he needed for PTSD after losing seven comrades in battle at a Hamas terror fortress.

Symptoms of PTSD typically include nightmares, flashbacks, and reckless behavior. It is often linked to anxiety, depression, and substance abuse and is a major public health concern that goes far beyond the military, affecting one in 20 people globally

The breakthrough in identifying a signature – marked by decreased levels of specific bacteria – was made by Professor Illana Gozes and her team at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine and Sagol School of Neuroscience, in a project part-funded by the IDF.

“The idea was to correlate the person’s feelings with something we can measure objectively,” Prof Gozes tells NoCamels. “We looked at the bacteria, and we discovered a specific signature for people who suffered from PTSD.”

The veterans had already been psychologically assessed when she and her team took their saliva samples and analyzed them using 16S RNA sequencing – an advanced form of DNA sequencing. There was a strong correlation between those diagnosed with PTSD and the bacterial signature the team identified.

“A person complaining of PTSD  may not get the diagnosis, according to the questionnaires, which are subjective. The bacterial content measurements will help making a more objective diagnosis,” said Prof Gozes.

“We hope that this new discovery and the microbial signatures described in this study might promote easier diagnosis of post-traumatic veteran soldiers so they can receive appropriate treatment.”

The team also found that those exposed to air pollution were more likely to suffer PTSD and those with more years of education were less likely.

Prof Gozes says the signature provides the basis for an objective test, but also offers the possibility of screening all new recruits to decide whether they are suited to combat duty and even developing appropriate medication to treat the problem.

“When a young person comes to be drafted, we don’t know if they are going to suffer from PTSD or not,” says Prof Gozes, but testing for the PTSD bacteria signature with a simple, non-invasive could change that.

“If you know that some people are more vulnerable then you could decide not to send them to the frontline, but put them on another more suitable job instead. Knowing a person’s characteristics before enlisting them to a certain unit could make an important difference.”

The post Simple Saliva Test Could Help Diagnose PTSD In Soldiers appeared first on NoCamels.

Startup dries sliced pumpkin, carrot and eggplant into containers for ready meals

Ugly vegetables are being saved from the dumpster – and turned into artistic packaging for ready meals.

Thin slices of zucchini, pumpkin, carrot, eggplant and other veg are carefully dried into sheets, and shaped into edible containers.

They’re then sealed with a tasty vegan meal inside – such as pasta with cherry tomatoes and mushrooms, or rice noodles with carrots and cabbage.

Customers pop the finished product in a microwave for eight minutes, then tuck into the meal – plus the packaging which would otherwise have been trashed.

“We realized that between 30 to 50 per cent of all products in the Western world are going to waste and one of the most painful reasons for that was just because of how the vegetables and fruits looked, even though they were still full of nutrition and taste,” Esti Brantz, Co-founder and and Head of Impact & Creative at the Ashdod-based startup Anina tells NoCamels.

“I remember when I was in Norway going to the back of a supermarket building to the dumpster. And when I opened one, I found it was full of treasures.

“The fruits and vegetables were all fresh and good. I once found a dumpster full of pineapples. The leaves were brown, but the rest of the pineapple was perfect. It’s crazy,” she says.

The problem of waste runs deeper than the supermarket chains. “The supermarkets are not the only ones that are throwing food away. A lot of vegetables don’t even leave the farmer’s field,” she says. As many as half of all sweet potatoes can be left to rot in the ground because they’re misshapen.”

The principle behind the food capsules is straightforward, says Brantz who buys “waste” vegetables from the farmers. “We cut them down and dry them up, without adding any additional preservatives,” she says.

“Vegetables are made of 90 per cent of water. So when we dehydrate them, we can press them into a very thin paper-like shape called laminates. And these laminates are the raw material in Anina’s manufacturing.”

The laminates are then molded into a 3D capsule that can be filled with other dried legumes, spices, grains, rice and pasta, with a shelf life of at least six months. 

Customers put the capsule into a bowl of water in the microwave and wait for the ingredients to expand and mix into a ready-to-eat meal. “This reflects today’s appreciation for healthy food even though you lack time,” says Brantz.

Finding the right combination of taste, color and texture can be quite an endeavor, she says. “We have many factors that we must be aware of, especially the size. It’s hard to calculate how to press everything into a small format such that it remains tasty and ensure there is enough for a meal when it’s ready.”

Anina currently offers a Pasta Primavera Bowl (in a tomato capsule), a Vietnamese Bowl (in a carrot capsule), and a Mediterranean Bowl (in a zucchini capsule).

“We are always thinking about the aesthetic of the outside of the capsule laminate. In fact, we believe in a culinary experience that is fun and visually impressive. For us, it’s a way to give art to food,” says Brantz. 

The company’s focus so far has been vegetables, but the aim now is to target fruit as well. “We know how to make the same laminates from fruit. The idea is to make a smaller capsule that looks like an energy bar. We already have many recipes,” says Brantz.

There are also plans to sell the laminates as they are, instead of molding them into capsule form. “You can get a whole sliced eggplant into a laminate format for instance. Instead of buying the fresh one you can store it in your closet since it’s very light and it’s very easy to transfer from place to place. And when you cook it from this flat form, it reverts back to the original slices with the original texture and taste,” she says.

Over the next five years Brantz wants the company to keep bringing new innovation to the industrial food world.

“We want to make people excited and happy about their food and give them the feeling that somebody has given a lot of thought to what they are eating. After all, we are what we eat,” she says.

The post Ugly Veg Turned Into Artistic Packaging You Can Actually Eat appeared first on NoCamels.

Breakthrough is first step towards growing human organs and tissue in the lab

Scientists in Israel have, for the first time, created a mouse embryo without an egg, sperm or a womb, in a move that could herald an era of lab-grown human organs.

They used only skin cells to produce a number of mouse embryos, which kept growing for 40 per cent of their gestation period.

The goal was not to reproduce a living mouse, but to produce a synthetic embryo as a first and significant step towards growing human tissue and organs in the laboratory.

The breakthrough, at the Weizmann Institute of Science, in Rehovot, opens the door to the real possibility of custom-grown “spare parts” in the near future, Professor Jacob Hanna, who led the research team, tells NoCamels.

The mice were grown from stem cells in a specially developed incubator and they survived for over eight days, out of the full-term gestation period of 20 days. They had a beating heart, blood stem cell circulation, a brain, a neural tube and an intestinal tract.

“Let’s imagine I’m a patient, and I need a bone marrow transplantation or some liver cells to transplant,” says Prof Hanna, of Weizmann’s Molecular Genetics Department.

“Some time in the future you’ll be able to take just a biopsy from my skin to make the stem cells. We then put them in this device, which we have already developed, and let them grow for 20 days, where they reach a stage we can try to take blood stem cells, or liver cells.

“And these will be genetically identical to me. There is no need to find a donor, there will be no rejection, and we can transplant them.” How far in the future is this? “Maybe five years, three years even,” he says.

Prof Hanna has co-founded a biotechnology startup, Renewal Bio, which will use the knowledge acquired so far to drive advancements in infertility, blood system renewal, and longevity.

Theoretically it may be able to take skin cells from a woman with fertility problems, create stem cells from them, then grow synthetic embryos to produce eggs.

It has taken Prof Hanna and his team 10 years to get to where they are today. The first step was to grow a natural embryo – from an egg and sperm – outside the womb. They achieved that last year, using a special incubator they developed, as reported in Nature.

“The embryo is the best organ-making machine and the best 3D bioprinter – we tried to emulate what it does,” said Prof Hanna.

The team has now managed to grow a synthetic embryo as well, under the same conditions, and has just published its findings in the journal Cell. It has shown that all the information needed to produce a living animal is encoded in its cells, not just in the egg or sperm.

Researchers built on two previous advances made at Prof Hanna’s lab. The first was the ability to reprogram stem cells – the building blocks of the human body.

Returning them to what scientists call their naïve state provides the raw ingredients to make something different and useful. So a skin cell could be stripped of its skin qualities and reprogrammed to become any other sort of cell.

The second advance was to build a growing environment where these cells could thrive. After many years of trial and error they created their incubator device that mimics the womb.

They then combined both these achievements to grow a synthetic embryo from naïve mouse stem cells, dispensing entirely with the need for a fertilized egg.

“The incubator has the embryos in glass bottles on a wheel that is spinning,” says Prof Hanna. “The embryos are swimming inside fluid that has all the nutrients needed to support adequate development.”

The vast majority of the 10,000 cells they attempted to grow were not successful. But around 50 developed into embryo-like structures. They had a “95 per cent similarity” to natural mouse embryos in terms of genetics and the shape of their internal structures, and their organs gave every indication of being functional.

Even before any of this technology is adapted for direct use on humans, it provides huge benefits. Certain experiments involving mice are currently unfeasible because they would require thousands of embryos. Prof Hanna’s team is, technically, able to produce mouse embryos by the million.

The post No Egg, No Sperm, No Womb: The Synthetic Mouse Embryo appeared first on NoCamels.

Botanical extract eliminates the bacteria that can damage a brand’s reputation

The soft drinks industry has long been plagued by a bacteria that can ruin fruit-based drinks, flavored water and iced tea as they sit on supermarket shelves.

But an Israeli startup has found the silver bullet that could banish the problem forever.

If you’ve ever opened a carton of apple juice and found it unnaturally cloudy and smelly, then you’ve encountered Thermophillic Acidophilic Bacteria (TAB). And if you actually tried a sip – and then spat it out – you’ll know it tastes like the worst medicine.

It can occur in any non-fizzy, non-alcoholic drink. It’s harmless, though unpleasant for the consumer. But it can seriously damage the manufacturer’s reputation, costing them time, money, and the risk of an expensive recall.

The TAB spores are invisible and resistant to pasteurization (they actually like the process, because it kills other predator microbes).

Drinks companies do everything they can to check the ingredients for any signs of TAB, but there’s been no guaranteed method of eliminating it. Until now.

Foodtech startup Resorcix, founded in Jerusalem in 2017, has identified a secret botanical ingredient which prevents the dormant spores from developing into bacteria. It disintegrates the TAB cells in their germination phase.

The spores typically thrive in warm conditions and an acidic environment, but a single teaspoon of the ingredient trademarked as Flavorwatch, added to almost 30 litres of drink will halt them in their tracks.

The Resorcix team, including microbiologist Dr Lior Sinai, identified the ingredient after screening and isolating plant extracts that were known biologically as anti-inflammatory and antibacterial, but which had never been tested to combat food spoilage.

“We are talking about a single plant, but it has over 160 compounds and we are just enhancing about five of these molecules,” Yehoshua Maor, pharmacologist, toxicologist, founder and chief scientific officer of the company, tells NoCamels.

“The precious rainforest is known to reveal surprising botanical treasures. Our Flavorwatch solution is based on a botanical oleoresin (thick concentrate) that naturally possesses anti-TAB spoilage properties.”

He won’t be persuaded, unsurprisingly, to name the plant in question.

“We extract kilos of it or even tonnes from the plant. It’s something like maple syrup. Since we need only a small fraction of it, we add some excipient (inactive ingredient) that we will enhance its volume,” he says.

“We only need 175 milliliters, which is about a cup of the final product, which is diluted already in 1,000 liters of ready to drink beverage.”

Flavorwatch has no smell, no flavor and no color, and you won’t find any mention of it on a list of ingredients.

TAB was first identified in Germany in 1982 after apple juice manufacturers were forced to recall their product because of widespread complaints.

The spores can enter the production process through sugar, pectin, water, and fruit concentrate.

Today drinks producer and bottlers test and isolate batches of drink from time to make sure they’re TAB-free, but it’s a costly process and is far from completely effective. Despite their best efforts they will typically experience one or two TAB problems every year.

So the Flavorwatch discovery is something of a milestone. Gat Foods, part of the Central Bottling Company, which produces Coca-Cola and Carlsberg lager in Israel, has bought a half share in Resorcix and is keen to promote the product.

“We are taking Flavorwatch from here, to promote it, to sell it and to find a production facility to produce it,” says Shachar Shaine, CEO of Gat Foods. “We decided to invest in the company. They developed the solution and we are taking it further.

“Consumers deserve full transparency and maximum quality throughout the entire shelf life of a beverage. But while TAB-related recalls can damage a company’s image and destroy consumer trust in the brand, we can help bottlers keep their positive brand image.”

Flavorwatch offers manufacturers a silver bullet, of sorts, but there’s a financial cost to consider, and it is not effective in orange juice and certain other drinks.

The post Secret Ingredient Is Silver Bullet For Drinks Industry appeared first on NoCamels.

It’s to attract tiny plankton as a snack, says Tel Aviv University team

Researchers believe they may have finally resolved an age-old mystery: Why do corals glow in the dark?

The answer, according to a team at Tel Aviv University (TAU), is that they want to lure plankton, the microscopic sea life on which they feed, as prey.

Corals may appear inanimate, rooted as they are to the ocean floor, but they are very much alive. They are marine invertebrates, the same family as jellyfish, and they need food. 

They have long been a species of interest for marine biologists, especially during a period of global climate crisis in which ocean acidification poses a major threat to coral reefs.

Scientists have long debated the purpose of coral fluorescence. Was it a way for the species to protect itself against radiation? Or to optimize photosynthesis in dark oceanic areas deep below the surface of the sea? Maybe the glowing allowed corals to bolster antioxidant activity or protect themselves against herbivores? 

“Before I started working on this project, I tested other hypotheses and nothing worked. It was failure after failure,” Dr. Or Ben-Zvi, who led the research team, tells NoCamels. “I did publish that work, though, because I believe it is important for others to know not to make the same mistakes.

“Then, I dove into the mesophotic corals, those that reside in the depths of the ocean. And the fluorescence is very obvious there. But corals don’t have eyes, so you start thinking, what else can it be? It’s very visual, you can see it with the human naked eye. And it is very appealing. As a diver, you see it and want to come close to it. It started from there.” 

Ben-Zvi and her team set about testing plankton’s attraction to fluorescence in the lab and tracked positive results, suggesting the prey were driven to the glowing colors. 

In the ocean, she continued to see positive results, as she tested two differently-colored fluorescent species and studied plankton attraction and activity of other non-prey animals, like fish.

Diving 40 meters deep, twice daily, Ben-Zvi saw plankton still attracted to the glowing corals while other species did not show these trends. “Every time, the results were as I expected. It was very rewarding to get those results,” she says. 

“The entire project is on mesophotic ecosystems and mesophotic coral. Those systems are very underexplored and we don’t know much about them. So this project gives us new opportunities to find out new things. We now know more about their physiology, their nutrition, and why they look the way they do,” Ben-Zvi explains.

“Fluorescence, in general, was such a mystery for so many years. For dozens of years, people have been trying to figure it out and no one has found direct evidence for a hypothesis. Our research is a very straightforward project with very straightforward results.” 

“In the broader sense, fluorescence is a very powerful tool in biology – in any field of biology, like cancer and neurobiology – and scientists are using these proteins but nobody knows their origins.” 

Her team’s work, in collaboration with the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, in Tel Aviv, and the Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences in Eilat, was published last month in Nature.

Ben-Zvi led the project under the supervision of Prof. Yossi Loya from the School of Zoology and the Steinhardt Museum. She hopes to continue to delve into work in marine biology. As a diver, she has seen the deterioration of coral reefs amidst the global climate crisis and hopes to better understand the species before it is too late. 

“I am in the water all the time. I have been tracking what is happening in the Gulf of Eilat and other reefs all over the world, in Japan and Hawaii. You see the destruction. We are trying to know as much as we can about corals, in general, and even more about corals in deeper habitats,” Ben-Zvi says. 

“We have hope that even if climate change affects a lot, we hope some of the mesophotic corals are more protected.”

Ultimately, Ben-Zvi, currently pursuing postdoctoral studies at Scripps College in San Diego, California, USA, hopes to continue to learn about marine activity and the coral bleaching crisis currently impacting the oceans. 

“There is an underwater microscope that can see the symbiotic algae that live inside the corals. So we hope to learn more about the interaction between corals and their algae and photosynthesis, and how it is all affected by the climate changes,” she said.

The post Researchers Finally Work Out Why Deep Sea Coral Glows In The Dark appeared first on NoCamels.

‘When decision-makers are men, then even subconsciously there is a bias against women’

When Dr. Jasmin Ravid and her two female co-founders walk into a conference together, they bet on how long it will take for someone to comment on the fact that the company was set up by three women. Maybe 30 seconds, maybe a minute.

Regardless of who wins the bet, the three women behind Kinoko-Tech, an Israeli food-tech company, share the same conclusion: Why do men find it jarring to see women in hi-tech leadership positions? 

“Everyone comments on it. They are not doing it from a place of bad intentions. But the fact that someone cannot enter a room and see three women entrepreneurs together without commenting ‘Oh my gosh’ amazes me,” Ravid tells NoCamels. 

Women-led startups received just 2.3 percent of venture capital funding globally in 2020 according to an article published in the Harvard Business Review. While Israel is known for its innovation as the Startup Nation, it is not exempt from this global pattern. A report published by the Israeli Innovation Authority said 22 percent of hi-tech senior management positions are occupied by women. Only 6.2 percent of women are CEOs or presidents. 

While Ravid and her two co-founders, Dr. Daria Feldman and Hadar Shohat, joke about their bet, they aren’t laughing about industry statistics. Their bet calls attention to a broader issue. 

“When decision-makers are men, then even subconsciously, there is a bias against women. When you are working in a very homogenous company, society, or group of people, you are used to certain norms,” Ravid says. 

Despite industry norms, several Israeli women serve as hi-tech senior leaders. The work of Jasmin Ravid, Dr. Anat Cohen-Dayag, Keren Herscovici, and Rotem Shacham – in food-tech, biopharmaceutical technologies, cybersecurity, and venture capital – is paving the way for women of the future. NoCamels spotlights these four women and their innovative and stereotype-defying work. 

Dr Jasmin Ravid

Dr. Ravid has an extensive background in plant and nutritional sciences, higher academia, and research. Her company, Kinoko-Tech, works to produce the next generation of protein-rich food through fungi and fermentation technologies. At Hebrew University, the three co-founders discovered how to grow mushrooms into alternative meats. Kinoko’s innovation is making waves in the food-tech industry – an industry that Ravid notes has a significant number of females. 

Ravid tells NoCamels that biology, food, and nutrition fields have higher percentages of women than fields like physics. Yet, Ravid notes that this industry breakdown reflects the fact that food is often associated with women and domesticity. 

Even in these areas, Ravid explains that there is a slow decrease in the percentage of women as one progresses up the ladder of academic and entrepreneurial leadership, from holding degrees to owning a lab to the founding of a company. 

“Even in this field, if you look at the faculty members and the professors, you will see a small percentage of women,” Ravid says. 

She and her team are working to counter these stereotypes, though, and change what hi-tech leadership looks like. Ravid understands the ‘why’ behind the low percentage of women in hi-tech academic and industry leadership positions. It all ties back to the idea of a work-life balance.

Dr Anat Cohen-Dayag

This idea is one that Dr. Anat Cohen-Dayag, CEO and President of Israeli biopharmaceutical company Compugen, has experienced throughout her career. 

“When my daughters were young, people were asking me: how do you leave your children that much at home with your husband? Isn’t he complaining? Don’t you feel guilty that you’re not with them?” Dr. Anat Cohen-Dayag tells NoCamels. “When my husband was going abroad for business, I don’t think anyone asked him if it was okay to leave the girls home with me.”

She has ample biological experience. With a Ph.D. from Israel’s Weizmann Institute and experience in scientific managerial roles, Dr. Cohen-Dayag brings a breadth of knowledge to the Compugen team. Compugen is an Israeli clinical-stage drug discovery and development company. Its predictive computational discovery platform identifies novel drug delivery targets and develops cancer immunotherapy therapeutics. Under her direction, Compugen has propelled the use of cutting-edge drug-discovery techniques. 

As a female CEO and president, Cohen-Dayag has strong leadership skills. She tells NoCamels that the qualities of a leader are not determined by gender. Yet her journey to becoming an industry leader was one filled with female -specific obstacles – obstacles that have cultivated her passion to help other women.  

“For women, it’s tougher. They need to deal with societal expectations. It relates to the traditional roles between men and women. It relates to how many role models there are for women,” Cohen-Dayag explains. 

“Every point in time could be a breaking point. You need to be convinced that your career matters.” 

Cohen-Dayag works to bring this encouragement to her company. Compugen’s team is 50 per cent female. The company aims to create a supportive culture that will synergize and enhance its clinical goals. 

“In the business world, but also as a society, we could, be much more successful if there is a balanced contribution between men and women. That’s important,” Cohen-Dayag says.

Cohen-Dayag’s spirit of empowerment is shared by Keren Herscovici, Vice President of Finance at Panorays and co-founder and Managing Director of Woman2Woman. Working with Panorays – an Israeli cybersecurity company that has developed a platform to automate third-party security risk evaluation and management – as a female hi-tech leader catalyzed her work helping other women. 

Keren Herscovici

Herscovici co-founded Woman2Woman, an Israeli mentorship program that aims to promote young women with extraordinary qualities from potential to excellence. Her company has helped more than 10,000 diverse Israeli women connect with female innovators and career opportunities. Herscovici recognizes the importance of mentorship in changing the hi-tech industry’s gender dynamics. 

“Our goal is to create the next generation of women leaders in Israel,” Herscovici tells NoCamels. 

“It is always about being innovative. What are your problems? What could be your solutions? Whether you are an entrepreneur or a CFO, how can you create more opportunities for yourself?” 

Herscovici underscores the importance of prioritizing diversity. Working with Panorays, she and her team have set an agenda of proactively recruiting women. She recognizes that women, despite their credentials, may be hesitant to apply for jobs due to a lack of role models. Panorays is composed of 40 per cent women and she hopes her company, as well as the industry, will continue to make strides in the diversification of leadership.  

“We have the right DNA in the company to enable not only women but diversity in general. It is about empowering people and making sure you have the right diversity in the company culture,” Herscovici says. 

“It is really important for a company to put diversity as one of its targets and key performance initiatives.” 

Rotem Shacham

Much like Kinoko-Tech’s Jasmin Ravid, Rotem Shacham is often the only female in the room when working with industry colleagues. A principal partner at Viola Ventures – an Israeli venture capital firm that focuses on funding technological innovation and transformational companies – Shacham succeeds in a predominantly male space. 

“I bring a unique perspective because I am Rotem. I am obviously different from other people in the room. One of the things that I am different in is sometimes my gender, but I take it upon myself to speak out and use the seat that I have at the table to bring my voice with the understanding that it is different but it is equally important,” Shacham tells NoCamels. 

She also works to use her leading VC position to invest in other women. 

“People invest in people who are like themselves. We need to see it more and more. It’s a virtuous cycle. If you have more investors, you will have more entrepreneurs. If you have more entrepreneurs, you will also have more investors,” Shacham explains.  

Shacham uses Israeli culture as inspiration in her work – and she encourages other women to do the same. Israel is home to a unique technology ecosystem with an entrepreneurial spirit across domains, Shacham explains. There is an innovative can-do attitude that might help women defy traditional hi-tech gender norms. 

“We take rules as mere suggestions and not as strictly as other cultures. This leads to our ability to take moonshot goals and make them work in a limited-resource environment,” Shacham says. “We should take that mentality, as women, and leverage it. We should encourage ourselves to take on these moonshot activities in our professional lives. It is okay to fail, as long as you learn from it.” 

All four women underscored the importance of mentorship and offered themselves as resources to other women. 

“You can’t be what you can’t see,” Ravid says.  Perhaps, at a future conference, Ravid and her colleagues will not have to place their usual bet. Instead, she hopes they will be joined by other teams of women, too. 

The post Women Who Are Tipping The Hi-Tech Gender Balance appeared first on NoCamels.

Tel Aviv University team uses AI to detect new worlds more than 600 light years away

A research team led by Israeli scientists has found two new giant planets in remote solar systems.

The planets are made mostly of gas and are about the size of Jupiter – which is 1,300 times bigger than planet Earth.

They are located so close to their suns that they can complete an orbit – equivalent to our 365-day year – in less than four days.

Researchers from Tel Aviv University (TAU) headed a team that used data from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Gaia spacecraft (also called space observatory) to identify the planets

Gaia-1b, which is 1,186 light years from Earth, and Gaia-2b, which is 682 light years away, are named after the observatory.

The discovery “marks another milestone in the scientific contribution of the Gaia spaceship’s mission, which has already been credited with a true revolution in the world of astronomy,” the university said in a statement.

Gaia has been mapping a billion stars in our galaxy since it was launched in December 2013. The team used artificial intelligence to help them identify changes in the brightness of the many suns they were observing, a telltale sign that they were being obscured by an orbiting planet.

“Gaia is constantly monitoring hundreds of millions of stars, studying their various properties. Among other things, it is monitoring their brightness. As planets orbit the stars, they might hide part of their stellar surface, causing an apparent slight periodic dimming of the star,” Prof. Shay Zucker, one of the TAU researchers, tells NoCamels.

“This way — to detect planets — was known for many years. Gaia was not meant for this purpose and was not optimized for this task. Nevertheless, my team looked for this effect,” he continues, “So we developed the needed software tools to detect their periodic dimmings and indeed we found them.

“Gaia has done much more than detect planets,” “That’s actually only a small fraction of Gaia’s scientific contribution. Gaia was, first and foremost, meant to map our galaxy – the Milky Way – in unprecedented precision. Thus, its contribution to other fields in astronomy (beyond planets orbiting other stars) is huge.”

This discovery “was made in the wake of precise searches, using methods of artificial intelligence,” Zucker said in a TAU statement. “The measurements we made with the telescope in the US confirmed that these were in fact two giant planets … located so close to their suns that they complete an orbit in less than four days, meaning that each Earth year is comparable to 90 years of that planet.”

“We confirmed they were planets by performing additional observations using Earth-based telescopes. We looked for tiny motions of stars that were related to the effect of [motion] of a planet,” Zucker says.

News of the new planets comes just as NASA published photos taken by James Webb Space Telescope, the largest optical telescope in space, designed to view objects too old, distant, or faint for the Hubble Space Telescope. The photos also include stars that were previously obscured — as well as cosmic cliffs, and emerging stellar nurseries — an unseen universe that is said to mark the dawn of a new era in astronomy, according to the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in California.

In March, the Gaia spaceship spotted the James Webb telescope while both were working deep space.

Gaia is a space observatory of the ESA, launched in 2013 and expected to operate until 2025. As Zucker says, the spacecraft is designed to measure the positions, distances, and motions of stars with unprecedented precision, called astrometry.

“Other space missions like the American Kepler or TESS missions were tailored for the detection of planets – but not Gaia. However, we have shown that this remarkable piece of technology can also contribute to the field of planets around other stars. Astronomers are really eager to detect such planets, because of the exciting prospects of eventually finding planets that can host life.”

Prof. Zucker, head of the Porter School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, together with doctoral student Aviad Panhi, from the Raymond and Beverly Sackler School of Physics & Astronomy led the team that discovered the planets. The team is part of the DPAC consortium commissioned by the European Space Agency to analyze data from the Gaia space observatory, Zucker explains.

The Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC) is a group of over 400 European scientists and software engineers with the objective to design, develop and execute the data processing system for ESA’s Gaia space astrometry mission.

“The purpose of the study was to make sure Gaia was realizing its full potential and also detecting planets (in addition to its many revolutionary contributions,)” Zucker explains. ”

SEE ALSO: Israeli Astronaut Eytan Stibbe Has Safe Return To Earth After 2 Weeks In Space

Gaia’s ability to discover planets via the partial occultation method generally requires continuous monitoring over a long period of time. The research team charged with this mission developed an algorithm specially adapted to Gaia’s characteristics and searched for years for these signals in the cumulative databases from the spaceship.

The results of the study conducted in cooperation with the ESA and research groups of the Gaia space telescope, were published in the scientific journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. The research was supported by the Israeli Space Agency and the Israeli Ministry of Science and Technology.

“The planets were discovered thanks to the fact that they partially hide their suns every time they complete an orbit, and thus cause a cyclical drop in the intensity of the light reaching us from that distant sun,” said doctor student Panhi, “To confirm that they are in fact planets, we performed tracking measurements with the American telescope called the Large Binocular Telescope, located in Arizona.” According to Panhi, the telescope is equipped with two giant mirrors, each with a diameter of 8.4 meters, making it one of the largest telescopes in the world today.

“The telescope makes it possible to track small fluctuations in a star’s movement, which are caused by the presence of an orbiting planet,” he added.

More planets

There are eight planets in our solar system, but less known are the hundreds of thousands of other planets in our Milky Way galaxy, which contains untold numbers of solar systems.

Planets in remote solar systems were first discovered in 1995 and have been an ongoing subject of astronomers’ research ever since, in hopes of using them to learn more about our own solar system.

Zucker said that besides the two new planets, the team has discovered 40 more planet candidates also detected by Gaia. ” The discovery highlights the ability of Gaia to detect planets. As Gaia accumulates more data, it will detect many more planets in the coming years,” he tells NoCamels.

“The astronomical community will now have to try to corroborate their planetary nature, like we did for the first two candidates. The data continues to accumulate, and it is very likely that Gaia will discover many more planets with this method in the future,” he said.

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Clinical trials of a nasal spray developed by Israeli-founded. SaNOtize show it significantly reduces viral load and shortens the course of COVID-19

A report in The Lancet, the world’s most respected medical journal, concludes that its nitric oxide nasal spray (NONS) used  six times daily for seven days was “efficacious in accelerating the reduction of SARS-CoV-2 RNA from the nasal cavity”.

The spray reduces viral load – the amount of virus in the body – by approximately 94% within 24 hours, if used within three days of a positive COVID-19 test. That figure climbs to 99% within 48 hours in participants at higher risk of disease progression.

The study was carried out at 20 clinical sites across India, evaluating 306 participants who had mild COVID-19 symptoms, approximately 46% of of whom were vaccinated.

It took place during the delta and omicron surges, suggesting that the treatment may be effective against those variants.

“The Phase 3 study results strongly support the safety and efficacy of NONS in the treatment of COVID-19 and its known variants,” said Gilly Regev, PhD, SaNOtize Co-Founder and CEO.

“Nitric oxide blocks entry into cells of the nasal passage, kills the virus, and stops its replication, which is why viral load is reduced so rapidly with NONS. Viral load has been linked to infectivity, poorer health outcomes, and complications from long COVID.

“The evidence is mounting that NONS represents an effective, well tolerated antiviral treatment that significantly shortens the course of COVID-19.”

SaNOtize, founded in 2017 by Dr. Gilly Regev and Dr. Chris Miller, and now based in Vancouver, Canada, has developed a patented platform technology that allows for the topical delivery of nitric oxide to treat a variety of bacterial, fungal, and viral diseases.

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Two-minute AI profile saves physician from time-consuming trawl of medical records

The average doctor’s appointment lasts about 20 minutes — 30 if you’re lucky. The physician sees dozens of patients, many with complex histories and taking a range of medications. Every detail is important, but there’s no way a doctor can keep track of it all.

Enter Navina (“Together we Understand” in Hebrew), a platform that uses AI to present a doctor, with an entire in-depth medical history that they can read and digest in two minutes.

It presents them with indications of risk factors, illnesses, and treatments of a patient, in an easy-to-read patient profile that can be accessed through a smartphone app. So they no longer need to trawl through a mass of records going back months and years from different hospitals and different specialists.

The company was founded by two former intelligence officers who revolutionized the use of AI during their time in the IDF to present military commanders with the data they needed, when they needed it.

They are now adapting that model to help busy doctors who need to have all relevant data at their fingertips the moment their patient walks into the surgery.

Navina says it turns “chaotic data into actionable patient portraits”. The portrait replaces disorganized patient data with a logical grid that makes it possible for a primary care physician to access a patient’s medical records within seconds.

Navina’s patient portrait provides a one-page summary with critical information from many sources, including images, emails, and faxes that are hard for physicians to find on their own. 

The team teaches the machine how to extract the proper data no matter what the source. To do this, Navina developed NLP (natural language processing) models which extract and structure the data through deep learning. with special codes for specific terminology.

Ronen Lavi, co-founder and CEO of Navina, compares the profile to what happens when you do a Google search on a person, where clicking to search will get you a page that is a roundup of the person with a photo, biography, information about life experiences, and articles correlated with the person. Similarly, Navina would present a contextual summary of a patient’s most pertinent medical information so that physicians can understand their health status.

“We built algorithms to do two main things. First, you have a lot of unstructured data — a lot of text. In a process called entity extraction, we extract all the right relevant codes out of the text, all the labs, all the meds, all the problems, all the diagnoses, through machine learning (ML) capabilities. Then, we build a knowledge graph that links all the data,” he tells NoCamels. 

“For a problem like blood pressure, [the profile] will show you the right medication, the right consult notes, the right lab tests, everything is correlated and explained to the physician. That’s the two main things we’re doing behind the scenes,” he says, noting that it’s about taking all the information, doing a correlation, and then creating a link that gives you a contextual understanding of your subject.

“What we saw was one of the main problems of physicians. They can address one or two problems — maybe three — if they know them in advance,” Lavi adds. “Five minutes before having to leave, the patient remembers – ‘Oh, hey, I have to ask you about this medication. I have to ask you about the new problem I have. I have to ask you about my family — and the physician hates this. The patient also hates it because they get the answer, ‘Sorry, my friend, I can’t deal with this right now. I have to go to the next meeting. And the patient doesn’t get the full attention he needs.”

The Navina app is currently being used by some 1,500 physicians and at leading clinics across the United States. The company is also marketing the product to health providers and risk adjustment teams , that predict future health care expenditures of individuals based on diagnoses and demographics.

Cutting through the clutter of patient data

The healthcare industry has amassed a huge amount of data over time, which has quickly become disorganized and difficult to manage. With so much data to analyze so quickly, health professionals often turn to AI to organize and interpret the data for improved insights.

This isn’t easy, Lavi tells NoCamels. In fact, it’s “complicated technology,” which explains why it hasn’t been done before. But Navina has a number of AI and medical experts on its team, including two co-founders with experience in the elite 8200 unit of the IDF, where they focused on bringing AI from theory into practice.

Lavi spent 24 years in 8200 and at the Prime Minister’s Office, where he established and led the AI Lab of Israel’s Military Intelligence, which collaborates with leading tech companies and academia to develop cross-functional platforms that provide insight into challenging data. Shay Perera, CTO at Navina spent a decade in elite intelligence units, where he was involved in R&D and held leadership positions. He also has a Master of Science in electrical engineering from the Technion with a specialty in machine learning.

Perera says a relative of his was diagnosed very late with cancer due to mistakes by the family doctor and his condition deteriorated as a result. The pair realized GPs were missing out on many critical diagnoses because they couldn’t absorb the volume of patient data they had to deal with.

Lavi and Perera were responsible for one of the greatest revolutions that took place in 8200 and later in the IDF – the smart data revolution that is presented to commanders in real-time. The two built the AI / ML-based information systems of the cyber units that processed data and upgraded the capabilities of cyber commanders and won a National Security Award for their efforts in 2018.

After being released from the army, the two used their knowledge and expertise in data, AI, and machine learning to make a difference in people’s lives. For Naviana, founded in 2018, the two replicated the data model they built in the IDF to implement it in health institutions around the world. 

“I think the gain for the patient is very obvious,” says Lavi, “They want to get everything to be addressed. And the physician should be with the patient, not with the computer. And that’s what Navina allows them to do because everything’s summarized for you in two or three clicks.”

“Navina is disruptive because it’s one of the first digital health applications that I know of, which the physician is actually willing to use. It’s not a burden. The machine behind the scene does a lot of stuff for them that allows them to understand the patient very easily. And every time I say that, people ask how did nobody think about it before and why hasn’t it been done.”

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Headset measures brain activity and knows if you’re happy, sad, engaged or confused

Yair Levy and his team are mind readers.

They can literally see what’s going on inside your brain, objectively, in real time.

Using a specially-designed headset to measure brain activity, they’ve collected enough data to readily identify universal “signatures” – or biomarkers – common to everyone, that indicate when they are engaged, bored, happy, sad, confused or anxious.

The researchers at Tel Aviv-based brain.space made headlines in April, when their headsets were sent into space, as part of of Israel’s Rakia mission on the International Space Station.

They’re still analyzing results from their experiments in space in which three astronauts, including Eytan Stibbe, Israel’s second man in space, were assessed on a 10-minute cognitive task performed both in space and back on Earth.
That may one day become the basis of future research, Levy tells NoCamels. But what they’re doing here and now already has huge potential for commercial applications, healthcare and beyond.

They’re at the forefront of a brain insight revolution that is, he says, on a par with mobile phone revolution. It is opening up a new world of opportunities to gather and use insights on what is really happening inside our heads.

The tech they’re working is a quantum leap, tapping directly into the human brain, rather than relying on our words. What we say isn’t always what we mean. What we tell market researchers isn’t always the truth. But the brain.space technology bypasses all that and heads straight for the grey matter.

You may say the movie was great, but the data says otherwise. Lines on the graph clearly show you were bored. The big surprise failed to surprise you. It is clear you weren’t engaged.

The breakthrough that has allowed Levy and his team to gain such clear insights is a helmet – they call it a headset – with 460 sensors that monitor all aspects of brain activity and which should be available in 2024.

A typical EEG machine, used primarily to detect epilepsy, has 20 sensors, and was far too basic for their needs. An MRI machine, used in hospitals to investigate brain disorders and many other conditions, is a huge piece of equipment, costs up to $3m, and would have been completely impractical.

What the 30-strong team at brain.space came up with was a one-size-fits-all helmet that can ultimately be mass-produced at a reasonable price, and that can be used anywhere . . . even in space. It takes 60 seconds to fit and provides real-time data immediately.

What it does, that no other piece of equipment can do, says Levy, is “to provide researchers, physicians and software developers with a tool to interact and to interface brain activity into brain insights.

“We provide brain insights that they can easily develop into software, treatments, services, that utilize those brain insights.”

“Today for every product, and for every service, you need to get user feedback and statistical information to make adjustments and improvements,” says Levy.

“We give you brain insights and give you the exact characteristics of every user that uses your service, and every user that uses your product.

“You will get the exact information on how it feels, how much the user engages with the service, how good the treatment is for them in all the physiological parameters you need.”

Levy offers the example of racing drivers. “Once you know what is happening in the human mind you can make better designs,” he says. Brain.space can analyze the driver’s brain activity and identify “signatures” that suggest negative emotions such as confusion. That data could provide engineers with the insight they need to redesign a Formula One cockpit, maybe by reducing the number of controls so the driver doesn’t suffer cognitive overload.

Psychologists could use their technology to compare what a patient tells them with the objective “truth” of what the helmet says. Gaming companies could measure how engaged and how challenged their players are. Maybe they don’t have the capacity to reach the next level, or maybe they’re far from their maximum potential. Likewise pilots, bus drivers and many more.

Brain.space also has huge healthcare potential. It is already being used in pilot studies at Shamir Medical Center, near Tel Aviv, to help diagnose psychiatric conditions, Alzheimer’s and dementia, based measurable similarities in brain activity.

The objective “truth” provided by brain.space will also become a highly-prized commodity for any sales or retail operation. “Instead of using a lot of statistics about previous purchases, we can see the real-time reaction of the user when he’s shopping on Amazon, for example,” says Levy.

“So we could send 100 or 200 headsets to customers and give them 50% discount. They’ll use the headset and then Amazon will be able to gather information that will tell them how to enhance the selection process of their users.”

The space mission was a remarkable opportunity to observe the effects of microgravity, but peripheral to the core mission, says Levy. He initially resisted the idea as a distraction but was eventually convinced. And he says watching the launch at Cape Canaveral, in Florida, USA, was a moment of enormous pride. Data on brain function in zero gravity could be very relevant for long-term space missions.

The inspiration for brain.space came from the company’s co-founder, whose 11-month-old baby daughter fell and suffered a traumatic brain damage. Her condition was normalized many years later, highlighting the need for technology that can objectively track the progress of brain recovery. Sami Segol, CEO of Keter Plastics, has a keen interest in brain sciences and is among brain.space’s investors.

Levy says the headsets will provide a platform for others to develop applications in whatever direction they choose.

The ability to actually see inside the human brain inevitably raises questions of morality. It’s a technology that could be used for bad as well as good.

Levy says: “We are striving to do good with our technology, that’s what leads our company. Everybody is talking now about smartphones and how bad they are for our kids, but on the other hand most of the world’s population use smartphones because of benefits that they provide.”

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