SCOPUS 2017

educing the side effects of
cancer medicines, Benny says
while adding to her sketch a row of
arrows penetrating and attacking the
tumor.
“Our approach differs from
basic biology,” she says. “We use
engineering models.”
Tumor-on-a-Chip
Along these same lines, Benny’s
lab has incredibly developed a model
in which they use cell samples from
patients with cancer to replicate their
cancerous tumors outside the body on
coin-sized chips. These chips allow
scientists to understand the vascular
make-up of the individual tumor and
select the best
nanoparticle to
use for effective drug
delivery—with the aim
that medicines which work
on the chip in a lab will also
be effective for the patient.
“It’s personalized nanomedicine.”
says Benny. “Controlling and treating
tumors this way is similar to the way
medicine approaches other treatable
conditions like arthritis and asthma.”
Benny’s research comes on the
heels of the highly successful “liveron-a-chip”
technology developed by
one of the global leaders in human
chip development. Hebrew University
bioengineer Prof. Yaakov Nahmias is
growing living liver tissue, complete
with the liver’s complex system of
blood vessels on a coin-sized chip,
to test the safety of medications
more accurately, a process that drug
companies often spend years and
millions of dollars to complete.
Nahmias and his team at the Alexander
Grass Center for Bioengineering,
which he founded and runs, integrate
tiny censors—no larger than the width
of a strand of hair—into the chip to
measure levels of oxygen and other
indicators that measure the toxicity of
drugs.
The chip mimics human physiology
which lets pharmaceutical developers
see in real time how their drugs
affect liver function, rather than
having to perform arduous tests on
animal and human subjects. “This
is a transformative technology,”
says Nahmias, whose lab has raised
millions of dollars, and recently
launched the biotechnology
company, Tissue Dynamics, which
has in place commercial agreements
with pharmaceutical and cosmetic
companies
already benefiting from the
revolutionary technology.
Beyond Our Wildest
Imagination
Diamonds have long captivated
humankind. They have been the
catalyst for wars and been worn on the
fingers of royalty for centuries, but for
Assistant Professor of Applied Physics
Nir Bar-Gill, these jewels can replicate
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
Bar-Gill is actually interested in the
small defects in diamonds—what
might appear as a pinkish hue to the
naked eye—but are known as nitrogenvacancy
centers to physicists. In what
defies our imaginations, Bar-Gill,
who is also a member of the Racah
Institute of Physics, is using those tiny
defects to develop a handheld medicalimaging
device that produces images
with a much higher resolution than our
current full body MRI machines—and
at a fraction of the cost.
These “defects” act as isolated
quantum systems, meaning they can
respond to the natural magnetic forces
in the body and help create high-quality
optical images, Bar-Gill explains. The
lab model of this system looks like a
jumble of camera parts and wires to
the untrained eye, but Bar-Gill predicts
it could be a working hand held MRI
within the next five years.
2017-2018 9