It's Crystal Clear (Page

WINTER 2009/10

Celebrating Forty Years of Growth and Achievement

www.bgu.ac.il It’s Crystal Clear (page 42) Ben-Gurion ASSOCIATES ORGANIZATIONS University

of the Negev ARGENTINA JAPAN BRIGHTON COMMITTEE Nava Rubenzadeh, President Koji Akatsuka, President c/o Sam Barsam, Chair Roy J. Zuckerberg ASOCIACIÓN ARGENTINA DE AMIGOS FRIENDS OF BGU JAPAN CHAPTER 47 Hove Park Road Chairman, Board of Governors DE LA UNIVERSIDAD BEN GURIÓN 75-1, Otobe, Tsu Hove East Sussex BN3 6LH Message from the President 1 Robert H. Arnow DEL NEGUEV 514-0016 MIE Scalabrini Ortiz 3278, 15° Piso MIDLANDS COMMITTEE Chairman Emeritus, Facing the Brain • Dr. Galia Avidan 2 C.P. 1425 Cuidad Autonoma MEXICO Attn. Mr. Michael Lavender Board of Governors de Buenos Aires Yoje Dondich, President 148 All Saints Road Extreme Tolerance • Dr. Simon Barak 4 Lord Weidenfeld of Chelsea ASOCIACIÓN MEXICANA DE AMIGOS Kings Heath Birmingham B14 6AT Honorary Chairman, BELGIUM DE LA UNIVERSIDAD BEN GURIÓN That Green and Pleasant Land• Dr. Eitan Bar Yosef 6 Board of Governors FRIENDS OF BGU IN BELGIUM EN EL NEGUEV (AMAUBG) UNITED STATES 221, Avenue Louise, 4th floor Río Tiber 78 Carol Saal, President Health for All • Dr. Nihaya Daoud 8 Vice-Chairpersons, B-1050 Brussels Colonia Cuauhtémoc Doron Krakow, Executive Vice-President Board of Governors C.P. 06500 México, D.F. AABGU NATIONAL OFFICE & Planning the Next Move • Dr. Alon Monsonego 10 Zvi Alon BRAZIL GREATER NEW YORK REGION CONTENTS Eric A. Benhamou Dr. Claudio Luiz Lottenberg, President THE NETHERLANDS 1430 Broadway, 8th Floor One Plus One Equals 3D • Dr. Ofer Levi 12 Sir Ronald Cohen Av. 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Box 653 BEN-GURION UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION Beer-Sheva 84105 Vol. 4, No. 4 A Never-Ending Process • Dr. Assaf Hasson 38 Prof. Amos Drory Harold Paisner, Executive President Winter 2009/10 Vice-President for Lord Weidenfeld of Chelsea, Vice-President ISSN 0793-7393 External Affairs Here Comes the Sun • Dr. Iris Visoly-Fisher 40 Suzanne Zlotowski, Vice-President Ben-Gurion University of the Negev It’s Crystal Clear • Dr. Raz Zarivach 42 Prof. Yael Edan NATIONAL AND LONDON REGION P.O. Box 653, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel Deputy-Rector ORT House 126 Albert Street Fax: 972-8-647-2803 Prof. Lily Neumann Money Makes the World Go ’Round • Dr. Gitit Gur-Gershgoren 44 London NW1 7NE E-mail: [email protected] Vice-Rector Website: www.bgu.ac.il Committed to the Negev • Drs. Talya and Arik Wolak 46 From the President

Dear Friends,

Until then, I remain sincerely yours,

Prof. Rivka Carmi, M.D. President Dr. Galia Avidan Facing the Brain

Dr. Galia Avidan wanted to study to, say, an automobile. Viewing a car Initially, Avidan’s research focused on psychology as an undergraduate student, can tell us its color, brand or age. But studying the brains of healthy volunteers but when she looked into the possibility observing the human face provides us by using functional MRI (fMRI), but she of doing a double major together with a lot more information than age then turned to people who are impaired with biology, she was told that it was or gender. A person’s face often gives us in the skill of facial recognition. impossible. “So I settled for biology clues about their intelligence or self- The inability to recognize faces is a alone, and loved it. I was fascinated with confidence and whether that person is condition called prosopagnosia. She is brain research from the very beginning, open to social communication with us. studying a form of it called “acquired and studied it within the sphere of the We may deduce that a person is in a prosopagnosia” which is caused by life sciences.” good mood or angry or distracted. Facial damage to specific regions of the brain. After completing her Bachelors recognition is an extremely complex “Individuals with acquired degree at Tel Aviv University, Avidan task, and no computer program even prosopagnosia have no problems with enrolled in an interdisciplinary direct approaches the recognition abilities that face recognition until they undergo doctoral program at the Hebrew we humans have. How does the brain brain damage that causes them to University of Jerusalem that focused on extract all that information? And is the become so impaired that they may fail the brain. “I wanted to study the brain process different for faces than for other to recognize even close family members under fMRI scanners, they were found University Medical Center. “We use from an interdisciplinary outlook. The objects?” or themselves in the mirror. This deficit to have normal activation in the FFA. fMRI to examine the brains of people brain is so complicated that you need has been known for many years and “This was very surprising,” she admits. when they look at faces and objects,” to study it from the perspectives of studies have been carried out to infer “Given the involvement of this region in she explains. And that is where they are many different fields: computer science, what brain structures are necessary for face recognition in healthy individuals uncovering areas in the brain other than physics, physiology – and, of course, face recognition in the healthy brain. In and the fact that damage to it leads the fusiform gyrus that was implicated psychology!” recent years, with the advent of fMRI, to acquired prosopagnosia, we had in acquired prosopagnosia (but not the It was then that Avidan became it has been shown that the region most expected some obvious abnormality, congenital form). intrigued by how the brain processes consistently found to be damaged in either functional or structural, in this “In addition to the more familiar visual information. She continued acquired prosopagnosia – the fusiform region, but none was found.” ‘grey matter’ of the brain, there is white herself didn’t grow up on the kibbutz, as her post-doctoral research in the gyrus in the right hemisphere – shows Avidan has been conducting her matter, which is composed of fibers that her mother left before she was born, but Department of Psychology at Carnegie Observing the consistent face selective activation in CP research on two levels: behavioral connect the different regions. We found she has returned there to raise her own Mellon University in the USA. “I became human face healthy individuals. In fact, this critical and neural. Her behavioral lab is in that these fibers were of lower quality family. more and more interested in the way provides us area has been labeled the fusiform face the Department of Psychology itself. in the brains of people with CP. We also Avidan hopes that greater attention the brain processes the human face,” she area, or FFA, and was suggested to serve to congenital prosopagnosia will lead to with a lot more “Typically, our subjects look at images found that in normal people, additional explains. as a critical face-processing module in of faces or other objects on a computer foci in the brain are activated when earlier detection of the deficit in children Avidan joined BGU’s Department information than the human brain.” screen and answer questions that test viewing faces, and not only the fusiform. and to the development of treatment of Psychology in 2006 and is now age or gender. Avidan explains that only recently their ability to distinguish between the However, those with the CP deficit did intervention programs as is the case with conducting research in the subject of A person’s face has more attention been paid to another different images, and we record their not exhibit this additional activation. other disabilities, such as dyslexia or facial recognition. “There is a serious, often gives us form of prosopagnosia called congenital accuracy and reaction time while doing Hence, we suspect that the information dyscalculia. ongoing debate in the field regarding clues about their prosopagnosia (CP), or the inability so. We have special cameras that track processed in the fusiform gyrus of those “I am very pleased to be here at the visual processing of the human face,” to recognize faces from birth, without Ben-Gurion University,” she says. intelligence or their eye movements and have seen that with the CP deficit is not propagated she explains. “Is this just a mere subset any indication of brain injury. There people with prosopagnosia do not scan properly by the ‘white matter’ in “I appreciate the freedom to pursue of object recognition, or are human self-confidence is some evidence that this impairment faces the same way normal people do.” posterior areas of the brain to the more interdisciplinary approach to the human faces so important that their images are and whether may be genetic, as it runs in families The other part of Avidan’s work anterior regions,” she says. brain.” processed differently in the brain? that person is and is estimated to affect two percent is conducted in the Brain Imaging Avidan lives together with her partner “Think of how much information we open to social of the population. But when the brains Research Center (BIRC) at the Soroka and their two young children on Kibbutz glean from the human face, as opposed communication of people with this deficit were studied Gat in the Negev, where her mother grew with us up and her grandmother still lives. She

2 3 Dr. Simon Barak Extreme Tolerance

In less than twenty years, our planet will identifying two plant genes that affect interest this generated, particularly from need food for an additional two billion tolerance to heat, salt and drought. internationally known scientists,” he people. Where will it come from? An Barack believes these genes function to recalls. alarming thought indeed. slow down the plant’s response to stress. And indeed, in early 2009, the Clearly, more land is needed to “Stress causes a whole bunch of genes University’s technology transfer grow more crops, says Dr. Simon Barak to activate and defend the plant against company BG Negev Technologies signed of the French Associates Institute the stress itself. However, this uses a lot an agreement for research collaboration for Agriculture and Biotechnology of energy and we know that if a plant’s with Bayer Bioscience, part of the Bayer of Drylands at the University’s Jacob stress tolerance machinery is switched CropScience Company, based on Barak’s Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research on permanently, the plant almost dies. breakthrough method in identifying (BIDR) in Sede Boqer. “Unfortunately, most of the land with agricultural potential is in areas with harsh environments. Furthermore, over 60 We need to develop varieties of percent of all yield losses from crops food crops that can withstand that are currently grown worldwide are harsh environmental conditions due to environmental stresses such as drought, temperature extremes or soil salinization. “Even in Europe, or other regions So our genes may be important in stress tolerance genes. The partnership where you wouldn’t expect there to be preventing the plant from over-reacting.” will allow the team to continue to hunt stresses such as water shortage, plants Barak’s team successfully disturbed for new genes. suffer drought,” Barak continues. “With the function of the two genes so that the Barak and his team are also eager the global climate change there are plant’s stress defenses were activated a to find those native plants of the Negev more and more periods of drought in little bit more than usual and the plants desert, he explains. With the aid of Prof. Europe. The phenomenon is spreading therefore showed increased tolerance to (Emeritus) Yitzchak Gutterman, also of Barak grew up in a traditional Jewish He then served as Director of the British discovered in plants. The clock controls northwards all the time.” harsh environments. the BIDR’s French Associates Institute, English family, but had never thought Aliyah Movement, a division of the many plant activities including gene But while we have to find ways of The breakthrough in finding the they began to search for Arabidopsis- much about his identity until he was Jewish Agency that provides information activity, photosynthesis and flowering improving crop tolerance to stresses in genes, which were screened from related plants that are naturally tolerant sent as a day student to a private school for people who wanted to immigrate. time. places where there is already agriculture, thousands of possibilities, was made to stress. “We have found one that’s (or “public school” in British English). It was during that period, he relates, Barak cites Prof. Yair Heimer and says Barak, “for new areas, we need possible by recent dramatic changes in amazingly tolerant to heat, salt, drought “It was very anti-Semitic. I had never that “a brochure for the Jacob Blaustein Prof. Ali Nejidat from BIDR and Prof. to develop varieties of food crops that how biological research is conducted, and cold” says Barak. “This is a really experienced anything like this before,” Institutes for Desert Research fell in my Elaine Tobin from UCLA as his mentors, can withstand harsh environmental as well as inventive lab work. “Biology nice project because we are collaborating he recalls, “and it got me thinking about lap and I thought ‘This is my dream. noting the “incredible changes” that have conditions.” has undergone a revolution,” states with many of the plant scientists at what it means to be Jewish.” I can be a pioneer in the desert and do taken place at Sede Boqer since he first Barak notes that plants do have Barak. “In the past, we would have had the BIDR to examine the physiology, In an experience shared by so many cutting-edge science’.” arrived. “When we started, we were in mechanisms to cope with stress, so the to measure the activity of each gene by biochemistry and molecular biology of young people, it was reading the best- And that is what he set out to do. old buildings, which held very small labs, question is how can we improve these itself; nowadays we have the technology this plant to understand how it tolerates selling historical novel Exodus by Leon After completing an ulpan at the WUJS although the Institutes were always fairly mechanisms or introduce new ones. to measure the activity of all the plant’s such a variety of stresses.” Uris that converted him to Zionism. Institute in Arad, he began his graduate well-equipped. The changes over the last Can the genes that control tolerance genes simultaneously telling us which Barak and his wife Michal, an “The book ignited something in me. and then doctoral studies at the BIDR ten years have been amazing, and the to multiple environmental stresses be genes are switched on or switched off by architecture technician at the BIDR’s I put the book down and told my mom, in plant molecular biology. These were level of science is first-rate.” isolated and perhaps used to engineer stress.” Department of Man in the Desert, live in ‘this is it, I’m making aliyah!’.” he recalls. followed by post-doctoral studies lasting crop tolerance to stress, he asks? In 2008, Barak’s team published the the community of Midreshet Sede Boqer, Barak spent some time on a kibbutz three years at the University of California Using the model plant Arabidopsis results of its study in the prestigious adjacent to the University campus, with before returning to the UK to study for at Los Angeles (UCLA), researching the thaliana, Barak’s team has succeeded in journal Plant Physiology. Barak was well their two children. “The freedom here his Bachelors degree in Agricultural circadian clock of plants. This regulatory aware of the commercial applications is wonderful, which makes it a real Science at the University of Nottingham. mechanism that keeps track of the earth’s of identifying genes that enable plants paradise to raise children,” Barak notes. 24-hour day/night cycle (and that is to better tolerate stress, but admits disrupted when humans zoom across to being “amazed by the amount of time zones, causing jet lag) was first 4 5 Dr. Eitan Bar-Yosef That Green and Pleasant Land

A self-described Anglophile in Beer- completed his doctoral work, Bar-Yosef I see myself as a cultural historian.” also including a wide array of sources, Academics should and concrete walls, echoes the New Sheva, Dr. Eitan Bar-Yosef of the was delighted to return home six years In his book, The Holy Land in English from travel accounts and Sunday School look beyond the Jerusalem imagined in Ezekiel and the ago, when he joined the BGU faculty. Culture 1799-1917: Palestine and prize books to the popular “Palestine Book of Revelation. It’s a tiny Promised Conrad and Chinita Abrahams-Curiel Ivory Tower. My Department of Foreign Literatures and “Somehow,” he says, “it is easier to be an the Question of Orientalism (Oxford Exhibition,” which toured Britain from Land, built in the middle of what used to Linguistics explores the multifaceted Anglophile from afar.” University Press, 2005), Bar-Yosef the 1890s well into the 1940s. theater reviews be the campus wilderness.” relationship between Britain and the Bar-Yosef is a literary scholar, examined the relationship between This material fit neatly with the help me think Of late, Bar-Yosef has focused more Holy Land. specializing in nineteenth-century the Holy Land as a powerful metaphor sentiment that, rather than simply more clearly and on texts in Hebrew: his current project Bar-Yosef has always been fascinated British literature. The courses he teaches in English Protestant culture and the denoting a place out there, in the Levant, creatively about traces Zionist perceptions of “Black by English culture: growing up in Israel, focus on themes such as “Imperialism Holy Land as a geographical space Jerusalem could be built “in England’s my academic work, Africa,” from Herzl’s Uganda Proposal of and the Novel” or “Monsters in Victorian in the Middle East, in the context green and pleasant land,” to quote Blake’s 1903 – which envisioned the creation of he read David Copperfield, The Wind while my academic in the Willows and The Famous Five Fiction.” Nevertheless, his research has of nineteenth-century imperial and famous poem “Jerusalem.” Emerging a Jewish autonomous state in East Africa books, yearning – literally – for greener taken him to different disciplines, such cultural politics. Bar-Yosef relied on a in seventeenth-century England, this background – to present-day Israeli culture. pastures. Studying at the University as social history, visual art and the study wide array of sources, beginning with idea was perfected in John Bunyan’s The enriches my “In the 1950s and 1960s, Israel was of Oxford, therefore, was a chance to of popular culture. “My work always falls works by authors such as William Blake, Pilgrim’s Progress, a Christian allegory journalism deeply involved in sub-Saharan Africa, realize a life-long dream; and yet, having back on literary texts,” he explains, “but Benjamin Disraeli and George Eliot, but recounting the journey of a man seeking offering assistance to the emerging salvation: though his path leads to African states – an idea anticipated Jerusalem, this coveted city of Zion is hear the voices of those ‘Tommies,’ the in Herzl’s utopian novel, Altneuland. situated in a typical English landscape. common fighting men, describing their Today, when critics of Zionism draw an “I’m interested in how people take unexpected visit to the Holy Land.” explicit analogy between Israel and the the Biblical vocabulary and make it their Today, Bar-Yosef and his family live Apartheid regime, they tend to forget own,” says Bar-Yosef. “Bunyan’s vision in Beer-Sheva, in a house that sits a that before 1967, Israel joined the young demonstrates how a literal geographical few hundred meters from the British African nations in harsh condemnation concept can be appropriated and War Cemetery, where some of those of South Africa’s racial segregation.” domesticated, made part and parcel “Tommies” are buried. “When I wander In addition to his academic work, of Englishness. My work follows and through the cemetery, I feel I know these Bar-Yosef writes theater reviews for analyzes this process through various people,” he says. Like numerous other Ha’ir, a Tel Aviv weekly. He describes episodes in English history and culture. British War cemeteries worldwide, the the pleasure of balancing the more The itinerant Palestine Exhibition, for Beer-Sheva cemetery is designed like an arduous scholarship with writing concise example, was a popular attempt to turn English garden. “With its dazzling green pieces that meet tight press deadlines. every local town hall into a miniaturized, lawn, it represents an English fantasy, For him, these divergent activities feed vernacular, ‘Jerusalem in England’.” grafted, in this case, onto the arid land of each other. “Academics should look Explaining his decision to study in Israel.” beyond the Ivory Tower,” he explains. England, he stresses that “To understand Bar-Yosef was born in Rehovot. He “My reviews help me think more clearly the English you must go to England, earned his Bachelors degree in English and creatively about my academic work, if only because many of the scholarly Literature and Comparative Literature while my academic background enriches resources are there.” at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, my journalism.” His most exciting archival work and his Masters degree and Ph.D. at Studying both British and Israeli was undertaken at the Imperial War Oxford. He and his wife Shira, a high- cultures, so glaringly different, is not Museum, where he read letters and school teacher, are the parents of three common academic practice, but this is diaries written by British soldiers who daughters. “I feel extremely fortunate precisely what excites Bar-Yosef. “I try to fought in Palestine during the First to be a part of BGU,” he says, “probably strike a balance between my interest in World War. “Holding those letters, the most vibrant campus in Israel.” Only other cultures and in my own,” he says. sometime scribbled in pencil during a half joking, Bar-Yosef says that when he “I hope my current work will allow me to break in the march, was very inspiring,” first saw the campus, he was reminded do this, using insights gleaned from my Bar-Yosef continues. “You could almost of Bunyan’s and Blake’s vision. “The past work on Britain, and explore what artificial river running through the they could come to mean here, at home.” Kreitman Plaza, surrounded by stone 6 7 Dr. Nihaya Daoud published in 2009 in the Journal of The project of Women for Women's Daoud is interested in international Epidemiology and Community Health, Health involved empowering Jewish collaboration, working with health was a breakthrough study that examined and Arab women to become lay promotion researchers from the EU. This Health for All how socioeconomic inequalities health advisors in their communities. year, she participated as a tutor and a influenced health issues within a “When you work in the field of health lecturer in the summer course organized minority population. It was the first promotion, you see the real need for by the European Training Consortium such study conducted among the Arab community participation. Lay groups – “A Masters level health promotion minority in Israel. hold the local knowledge that we, the course that we’ll try to launch at BGU “Our conclusion was that even with in the future,” she says. “The message a higher education, if you are a member in my family was very clear,” she adds, of a minority and you do not translate explaining how the family was from a that education into equivalent work village that was destroyed in 1948. “We opportunity and income, you will not don't have lands (as a source of income) attain your full potential of good health,” anymore. What can be obtained is higher she explains. education.” Daoud’s interest in public health Since 2008, when she was appointed began when she worked as a head as head of the National Council of nurse in a primary care clinic. She Health Promotion at the Ministry then decided to study for her Masters Health is a of Health, Daoud has been leading a degree in Public Health. Quickly fundamental process of defining a new mission and recruited by the Ministry of Health as human right; all vision statement for the Council based a nation-wide health educator in the groups in society on the Ottawa Charter declaration, Department of Health Promotion and should be able to focusing on health equity and reducing Health Education, she was responsible the health gaps among the different for health education for Jewish and Arab achieve the status social groups in Israeli society. schools. This position made her curious of health enjoyed The motto of the Charter in which about how health education could be by the most she passionately believes is: “Health is What are the pathways that Daoud, the recipient of a highly infants and not just those with health integrated into the school system. She privileged group a fundamental human right; all groups contribute to explaining poor health competitive Pratt Foundation post- problems.” decided to pursue this interest and was in society in society should be able to achieve the in disadvantaged communities and doctoral fellowship at the Department Daoud, who grew up in the central accepted to the prestigious Mandel status of health enjoyed by the most minorities? How can different subgroups of Epidemiology and Health Services Israeli Arab town of Tira, received her School for Educational Leadership privileged group in society.” of society attain the level of health Evaluation at the Faculty of Health Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of in Jerusalem that specializes in the Daoud says that coming to work enjoyed by the most advantaged group? Sciences, has been involved for most of Jerusalem. Her research focused on professional development of leaders in researchers, do not have. We have and teaching at BGU after years dealing What prevents the poor from attaining her professional life in health promotion social inequalities in health among the educational sectors in Israel. our professional knowledge and the with health promotion has been a their health potential and making and reducing medical inequalities among disadvantaged minorities. How does While working for the Ministry of integration of the two can be a key meaningful point in her professional life. optimal use of available health care minorities and disadvantaged groups. socioeconomic status – for example Health, she also worked as a consultant element in enabling the community to “The approach here is really community services? These days, together with BGU the level of education, income, assets for the Italian Cooperation Office in control factors influencing their own oriented, in which health promotion can For public health expert Dr. Nihaya epidemiologist Prof. Ilana Shoham- ownership – translate into one’s physical Jerusalem, and for UNICEF Jerusalem, health, and this is the essence of health be developed as an integral discipline in Daoud, health promotion begins with Vardi, Daoud is studying the multiple and mental health status? Why are the which ran a “School-Based Health promotion.” public health.” Work with the Bedouin a focus on the full spectrum of positive factors that prevent most disadvantaged richer healthier? Promotion Project” for the West Bank Daoud and her husband Anwar community in the Negev has been a and negative factors that influence Bedouin Arab mothers from obtaining According to Daoud, the answers and Gaza. When the Hadassah Women’s and three children live in the village of particular challenge, she notes. “This is a health; a “salutogenic approach.” She better healthcare for their infants. to these social-epidemiological Health Center invited her to become a Neve Shalom/Wahat Al-Salam – the society in transition, and we need to re- notes that “Health issues are more “Understanding these factors might questions are not at all obvious. Her research consultant on a community- Hebrew and Arabic words for Oasis of evaluate and develop a unique approach than disease control; they also include inform policy makers on how the dissertation, “Explanatory Pathways to based health promotion project for Peace – a multi-cultural and egalitarian to working in a participatory manner.” social determinants such as social, health of Bedouin children can be Socioeconomic Inequalities in Health women, it seemed a natural continuation community dedicated to coexistence. She It’s a challenge that Daoud will surely educational and environmental policies. improved,” she maintains. “If we want among the Arab Minority in Israel,” of her interest. is also on the board of directors of Sikkuy meet. It is also about equity and how wealth is to improve infants’ health and reduce – The Association for the Advancement distributed in the society.” infant mortality, we need to understand of Civic Equality in Israel and is on the the social determinants of health for all Board of Trustees of Children of Peace, 8 which is based in the UK. 9 over the age of sixty-five. After being Monsonego explains. At present, there is of the work being done by his team is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, no vaccine or medicine that can prevent that it aims to get the immune system to sufferers live an average of seven the onset of the disease, only treatments produce other entities besides antibodies additional years. It is one of the costliest such as diet, physical exercise, mental to fight the disease. “Our theory is diseases in the world – both financially stimulation and drugs that can, at times, that in order to get the benefit of the and psychologically, with spouses and lessen Alzheimer’s effects and slow the immune system’s abilities to counteract adult children commonly called upon to disease’s advance. Alzheimer’s, you need to stimulate other care for the sufferer at home, or to cover the exceedingly high costs of long-term stays in nursing homes. In Israel, there are an estimated Then, all of a sudden, under the microscope, we saw the 100,000 victims. Worldwide, there are presence of immune cells in the brain – not just anywhere nearly 30 million, and the prediction is that by 2050, there will be over 100 in the brain, but right next to the regions of the brain that million – unless a cure is found first. are affected by Alzheimer’s disease In his office at the National Institute for Biotechnology in the Negev, Monsonego, incumbent of the Zehava and Chezy Vered Career A decade ago, the first hope arose immune functions, not only antibodies,” Dr. Alon Monsonego Development Chair in Alzheimer’s and that a novel type of a vaccine against he continues. Neurodegenerative Diseases, says his toxic brain proteins might be developed. The team has already published work is part of a veritable revolution Research on lab animals found that several papers from its research in the in the fight against disease in the last the toxins in the brain consistent with US Journal of Immunology, PNAS, FASEB Planning the decade or so. “Until then, the immune Alzheimer’s disease could be “cleared.” A Journal and others, which are highly system was boosted primarily to fight few years later, a clinical trial using that influential professional publications in Next Move infections. Now scientists are trying to method was performed on patients with the field. use the immune system to fight diseases Alzheimer’s disease, but the trial was Monsonego says the immunological such as cancer, arteriosclerosis and unsuccessful: six percent of the patients approach to disease is connected to neurodegenerative diseases such as developed a severe inflammatory the popular concept of wellness, or Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and ALS.” reaction in the brain and the vaccination preventative health care. “The immune Born in Safed, Monsonego is program was halted. system is constantly surveying the body, married and lives on Moshav Nir Banim Now, researchers believe that it is looking for any insult, for any injury, any outside of Beer-Sheva with his wife possible to safely clear out toxins from cell death. The idea is to find a way to and three children. During his student the brain found in Alzheimer’s disease. target the action of the immune system Sitting in his office in T-shirt and right model that would show how Immunology, where he heads a team of years, he migrated from agriculture to “But we don’t know if once the toxins so that it goes after the source of disease,” sandals, BGU immunologist Dr. Alon immune cells interact with the diseased students, researchers and technicians biotechnology and then to neurobiology are gone, the cognitive functioning in an he says. Monsonego draws some squiggly lines brain. Then, all of a sudden, under the whose ultimate goal is to understand the before hitting upon immunology as Alzheimer’s sufferer will improve, which, “Until not too long ago, it wasn’t and weird little shapes on a piece of microscope, we saw the presence of dialogue between the immune system a doctoral student at the Weizmann of course, is the real sign of recovery,” understood that the immune system paper. It is a crude drawing of a diseased immune cells in the brain – not just and the brain in health and disease and Institute of Science. “I was studying says Monsonego. The symptoms he refers had access to the brain. Now it is known brain. “That’s what it looked like under anywhere in the brain, but right next to to develop a vaccine that can intervene brain trauma and I saw how the immune to include memory loss, confusion, that the immune system conducts a the microscope,” he says, describing the the regions of the brain that are affected with the effects of Alzheimer’s disease, system can play a crucial role in both the irritability, aggression, mood swings, unique dialogue with the brain,” says moment of breakthrough in his career by Alzheimer’s disease,” he relates with or at least delay its onset. His research is recovery and the degenerative processes,” language breakdown and the gradual loss Monsonego. The nature of that dialogue, that has been focused on finding a cure passion. generously supported by the Gural and he recalls. of bodily functions. the cause and effect relationship between for Alzheimer’s disease. That was several years ago, when Litwin families of New York. The symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease Currently there are some 10 clinical the immune system and the brain, is “It came after a few years of very Monsonego was doing post-doctoral Alzheimer’s disease is the scourge reflect the degeneration of cognitive trials being conducted around the what he and his team are seeking to hard work, at a point where we were work at Harvard Medical School’s Center of the elderly, the most common form functioning, and the malady is caused world to see if the immune system can understand. The potential benefits of quite frustrated. We couldn’t find the for Neurological Diseases. Five years of dementia, afflicting mainly people by toxins produced in the brain, be manipulated in a way that it will such an understanding are incalculable. ago he joined the University’s Shraga produce antibodies to fight the toxins, Segal Department of Microbiology and explains Monsonego. The unique aspect 10 11 Intent on Change

Inbal Shlosberg hesitates at first when to work many years before their salary rises students making a difference asked what her ambitions are. With a little much above minimum wage.” coaxing, though, it comes out. “I want to Yet as badly as the pay and conditions be Israel’s Minister of Social Welfare,” she are for most social workers – they haven’t says. But it’s not that she’s a power freak or received a raise since 1994 – about one- a frustrated politician. “I want to have an third of them are literally at the bottom of influence.” the job ladder, hired at minimum wage by A Masters student in the Charlotte B. and the manpower companies who’ve become Jack J. Spitzer Department of Social Work, infamous here for exploiting janitors and Shlosberg, 29, is totally committed to her security guards. ideals – in her case, justice, equality and “We’re a depressed and defeated empowerment of Israel’s poor. Attending workforce,” she says, “so what sort of classes in the morning, she spends her influence can we have on our clients?” afternoons as a full-time social worker in the Shlosberg seeks to advance her ideals Bedouin town of Segev Shalom. not only at work and at the University, Raised on the northern Kibbutz Gesher but also at home. She lives on an “urban Haziv, Shlosberg was always attracted to kibbutz” in Beer-Sheva with some 30 other the desert. She lived for a year in Arad and people, most of whom were raised on did much of her army service in the Negev. established kibbutzim like her. The urban “I wanted to come to Ben-Gurion kibbutz movement, called Kama (Arising), University of the Negev because its Spitzer is an attempt to emulate the simplicity and Department of Social Work is known for social commitment that once characterized its activism. I feel at home here – it’s a the century-old movement, but which place where I can give expression to my have fallen away as the kibbutzim, both principles. And I wanted to work with the from necessity and ideological fatigue, Bedouin, precisely because they are at the have become steadily more profit- and bottom of Israel’s socioeconomic ladder consumer-oriented. and suffer the most from the inequities of Shlosberg’s “kibbutz,” which includes the system,” she says. many other social workers as well as But there’s another population she’s teachers, runs Beer-Sheva’s well-known fighting for, one not nearly as downtrodden Ringelbloom cafe, which employs as the Bedouins, but one that is crucial disadvantaged youth from the city’s Dalet to achieving the social justice she speaks neighborhood to show them a different about: Israel’s social workers. world from the streets. “Our job is to get underprivileged Yet Shlosberg is well aware that the people to stand up for themselves, to have ideals she shares with colleagues and self-respect, to take their lives into their own friends are out of fashion in Israel. Her hands, but how can we do that if we can’t ambition to become Minister of Social Inbal Shlosberg even stand up for ourselves?” she asks. To Welfare, then, is less a concrete goal than a that end, Shlosberg has become a leader of symbol of her intent to change the country a nationwide organization of social workers in ways that are already being felt in Segev and social work students called Atidenu Shalom, Beer-Sheva and beyond. (Our Future). Winning a grant from the New Israel Fund, she and her colleagues seek to end the current situation whereby “social workers have literally hundreds of clients in their caseload, making it impossible for them to do their job. In addition, they have 14 A Negev Attraction

Sagi Shahar was a young Israeli compared to the center and the north, so students making a difference businessman working in the hi-tech field that driving from, say, Modi’in to Arad takes in the Tel Aviv area when he decided he the same amount of time as driving from needed a break. “I wanted to get away from Modi’in to Tel Aviv in the rush hour, which the center of the country, away from the people do every morning without a second business world for a while before I came thought,” says Shahar. back and spent another 30 years there,” says The site has been purchased and the one-time officer in the Israeli military remodeled, the plans are done and the police, now, at 29, a student in Ben-Gurion grand opening is scheduled for the summer University’s Honors MBA program at the of 2010. The center will offer information Guilford Glazer School of Business and about the Negev, but there will also be Management. attractions, possibly connected to the Shahar is not so sure anymore that he archeological treasures in the Old City, wants to go back to the business world. which date back to Abraham’s sojourn in “Working with the public sector is a Beer-Sheva 4,000 years ago. “The Internet different experience – you’re not working can give you information, but to bring only for money, you’re working to improve people to the Negev you have to connect society. I have to say that it attracts me.” with them on an emotional, up-close-and- What he and four other students in the personal level,” explains Shahar. Honors MBA program did was help a Beer- Aside from the Or Movement, NOVA Sheva organization called the Or Movement also gives strategic advice to the local develop a new way to attract Israeli Center for Victims of Sexual Abuse; Eden, tourists to the Negev. Working through the which advances education for Bedouin University-affiliated organization NOVA – “an women; the Fund for Rehabilitation of the NGO that gives strategic advice to NGOs,” he Handicapped; and Ahoti, which promotes says – the students came up with a “how-to entrepreneurship for Ethiopian immigrant manual” for a tourist center in Beer-Sheva’s women. Old City. The center is to be called the “These sorts of programs connect the “Gateway to the Negev.” University to the community,” says Shahar, “The Negev gets very little tourism. “and they also give business students Everybody goes to Eilat and the Dead Sea,” experience with projects that have social he says, noting that for all the high-level importance.” So who knows? Thanks to official talk of the Negev being Israel’s future BGU’s Honors MBA program, the Israeli and Beer-Sheva being Israel’s provincial business world may have lost a real go- capital, the proof is the pudding: in recent getter, but Israeli “civic society” may have years a bypass highway was built around gained one. the city to allow tourists from the northern half of the country to get to Eilat quicker. Sagi Shahar The tourist center is meant to counter this long-established habit, partly by breaking through the mental blocks Israelis in the center and north have about the Negev, such as that the distances are so vast. “The traffic in the Negev is so light

15 Helping a Whole Family

From the age of 11, Liad Yosef knew he came over, we’d go out onto the balcony students making a difference wanted a career related to fighting cancer. and she’d start talking, and she’d allow “I had a cousin who was 10 years old when herself to cry, which she wouldn’t let the he died of cancer. He was like a younger kids see.” brother,” says Yosef, a third-year biomedical Sometimes he came over more than engineering student, adding that an aunt once a week, and besides the visits, there of his died of cancer five years ago. Today, were long telephone conversations. Over at 26, he is planning his professional life the year, he convinced the widow to start a around the battle against cancer, but he’s new life – to get out of the house, to learn not waiting until he graduates. For the last a trade, to join the workaday world. “She year, he’s been volunteering at the Ma’agan went to the Employment Office and started – Community Cancer Care Center – which a course in hairstyling and manicuring, provides emotional and social support to which seems to have made a tremendous people with cancer and their families and difference for her.” is run by BGU and the Soroka University For the children, Yosef focused on Medical Center with the generous support speaking to them about their feelings, but of Sol and Edy Freedman of New York. For for the one boy in the army, he did a lot his volunteer work, he received a Lubner more than that. With all the emotional and Prize for Community Service, made possible financial strain at home, the young soldier through the generosity of Vice-Chairman of went AWOL from his army base, and Yosef, the Board of Governors Bertram Lubner of a reserve combat officer, had a talk with his South Africa. commander about all the pressures he was Volunteers such as Yosef make weekly under. “The result was that he was able to home visits to families of a patient; go back to the base with a relatively mild typically, they arrive at the home a few punishment and his hours on duty were months before the patient’s death. After arranged so that his afternoons would be training for several months under Soroka free for him to work to help support the doctors, nurses, social workers and couples family,” says Yosef. therapists, Yosef began making visits to the The final stage of his volunteer year with family of a 50-year-old man who was dying the family was separation. “The idea is that of cancer. “I came to him in the last month I’m with the family for the year of mourning, of his life – all I could do for him was help but that they shouldn’t become dependent him get out of bed; I couldn’t talk to him on me,” he says. It wasn’t so easy for him or by that point.” From the beginning, Yosef’s for the family to separate. “The mother saw training and focus was on the man’s wife me as another one of her children,” he says, and their seven children. then adds with a laugh, “as if she didn’t have “After he died, all the people who’d enough.” cared for him left, so I was there to try to Yosef spent the summer of 2007 L i a d Yo s e f fill the gap, to be sort of a transitional aid volunteering as a guide at Ma’agan’s week- to the family for the year after the husband long summer camp serving 40-50 children and father’s death,” says Yosef. of the patients. This summer, he was one of The family is not well-off financially; the the camp’s leaders and program designers. mother had never worked and suddenly “After classes at BGU resume,” he says, “I’m becoming the single mother to seven going to connect with another family in the children, from the ages of 15 up, was a program.” tremendous strain that Yosef tried to lift to at least some degree. “She didn’t want to show ‘weakness’ to her kids, but when I 16 Drawing the Line

“I couldn’t just draw some pretty scenery,” illuminating the ‘backyard’ of Israeli society – students making a difference says Tahrir Alzbibi, 22, from the Bedouin the discrimination, the Arab as a ‘punching village Ar’ara, who named her project in bag,’ the dividing curtain we prefer not to the Creative Arts Unit of the Department of see. It made all the students realize there Arts, “Mahram: Self-Portrait.” A mahram is the are no ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ answers, and piece of material that divides the traditional inspired their art as well.” Bedouin tent in half: one side for the men, Alzbibi comes alive when speaking and the other for the women. about her work. “As women, we are like Her project, consisting of several self- a dividing curtain or a rag hung on a portraits hung on cloth pictures, aimed clothesline to dry. My work expresses a for just the opposite: “Instead of covering kind of criticism on being ‘transparent,’ myself as a woman, I put my own image and reflects the transparency I feel from on each of the mahram pieces of cloth, to my family. She explains why she hung the express my personality and to feel alive, and pictures on a clothesline: “to air our dirty not hidden behind a swath of material,” she laundry, and to reveal what we Bedouins explains. “I wanted to show the reality of have been trying to hide.” Bedouin women. The embroidery threads She doesn’t blame the Bedouin men covering my photo on each of the pictures in particular, but rather the entire Bedouin represent how society limits the Bedouin society which “hasn’t changed its treatment woman in her daily life.” of women, and is still hurting us, despite all Alzbibi is one of an increasing number of the years that have passed.” Nor does the Bedouins studying at BGU, encouraged and outspoken Alzbibi consider herself brave. supported by the Robert H. Arnow Center “I am not afraid to say what I think,” for Bedouin Studies and Development, she says. “I did a project that speaks to me. which enables them to fulfill their dream of We were asked to do a self portrait and a higher education. for me, this is what is real. I am concerned Alzbibi’s original plan was to be a about the situation of Bedouin women and teacher, but she recently changed direction wanted to draw attention to it.” and has begun working as a counselor Alzbibi, the second of eight children, at a small factory in the Bedouin town is the first in her family to study at the of Rahat, where mentally challenged University. Her parents didn’t attend residents manufacture artwork. She finds the exhibition opening. She didn’t even it challenging and rewarding. “I’d rather tell them about it, or about her project, work with people who are in crises, to help “because I knew it would only make them those who live on the margins of society upset. They know that I say what I think to contribute and feel needed, than to just and that nobody can make me do what I work with regular children,” she says. don’t believe in, but I still need to keep my “The participation of Alzbibi and another distance and protect myself.” Tahrir Alzbibi female Bedouin student in the course, Alzbibi hopes to eventually pursue her where everyone else was Jewish, deeply graduate studies in art therapy and social enriched our learning experience,” notes work, and “to continue my art, to let my Prof. Haim Maor, coordinator of the voice be heard.” Creative Arts Unit at the Department. “They expressed their art from a different angle,

17 A Different Life

Maru Gete was born in the Gondar region parents took him to the local church where students making a difference of Ethiopia, a middle child of eleven there were medicines. “I remember that siblings. He never went to school, but took someone put drops in my ear, and almost care of the sheep and cows with his older immediately I felt better. It was a miracle sister. “I was only about eight years old to me! Since then, I’ve wanted to help when we left Ethiopia,” he recalls, “but others as a physician,” he notes. His only I still remember how we lived and how my concern was that he wouldn’t meet the stiff family always talked about making aliya to entrance requirements to medical school. Jerusalem. That was our dream. Finally, one But he did, and moved to Beer-Sheva. day, my family left for Addis Ababa, and “The Joyce and Irving Goldman Medical we were on our way to Jerusalem. Then, School offers the only community-based after nine months, we were flown to Israel. program in the country, and I love it. For When we arrived, we were in total shock! example, we had a wonderful course in the Everything was so different from what we first year about how to interview and relate had imagined.“ to patients, how to connect to them as Gete went to school for the first time human beings. That was very special,” says and studied at the Kiryat Hanoar (Youth Gete, who has now successfully completed Village) in Jerusalem from seventh his second year of studies. through twelfth grades, returning home at “I married my wife Shaked before I weekends. “I was a good student and started school, and our daughter was born I studied all the time. I had never gone to right in the middle of first-year exams. It’s school before and I had a lot to catch up. been a little crazy juggling everything, but In high school, I majored in physics and very rewarding.” computers.“ Gete is also involved in a volunteer The transition from a traditional society organization called Aharai! which literally to a modern one is traumatic. In Ethiopia, means “Follow me!” – the call of the Israeli the father is the most important member commander on the battlefield. “Four of of the household and the children are us serve as counselors and we mentor much lower in status, unlike in Israel. “My about thirty high school youths from parents never really learned Hebrew very disadvantaged backgrounds,” explains Gete. well,” continues Gete, but they pushed us “Officially, our role is to conduct physical to study and to succeed. They wanted their workouts and training sessions to prepare children to integrate into Israeli society.” them for positions in their army service and After completing his studies at the to instill motivation to serve their country. religious high school, Gete went on to But we keep in contact with them between study Torah in the Hesder Yeshiva of Ma’ale meetings and also serve as role models, like Adumim. After two years, he joined the ‘Big Brothers.’ We show them that they, too, Israel Defense Forces, becoming an officer, can go to college and acquire a profession. M a r u G e t e then platoon commander, for a total of It’s a great feeling to see these kids mature four years of military service. “In the Second and go on to do something significant with Lebanon War, we lost eight soldiers in our their lives.“ unit, and many were injured. It was a very Asked how he juggles his family life, his difficult time, but it really solidified my studies and his volunteer work, he replies, commitment to Israel,“ he relates. “I guess that what I really want is to make a When Gete was a small child, he difference.“ developed a severe ear infection. There were no doctors or clinics where they lived, and he suffered for three days until his 18 A Matter of Pride

Ordinarily, BGU student Aviv Idan’s talk to people in the same situation as they students making a difference volunteer counseling at the Beer-Sheva are, to send e-mails and look at gay-related branch of the Israeli Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual websites, but they can’t. One boy I counsel and Transgender (GLBT) Association, where said he thinks his mother’s been looking at she leads a group called Noar Ge’eh – a play him strangely and he’s afraid she suspects on words that means both “Proud Youth” him.” and “Gay Youth” – would have been on hold During the school year, Idan and a for the summer break. But on the night co-counselor at Noar Ge’eh provide the of August 1st, a gunman dressed in black youth with “a social environment where entered a clubhouse in the Tel Aviv branch, they can talk with other young people killing two people and wounding a dozen going through the same things they are, more. where they find out, often for the first time, “The summer ended early for us,” says that they’re not alone. It’s a place where Idan, 26, an undergraduate student in they can be who they are, where they sociology, anthropology and economics can grow into themselves, where they who received a Lubner Prize for Community can get information about things that are Service for her volunteer work with the important to them as members of the GLBT organization. “This has been a terrible community. It’s a place where they can trauma for the young people I work with. make friends.” They are really scared and very angry.” Idan has seen a tremendous amount of Beer-Sheva is a conservative city. It’s not personal growth in many of her charges. easy to “come out of the closet” anywhere “For the most part, they came to the group in Israel, says Idan, but it’s harder in a place very confused, feeling that there’s no place like Beer-Sheva than in the center of the for them in the world, and after a while country, which revolves around Tel Aviv, the they felt strengthened, they felt joy in life. “capital” of Israel’s gay community. Unlike At first, they came to express the pain and in Tel Aviv, Haifa or even Jerusalem, there is confusion they felt, but then they came no above-ground gay scene in Beer-Sheva because it was just fun to be there.” – no pubs, no clubs, and definitely no gay The shootings seem to have had a pride parade. sobering effect on Israeli society, in which “Those who don’t fit the traditional male ridicule of gays is common, especially or female stereotype feel they have to hide among the young. In Beer-Sheva, some 400 who they are in school and in public,” says people, most of them “straight,” marched Idan. Above all, they have to hide who they from City Hall to the local office of the are at home. There are some 15 Beer-Sheva national gay rights organization in a show boys and girls, ages 15-19, who attend the of solidarity with the victims of the shooting weekly meetings at a clubhouse – and only and to protest homophobia. one or two have “come out” to their parents. “In the long-term,” says Idan, “I hope the A v i v I d a n In the wake of the shooting incident in Tel murders will lead Israeli society to greater Aviv, the others have more to hide than tolerance, to a greater understanding that ever. blood is blood, that pain is pain, and that “After the shootings, they wanted to love is love.” get on the phone and call their friends and make sure they were okay, but they couldn’t because they were afraid their parents would suspect them,” she says. “At a time like this, they have a natural need to

19 Dr. Ofer Levi One Plus One Equals 3D

It’s not easy for Dr. Ofer Levi of the remain in their own safe spheres, and Nuclear Medicine at Assaf Harofeh Department of Industrial Engineering may prevent fruitful interaction. “I think Medical Center, aimed to reduce the and Management to pinpoint his area of that I can serve well as a bridge between radiation level and scanning duration of research. A combination of mathematics, these groups,” he declares. nuclear imaging. statistics, optimization, signal and Levi has always found the fields The opportunity to contribute on image processing, as well as medical and complimentary, originally earning a human level, by playing a part in biological imaging, Levi’s broad, multi- Bachelors degrees in industrial medical advancement, appeals to Levi. disciplinary background defies simple engineering and management (IEM) “I definitely look for applications related definition. One feature that characterizes and mathematics and a Masters degree to biology and medicine. Some of my his work, though, is its applicability in IEM – all from BGU. Urged by his projects have the potential to improve to numerous disciplines ranging from mentor, Prof. Israel David, to apply diagnoses, like the early detection of astrophysics to medicine. for a graduate degree abroad, he was cancer. At the same time, I am always “My interdisciplinary background accepted to Stanford University’s interested in expanding my own connects well to applied fields,” program in Scientific Computing and knowledge and skills. I have a constant says Levi. “On the one hand, most Computational Mathematics (SSCM). hunger to know more, to learn more.” mathematicians I know find it hard to At Stanford, Levi worked on image In developing his special skill set, really understand applied problems processing under the supervision of BGU has been the ideal location for and see the link between methods and world-renowned Prof. David Donoho. Levi. “My Department gives me the potential applications,” he adds. “On He completed his doctorate on tools to work in my fields of interest, the other hand, many applied scientists developing new methods for 3D image even if they’re not in the mainstream,” and engineers are lacking sufficient processing. While this imaging work was he says. “The attitude and spirit of the mathematical knowledge.” This “broken first intended for astrophysics – analysis Department allow people to excel where telephone” can cause researchers to of the 3D distribution of galaxies – Levi they’re best and give them the option understood that his research was highly of developing new fields.” While Levi relevant to medical imaging, where there has sometimes felt like a stranger in a particular discipline, he has always is a true need for advanced 3D image Dr. Ofer Levi (right) and Dr. Adrian Stern processing and analysis methods. It was understood that the perfect place for him only a matter of time before he began projects related to MRI brain imaging standard machine,” says Levi. He also submitted an NIH proposal. We plan to is an interdisciplinary framework. multiple fruitful collaborations with and developing methods for analysis of mentions that this project required a carry out a series of experiments in the Levi concludes with an anecdote, several radiology experts and physicians. the brain’s blood vessel permeability by high level of coordination between many pain clinic at the UCSD Medical Center revealing that he used to be a very bad “Studying at Stanford was a truly processing dynamic MRI data. One of different groups, including Prof. Miron in order to validate and improve our student and that none of his teachers enriching experience for me. I had the the challenges in brain data analysis is Livny and the Condor team from the methods,” says Levi. believed that he would even finish chance to meet some extraordinary to efficiently handle very large volumes University of Wisconsin at Madison Together with partners from the high school. He was made to leave two I definitely look people from all around the world and of data and perform the analysis in a and the Soroka Computing Center and business world, Levi has established different schools and was studying in a for applications make long lasting friendships” says Levi. reasonable time. Soroka’s CIO, Ludovic Abraham, and his a start-up company aimed to develop kibbutz school, as well as a “notorious” related to biology He met his wife Donabel during his In order to achieve that, Levi has research student, Lucas Grogin. cheap high performance imaging agricultural boarding school. “It was and medicine. studies there and they now have two been leading an effort to utilize the Levi has been also collaborating devices based on a patent by Dr. Adrian hard for me to focus on my studies then, with Dr. Shay Teyman-Yarden from the Stern of BGU’s Unit of Electro-optics. but it all changed when I first entered the Some of my children, Adam and Tom. Medical Center’s computers’ idle time Returning to BGU to join the and process massive data sets in parallel University of California at San Diego, a Incorporating special optical settings University gates to study subjects of my projects have Department of Industrial Engineering on the idle machines using the Condor pediatric cardiologist, and Prof. Michael combined with advanced image choice and interest.” the potential to and Management, he entered into a software. So far, the system includes a Saunders from Stanford University on reconstruction algorithms, the improve diagnoses, number of collaborative efforts with few dozen machines and is expected developing pain markers based on ECG technology has been successfully tested like the early physicians from the Faculty of Health to expand to as many as 400 in the signal analysis. “We have very promising and the company will soon begin detection of cancer Sciences. He has worked with the very near future. “This will enable us preliminary results and we have recently building an initial prototype of its head of the MRI Unit of the Soroka to analyze vascular permeability in just innovative device. University Medical Center, Dr. Ilan minutes instead of hours on a single Levi is also working on founding a Shelef, and neurophysiologist Prof. new startup together with Dr. Haim Alon Friedman on several imaging Golan, head of the Department of 12 13 Dr. Sharon Pardo Hello Europe, This is Israel Calling

One of the first Israeli universities to associated academic division, named Israel in regard to human rights and In his book Uneasy Neighbors: recognize the importance of European for the late former German Chancellor immigration policies. As Spain and Israel Israel and the European Union, written studies, Ben-Gurion University of the Konrad Adenauer, who established hold some parallel views vis-à-vis these together with Dr. Joel Peters of Virginia Negev has evolved into a leader in this relations with Israel, thanks to the issues, researchers involved are seeking Tech and formerly of BGU, Pardo field. Dr. Sharon Pardo, current Director generosity of the German foundation in to compare the experiences of their presents a new paradigm of relations of the Centre for the Study of European his name. respective nations, to learn what they between the EU and Israel. The book Politics and Society (CSEPS) and a Jean European studies are hardly limited can from each other and make plans for suggest a novel model in which Israel Monnet lecturer on European Union to the classroom. “Both the senior facing their common difficulties. would enjoy something more than its (EU) affairs and international relations administration and my own Department Pardo is also involved in an current status, but less than full EU in the Department of Politics and are committed to bringing Europe to international research consortium called membership (see review on page 35). Government, has accompanied BGU on the Marcus Family Campus and sending the EU as a Global-Regional Actor Pardo holds an LL.B. and LL.M. in the path to this leadership status. our students to Europe. We believe that in Security and Peace (EU-GRASP). international, commercial and EU law “BGU’s actions have brought about students cannot understand the EU only Devoted to security issues, EU-GRASP from Sheffield, England, and a Ph.D. an awakening regarding the importance through books and academic journals – studies the role of the EU as a global and in political and social sciences from regional actor in related partnerships. the University of Ghent in Belgium. In Oriented toward policy and foresight, addition to his role as CSEPS Director, The EU is one of the greatest political experiments this European Commission-funded his research and teaching, Pardo is a the modern world has known, shaping as it does group examines how the EU operates at Senior Fellow at the International and the relations between the individual and society a regional and global level in the field of European Research Unit, University security. of Ghent, a member of the National on new and unchartered ground As part of an international Executive of the Israeli Association for consortium of 17 countries and entities, the Study of European Integration and led by the University of Bologna at a member of the National Executive of of this discipline,” says Pardo. “Early they must be there,” says Pardo, Forli, Italy, Pardo examines perceptions the Israeli Association of International on, the University acknowledged the elaborating that the European Division/ of non-EU countries toward the EU. Studies. He is one of the founders of the fact that Israeli development in many Track offers a program in which students Targeting four groups – the political Israeli Ministry of Regional Cooperation academic, research and development, go to EU headquarters in Brussels, elite, civil society, the public and the and served as Director of the Ministry’s social, cultural and economic spheres is where they meet with leading academics, media – this research could also prove Projects Division, as well as a Senior closely linked to the EU, and that the EU researchers, NGO representatives, interesting to EU policy-makers. “After Advisor to the Ministry’s Director is a primary source for funding research decision-makers, Jewish community all,” he says, “the EU creates its own General. in Israel.” A scholar of EU studies, leaders and NATO officials. BGU was identity largely on the basis of how Considering all these activities, it Pardo specializes in issues of foreign among the first universities in Israel to others see it.” does not come as a revelation that Pardo and legal relations and policy connected implement such a program and now As a by-product of this project, the has little free time. He counts his work in with Mediterranean countries, which others are following suit. consortium is publishing a book that with his hobbies of hiking and reading. of course, include Israel. In his own In addition to teaching, Pardo deals with the image of the EU in the “I completely enjoy what I’m doing: estimation, Pardo examines issues with engages in wide-ranging research eyes of non-EU member states, as well as trying to research major aspects of the an eye to politics and governance, and as activities. He has helped establish an non-state entities. Based on this project, percent of Israelis represent would-be international organizations and are EU and becoming an advocate for better a lawyer, to legal aspects. international network of academic Pardo began to conduct, together EU citizens, as they have family roots in far less critical of them than is their understanding of it.” BGU established the CSEPS in research on Euro-Israeli relations. with the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Europe. In fact, proportionally speaking, government,” says Pardo. “We saw strong In addition to viewing work as 2003, when awareness of the field was “Europe was a persona non grata, an annual survey of Israelis’ attitudes Israel has the largest concentration of support of the EU, its member states and pleasure, Pardo sees it as a kind of minimal. At that time, programs for which was reflected in a general lack of toward the EU which, he says, “had some potential EU citizens anywhere in the organizations among Israelis. But there calling. “After all, the EU is one of Russian studies far outnumbered those knowledge of this subject on both the fascinating and unexpected results.” world. This is an important factor in is significant difference between Israeli the greatest political experiments the devoted to Europe. Also, during that academic and decision-making levels,” In 2007, the survey revealed that shaping EU-Israeli relations, he says. Arabs and Jews in the way they perceive modern world has known and certainly period, Israeli-EU relations were at a he says. “We wanted to bring Europe to 75 percent of Israelis favored Israeli “Overall, the findings of the EU involvement in the peace process and so far, the most positive one, shaping nadir. Five years later, BGU enhanced BGU and BGU to Europe.” membership in the EU. A propos this research and of the survey indicate that international organizations in general. It as it does the relations between the the Centre’s status by establishing an Together with Spanish researchers, finding, Pardo points out that some forty Israelis are knowledgeable regarding is clear that Israeli Jews support the EU individual and society on new and the CSEPS has entered into a project and the international community more unchartered ground.” that examines Spain, the EU and than do Arab citizens.” 20 21 For those with chronic Post Traumatic that reminds them of the event and Cohen has also found that high Cohen found that in rats, oxytocin Stress Disorder (PTSD), the trauma never are extremely sensitive to normal life doses of cortisol administered after a reduced anxiety from PTSD by ends. Whether they have been through experiences. If not treated, PTSD can traumatic event helps an animal cope inhibiting the release of hormones a terrorist attack, natural disaster, sexual render patients unable to function in with stress. Generally referred to as the emitted during stressful events. abuse or other ordeal, those afflicted feel relationships, family life, work and “stress hormone,” cortisol is released “Oxytocin is a very attractive option,” constantly threatened. They perceive the society in general. Seven percent of in response to stress and anxiety. It she says, stressing that the hormone is event they survived as vivid, real and the population worldwide suffers increases blood pressure and blood sugar connected to bonding and attachment, recurrent. There is no return to the pre- from PTSD, which has a wide range and reduces immune responses. During and has been used effectively to treat trauma period, as this state affects the of severity. While some sufferers can traumatic events, not enough cortisone autism. patient’s body, mind and emotions and perform day-to-day activities, others is released, says Cohen, “so by giving Exploring the inclination of different can drag on for years, even a lifetime. cannot get out of bed. cortisol, we can prevent PTSD and even populations to PTSD, Cohen found no Prof. Hagit Cohen, head of the In her research, Cohen employs an induce amnesia, which, in some cases, is difference between the sexes, but she Anxiety and Stress Research Unit of animal model – the rat – “to see what the Faculty of Health Sciences and a happens in a mammalian brain so that researcher at the Beer-Sheva Mental ultimately we can treat it.” She induces Health Center, is determined to ease stress conditions by exposing the rats My discipline includes physics, molecular biology, the distress caused by PTSD. to cat urine so they feel the presence psychology and genetics. Besides, what could be Cohen explains that the symptoms of their predators. After seven days more fascinating that the human brain? of PTSD patients resemble those of exposure, she checks the animals’ occurring during a traumatic event. behavior, anxiety level and response to When an animal or human is under a sudden unexpected stimulus, such as existential threat, it prepares for light, loud noise or quick movement. desired.” She is also experimenting with did discover that religious belief and a survival. Physiological changes take This “startle response” is often anti-epilepsy drugs, which are frequently sense of mission play a role regarding place, just some of which include exaggerated in those with PTSD. prescribed for depression. “When it resilience to the illness. Checking increased arousal, alertness and Next, Cohen determines which comes to drugs, we try all directions,” populations in the Gush Katif region vigilance, as well as improved individuals do not resume normal she says. near the Gaza strip, Hebron and Tel cognition, focused attention and function and attempts to ascertain why. In addition to researching medicines, Aviv, Cohen found that religious people euphoria. Heart rate increases, To do this, she checks the animal’s genes, Cohen is currently working with a display fewer symptoms of PSTD than while digestive function, growth, brain receptors, hormones and stress protein that she thinks is involved in the secular people. Likewise, those with reproduction and immunity are levels. “By emphasizing the individual, maintenance of memory. Having injected a clear purpose suffered less from the inhibited. In other words, says we take a unique approach to studying this protein in rats, she found it erased disorder those without. “Faith and Cohen, “In these situations, PTSD,” says Cohen. “We take the rats traumatic memories from a month mission give strength and justification,” no one is thinking about their that demonstrate an extreme behavioral before. As it would be hard to find says Cohen. “If these factors are taken mortgage.” response and compare them to those someone who wouldn’t want to rub out away, all stress returns.” At the end of the traumatic that did not develop such symptoms.” certain recollections, the implications of A member of the BGU faculty for period, these physiological Finally, Cohen and her team compare this protein are enormous. the past 12 years, Cohen is more than elements generally return to the efficacy of different drugs. They Another option Cohen is exploring satisfied with her career choice. “I always normal and the person or also try to establish at what point after is the use of oxytocin to counter go to work with a smile on my face,” she animal resumes its regular the traumatic event medicines have PTSD. A hormone that also acts as a says. “What I do is also very relevant. routine. How long this takes maximum effect. neurotransmitter in the brain, oxytocin We’re constantly hearing about another depends on the type, duration Anti-depressants, in the form of is best known for its roles in female terrorist attack, war or natural disaster and significance of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors reproduction. The body naturally somewhere in the world. There’s nothing threat and the organism’s (SSRIs), are at present the only releases this hormone to facilitate birth abstract about what I do.” Further, she psychological makeup, she medicines approved by the US Food and and breastfeeding. In addition, doctors adds, “My discipline is very varied, it explains. Drug Administration (FDA) for PTSD. often use oxytocin to artificially induce includes physics, molecular biology, As PTSD sufferers re- A large study at Cohen’s lab recently labor. Recent studies have begun to psychology and genetics. Besides, what experience their trauma, Prof. Hagit Cohen showed that given immediately after the investigate its role in various behaviors, could be more fascinating that the they tend to avoid places, stressful event, SSRIs reduce the effects including social recognition, bonding, human brain?” people, or anything else Stressed Out of trauma. anxiety, trust and maternal behaviors.

22 23 Last Edition Newspaper as art material in contemporary Israeli art

The title of the exhibition – Last Edition – curated by Prof. Haim Maor and the students in the Curatorship course in the Department of Arts, implies a process that is unfolding right in front of our eyes: the disappearance of the paper newspaper and its reincarnation in the form of an online information source, of a virtual image. From the 18th century onward, visual images of newspapers and printing houses were associated Michal Heiman, Do-Mino # 4: Raphael, The Descent from with the concept of modernity. Paintings of the the Cross (1507) / Anonymous Photographer (Haaretz, AP), An Incident in Bidu 27/02/2004), 2008, digitally assisted Impressionists presented images of people holding or readymades, 140x200, the artist’s collection reading a newspaper with an air of youthfulness and modernity. Since the beginnings of the printed press, newspapers and magazines were associated with the art world, be it in the form of publications by various Pinchas Cohen Gan, Untitled (“Spatial Passage of a Cube Yair Garbuz, Europe Will Not Teach Us, 2003, acrylic, collage, crayons, artists, or of a source of critique and analysis. The – Offering for Art and Science”), 1974, mixed media (oil and ink) superlac paint and spray on polywood, 160x200, the artist’s collection on newspaper, 63x42, Benno Kalev collection, Tel Aviv presence of 20th century art movements on the pages of newspapers was felt in no uncertain terms. The press was a discourse and power field in which many battles were fought and harsh critique was voiced. The newspaper became a source of inspiration, a raw material and an object for visual artists’ creations. Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque incorporated newspaper cutouts into their collages. Robert Raffi Lavie,Untitled (“The prophet is a fool”), 1982, mixed media (acrylic, ink and oil crayon) on newspaper, 25.5x41, Rauschenberg transferred texts and color photographs Benno Kalev collection, Tel Aviv from newspapers onto his drawing paper by dissolving their ink with a thinner. Segments from comic strips featured in Roy Lichtenstein’s paintings. The exhibition shows possibilities for the use of newspaper as part of an artwork. It focuses on the uses of the printed press by Israeli art and brings together four artistic “uses” of journalism: newspaper as a raw material; newspaper as a medium and as a part of artworks that utilize multiple and mixed media; newspaper layout as a source of inspiration; and newspaper as a location for art discourse or as an Henry Shelesnyak, Untitled, 1967, mixed media on Moshe Gershuni, Untitled, 1980, mixed media (glass paint on newspaper) photographic paper, 38x59, Benno Kalev collection, Tel Aviv alternative exhibition space. mounted on canvas, 70x111, Benno Kalev collection, Tel Aviv

24 25 Dr. Amir Shapiro It’s Play Time

Dr. Amir Shapiro, a member of the Katif in which many lives were saved. killed two workers. While at the Ministry Department of Mechanical Engineering Afterwards, I earned my undergraduate, of Agriculture, my father actually led and director of its Robotics Laboratory, graduate and doctoral degrees in the way to outlawing the use of such says that he comes by his inclinations mechanical engineering at the Technion platforms, and it was clear to me that we honestly. “My father works in – Israel Institute of Technology. It was needed to develop a robot to do the job agricultural mechanics for the Ministry there that I discovered the sub-field instead.” of Agriculture and as I was growing of robotics, and I knew it was tailor- Shapiro is now working on a robotic up, our house was always full of LEGO made for me. Finally I had found a field apparatus for spraying palm trees, blocks and pieces of machinery. I loved that integrates all the elements that called “an autonomous sprayer.” The putting these together and taking them are important to me: making clever prototype features a telescoping base that apart, and reading the copies of Popular machines and helping people,” says extends to the height of the trees, with Science and Popular Mechanics that my Shapiro. computerized vision to detect the right parents brought home. I just knew that “Many people view robotics as a tool place to spray. Only one human will be LEGO blocks would be part of my future to make our lives easier, such as cleaning needed to operate the sprayer, and he or as well, though I didn’t know how. After our houses or doing our chores, for she does so firmly planted on terra firma, all, how many people can make a living example,” he adds. “That’s true, of course, far from the fumes of the spray. and do something good for humanity but my goal is to create robots that go Shapiro lives with his wife Chaya and while playing with toys? ‘where humans fear to tread’ – to assume their three boys and a girl (and another “Then, during my army service, I dangerous jobs that humans would one on the way!) in Meitar, near Beer- helped create a type of reinforced army ordinarily have to do.” Sheva. “My home, just like the house jeep that could withstand explosive Shapiro describes the use of robotics in which I myself grew up in, is full devices. This development proved itself in several fields that are close to his own of LEGO blocks, model airplanes and in an attempted terrorist attack in Gush heart: the army and agriculture. miniature robots,” he says proudly. “I “When Nachshon Wachsman was can see that at least two of my boys are kidnapped and murdered by Hamas following in my footsteps, as they have in 1994 during an attempted rescue already submitted their first invention to operation, the elite soldiers who tried a television competition.” to liberate him had no way of knowing Several articles about Shapiro and his anything about the interior of the because it uses one traveling wave in its Another potentially life-preserving the two robots records the positional robots have been published in Popular apartment, information that would links, while the newer 3D snake uses two use of Shapiro’s robots is in the tunnels information between the two, allowing Science and Popular Mechanics. “This, have made a huge difference. The army perpendicular waves – horizontal and between Gaza and Israel. These tunnels, for error correction, and transfers force too, closes a circle for me,” says Shapiro. subsequently developed a wall-climbing vertical – to create a screw-like, rotating used for smuggling weapons, need to between the two robots so that each “I learned English as a child from these robot with a tiny camera that could motion that can be steered right or left. be mapped in order to be destroyed robot can help the other to overcome same journals that my parents brought slither up to windows and film the “And of course,” he adds, “the initial properly, and GPS devices cannot be obstacles.” home for us.” My goal is interior of houses,” he explains. prototype was constructed out of LEGO used in them. In this case, however, In other words, to paraphrase King The Shapiros are happy to be Negev to create Shapiro has developed such robot parts.” Shapiro realized that one robot was not Solomon, “Two [robot] heads are better dwellers. “We love the open spaces here,” robots that snakes – or snakebots – that operate In civilian life, earthquakes and other enough. “As a robot advances in a tunnel, than one!” (Ecclesiastes 4:9). says Shapiro. “And here, at Ben-Gurion go ‘where by creating “rolling contact” with the natural disasters can trap people within it is likely to slip as it rotates or turns, In agriculture, too, robots can be used University, I’ve proved to myself that humans fear environment just like wheels do; the collapsed buildings, causing rescue crews introducing error into the robot’s angle to save lives and not only reduce the I can make the world a better place rolling contact is maintained by a to endanger themselves when searching and our mapping calculations,” explains need for human labor. and earn a living at the same time with to tread’ wave that travels through the snake’s for survivors. “A 3D snake robot could Shapiro. “In order to solve the problem, “In order to spray the tops of tall date inventing new ‘toys’.” links. This contact provides odometry slither inside pipes, air ducts and narrow we use two tunnel-mapping robots that palms, Israeli farmers have to stand on information, just like the wheels of a spaces around the walls of collapsed work in pairs. The arm that connects unsteady, moving high-rise platforms,” car tell us how far the car has travelled. buildings, filming survivors with its explains Shapiro. “There have been many The 2D (two-dimensional) snake can cameras,” explains Shapiro. accidents over the years with their use, move backwards and forwards and but a few years ago, one overturned and 26 also climb between two rigid surfaces 27 Dr. Tzahit Simon-Tuval Calculating the Costs

Dr. Tzahit Simon-Tuval is a southerner on what’s happening in the world, I’ve low compliance rate. Compliance in this support-groups for OSA sufferers, who was born and grew up on Moshav found that health economics and health disease has two stages: purchasing the she notes. Consequently, she looks Nevatim near Beer-Sheva. She is excited systems management issues are always machine (initial acceptance), and then forward to conducting research in to be a member of the Department of on the public agenda due to their major continued use of it (adherence).” the Department of Health Systems Health Systems Management at the impact on public welfare,” she explains. In fact, her research as part of her Management due to its fruitful inter- Guilford Glazer School of Business and Simon-Tuval emphasizes that the Ph.D. dissertation under Prof. Ariel disciplinary cooperation with the Faculty Management. “The School is promoting health management research conducted Tarasiuk of the Sleep-Wake Disorders of Health Sciences and other disciplines, cutting-edge research in the field of at BGU is directed towards practical Unit at the Soroka University Medical including psychology. health systems management, and I’m recommendations in such issues as Center, revealed that low socioeconomic In addition to health systems and looking forward to making my own which medications should be included status is a risk factor for poor CPAP health economics research, Simon- contribution as well,” she says. in the hotly debated “basket of drugs,” adherence. “Unsurprisingly, our study Tuval discovered another calling during Tzahit earned all three of her and what co-payments are required showed that the cost to the patient, her doctoral work, in a completely academic degrees – undergraduate, for a variety of services. Her research or co-insurance participation, in the unexpected field. “When I was graduate and doctoral – at BGU. She involves analyzing and improving patient purchase of the machine, is a major considering studying for my Ph.D., after became interested in health systems compliance to treatment of chronic factor for people of low socioeconomic I’d worked for a number of years as a management while studying economics diseases such as obstructive sleep apnea, status. We want to find the formula health economist for Beer-Sheva’s Clalit and management as an undergraduate or OSA – a disorder in which a person to lower the co-payment to a level the Health Services, finances were an issue student and then specialized in that field experiences many pauses of breathing patient can afford, but not to lower it to since I had to be self-supporting,” she as a graduate student in the Department while asleep, resulting in a low oxygen the extent that people will take home the says candidly. “So I was thrilled to merit of Economics. “While public interest in level in the blood. In adults, it is a free machines in order to bury them in a Kreitman Foundation Fellowship, economics tends to wax and wane based leading cause of daytime sleepiness and their closets,” she continues. which allowed me to pursue my studies serves as an independent risk factor for “The other aspect of compliance without worry. I taught a course as one high blood pressure, stroke and several with treatment for chronic diseases is of the scholarship obligations, and when types of heart problems; in children, it is psychological: patients must first be I stood before a classroom for the first associated with frequent upper and lower aware of the health risks they face due to time in my life, that’s when I realized that respiratory disorders, enlarged tonsils their illness and must understand how I loved teaching!” and adenoids, and other complications the treatment can contribute to their Today, she teaches basic economics (see story on page 30). long-term health. Last but not least, they classes to first-year students who are “It is expensive to conduct the must possess ‘self-efficacy’ or the belief not majoring in economics. “Many of sleep-tests in special overnight clinics,” in their ability to change their behavior these students have just returned to explains Simon-Tuval. “But studies and comply with the treatment; they the classroom after years in the army Health economics have used the cost-benefit ratio to must be motivated to adapt themselves and trips abroad. My goal is not only is an inter- demonstrate that it is far cheaper for to the CPAP and adhere to the to transmit the necessary material of disciplinary the public medical system to finance the treatment.” micro- and macro-economics, though of course that’s important too. I also want field; sometimes tests and assume part of the costs of the Simon-Tuval agrees that this belongs expensive CPAP machines, than to pay to the realm of psychologists, not health to teach them how to distinguish the we must direct for treatment of the long-range medical economists. “Health economics is an important from the trivial and to provide recommendations problems that result if OSA is not inter-disciplinary field; sometimes them with analytical tools and critical from our research diagnosed and treated.” In other words, we must direct recommendations thinking skills,” she notes. to professionals an ounce of prevention is worth a pound from our research to professionals in Simon-Tuval lives with her husband in other areas of cure. other areas. For example, in our study Yarin in Eshkolot, a small rural “Currently, my research focuses on we found that family and/or friends’ community near Beer-Sheva. “After compliance issues,” explains Simon- positive experience with CPAP was an growing up on a moshav, I couldn’t Tuval. “Once we have determined that important factor in patient compliance; imagine living in a high-rise apartment it’s to everyone’s benefit to properly recommendations by health-care house. I love the rural space,” she admits. diagnose and treat OSA with CPAP providers were not enough. “We both love living in the south of the machines, we try to find ways to raise the This lends itself to recommending country.”

28 29 Dr. Aviv Goldbart Breathing Easy

Dr. Aviv Goldbart, pediatric well: neurobehavioral issues such as But OSA in children? This was pulmonologist, a sleep specialist at hyperactivity or cognitive deficits. When new. In order to learn more, Goldbart the Soroka University Medical Center they get older, many of them suffer from headed to Louisville, Kentucky, to do and a member of the Faculty of Health daytime sleepiness and in general, suffer his three-year post-doctoral research Sciences, moved to Beer-Sheva at the from poor daytime performance. I long and clinical fellowship specializing age of three and has lived in the region suspected that these children were at risk in pediatric respiratory diseases and ever since. After studying medicine at for complications later on in life, and I sleep disorders in the Kosair Children’s the Joyce and Irving Goldman School of was determined to get to the root of the Hospital and Research Institute – the Medicine, he did his pediatric residency problem.” foremost pediatric sleep program at at the Soroka University Medical Together with Tal, Goldbart, the time. There, under the guidance of Center. He also earned his Masters incumbent of the Dr. Gabi and Eng. Prof. David Gozal, he performed basic degree as a health administrator at the Max Lichtenberg Career Development research on animals, depriving them of University’s Department of Industrial Chair in Pediatric Medicine, is oxygen to simulate OSA, then closely Engineering and Management. Goldbart studying children who suffer from studied the affected proteins and genes is a researcher and a physician in the sleep disordered breathing, which is in their brains. Sure enough, the proteins that are involved in cognitive and behavioral functioning were adversely affected due to the effects of insufficient Whether at home with his family, at work in the oxygen reaching the tissues. In one of hospital or on summer vacation, Goldbart is surrounded his studies, Goldbart demonstrated how airways even though there was no sign with OSA. In subsequent research, Goldbart is married with four by and helping children live healthier lives junk food affects the brain in the same of infection in the body. In short: those Goldbart found that a medication called daughters, two of them born in the manner as OSA and also how, when the children are at increased risk for health montelukast (a leukotriene modifier) United States, when he and his wife Riki animals were exposed to both conditions problems due to propagation of systemic currently used for asthma, led to were working in the Kosair Children’s – lack of oxygen as well as junk food – inflammation later on in life, just like improved breathing during sleep and Hospital. Department of Pediatrics and is proud more often known as “Obstructive the animal’s brain was profoundly adults with OSA, even though they increased the size of the airway. “In So are they a husband-wife doctor to work in the new child-friendly Saban Sleep Apnea” (OSA). OSA is a disorder affected and it performed even worse in may exhibit no clinical symptoms at all. our study, parents gave their children team? Goldbart laughs. “Not at all; I Pediatric Medical Center recently in which a person experiences many intelligence-demanding tasks. Complications can include heart disease, chewable tablets of montelukast at did my fellowship in Louisville while dedicated at the Soroka University pauses of breathing while asleep, leading Were children, even young children, strokes, cardiovascular problems, obesity night, before bedtime, instead of opting my wife did her post-doctoral studies Medical Center. to a low oxygen level in the blood (a suffering similar effects, he asked? and high blood pressure at a later age. for surgery,” he explains. “It was well there. Now both Riki and I are affiliated It was during his residency that condition called hypoxia). Among Goldbart says that as many as three “Our goal is to find non-invasive tolerated – and effective. But, of course, with Ben-Gurion University; Riki Goldbart came under the influence adults, it has long been known that percent of children suffer from OSA, treatments for OSA,” continues it will take a few more years until works in the Department of Chemical of Prof. Asher Tal, Head of Pediatrics sleep apnea is a leading cause of daytime compared to five percent of adults; Goldbart. “Ideally, such treatment could the drug is formally approved by the Engineering. She is the “real” doctor Department B and incumbent of the sleepiness and road accidents and is an among children, the main culprit replace surgical adenotonsillectomy American FDA for OSA use.” in the family – she has a Ph.D. in Dr. Lillian Chutick and Dr. Rebecca independent risk factor for high blood is enlarged tonsils that block the for children or the use of a CPAP What are the remaining barriers chemical engineering and biotechnology. Chutick Chair in Pediatric Medicine, pressure, stroke and several types of breathing passage. Fortunately, the compressed-air device for adults. We to diagnosing and treating OSA in Her research involves the controlled whose research focuses on sleep-related heart problems. Treatment for adults relatively simple surgical procedure of must remember that about 15 percent children? “We do not have enough release of drugs and genes, mainly via pediatric illness. Goldbart became involves diagnosing the condition in a adenotonsillectomy, in which the tonsils of children still suffer from OSA even pediatric sleep labs to confirm the ultrasound from an external source.” fascinated by the riddle of children special sleep-test (polysomnography) to and adenoids are removed, corrects OSA after adenotonsillectomy, and that any condition,” Goldbart continues. “We only Goldbart does volunteer work in who suffer from frequent upper and confirm that the patient is not getting in about 75 percent of cases. surgery carries risks such as infection, have four such clinics in Israel, and there the scouts and helps Chaim Layeled, an lower respiratory disorders. “Children enough oxygen due to the pauses in But the picture was more complicated bleeding or dehydration. Also, many are only 40 in the entire United States!” organization for children with cystic with enlarged tonsils and adenoids breathing, then teaching him or her than that. “We found that even in cases adults cannot adapt to a CPAP machine. Recently, the Israel Science fibrosis, accompanying the children tend to get sick two-and-a-half times to use a special machine in which a where there was no clear indication for Non-invasive therapy for OSA would be Foundation, in collaboration with the to a summer camp in Europe as the more frequently than other children continuous stream of air under pressure surgery – the tonsils were only slightly a blessing.” Legacy Heritage Fund, awarded Goldbart in-house doctor. So whether at home their age; their parents are the ones is delivered through a mask worn over enlarged, for example – if children had Goldbart’s research team uncovered a significant grant for his research in with his family, at work in the hospital who are intimately familiar with the the nose, or nose and mouth, to keep OSA in the sleep lab, then they also had how CRP, a marker for inflammation inflammatory changes in young children or on summer vacation, Goldbart is doctor’s waiting room,” he says. “Often the person’s airway open (typically systemic (body-wide) inflammation. in the blood, correlates with cardio- with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome. surrounded by and helping children live these children have other problems as called CPAP or BPAP) while he or she is That means that we found markers of vascular problems – identified by an He was one of seven recipients chosen healthier lives. sleeping. inflammation in their blood, urine and echocardiogram – in young children from more than one hundred candidates. 30 31 Dr. Tali Tadmor-Shimony Soldiering On

In the first and second decades after While the role of education in the Her book on her research into how the creation of the State of Israel, the process of nation-building is widely the Israeli character is depicted in the waves of mass immigration swelled the acknowledged, Tadmor-Shimony is one Israeli educational system, titled The numbers of school-age children several of a very few scholars dealing with this School as a National Identity Agent: fold. The fledgling state was faced with topic in Israel. “One cannot understand Israeli National Education and the an enormous increase in pupils, but with Israeli society without understanding Formation of a New State (1953-1966) very few trained teachers. the significance of the educational will be published in Hebrew (Ben- As the saying goes, necessity is the system,” she explains. “This was the Gurion University of the Negev Press, mother of invention, and in response primary agent in the formation of the in press), and she is now working on to this national education crisis, the Israeli character. My studies are part a second book, Teachers in Uniform peculiarly Israeli invention of young of this conceptual framework, which Teaching Israeliness – Female Soldier- female soldiers recruited for the examines how Israeli education was part Teachers. classroom was born. of creating a collective national identity, Tadmor-Shimony’s husband, Eyal “These soldier-teachers were a new as was done in many nations.” (Solomon) Shimony, a member of the and unique Israeli phenomenon,” In addition to her work studying Department of Computer Sciences at explains Dr. Tali Tadmor-Shimony, a the role of women in the early years BGU, specializes in robotics and artificial researcher at the Ben-Gurion Research intelligence. In the 1990s, the couple Institute for the Study of Israel and worked on their doctoral degrees while Zionism. “Israel was the only country living in Providence, Rhode Island, for with compulsory military service for four years. Eyal earned his doctorate women where female soldiers taught in from Brown University and Tali from schools.” the Hebrew University. They decided to Located in Sede Boqer, not far from return to Israel to raise a family. They David and Paula Ben-Gurion’s gravesite, live with their sons Tomer and Eran in the Ben-Gurion Institute allows a small Lehavim, one of the small communities group of University researchers to study The soldier- “The soldier-teachers, sent not only whose own experience of the world for the girls who were growing up in outside of Beer-Sheva. the development of the nascent state. to teach but to live as members of the was fairly limited, sent to do “battle” in a patriarchal society, in which women Tali Tadmor-Shimony managed to “There's something very special about teachers were new immigrant communities, were the the classrooms in communities of new serving in the army, free of parental locate many former women soldier- the atmosphere at Sede Boqer,” says the nearest and nearest and most tangible representatives immigrants. or spousal supervision, were a rare teachers, who are today in their Tadmor-Shimony. “Besides its quiet most tangible of the national establishment as Most of these “representatives of the phenomenon,” explains Tadmor- 70s and 80s. In addition to archival serenity and the rich library, there is representatives it absorbed the large number of state” came from Ashkenazi (European) Shimony, adding that "their level of documentation of the period, she has something about the place that recalls of the national newcomers from so many different families who had immigrated during schooling enhanced their authority and found these women to be rich sources the Israel of yesteryear. That's what I love establishment cultures,” she says. “The task of creating the Yishuv period. They were often sent status as educated women. They became of anecdotes from the time when they about it.” a new Israeli society was something of to teach in the outlying border areas a kind of gender prototype, albeit played such a key role in the immigrant For her work on this and other a burden on all teachers at the time, or the periphery, where most of the unwittingly.” communities. aspects of the role education has who were called on to function as new immigrants came from Islamic Much of Tadmor-Shimony’s research “One woman I interviewed had played in creating Israel's collective of the state, Tadmor-Shimony teaches social workers, health professionals and countries. deals with the question of how a national served on Moshav Nevatim in 1957, national identity, this past spring, undergraduate and graduate courses in representatives of the state, in addition to For the schoolgirls and their sisters, identity was created in an emerging state. settled by Jews from Cochin, India,” Tadmor-Shimony was awarded a Marc modern Israeli history and the history their teaching duties. these female soldiers were quite She examines how Israeli education she relates. “Her pupils’ older sisters Rich Foundation Prize for Women of education. “These girls can be regarded as social different from the women in their contributed to achieving this identity, as would come and ask her for advice Researchers. The newly-created prize It was Israel’s first prime minister, agents of Israeli culture,” posits Tadmor- own community. Although young, the was done in other developing nations. about their first love affair and other is the first dedicated fund at an Israeli David Ben-Gurion, explains Tadmor- Shimony, “and also as gender-related women were “independent, educated About a fifth of the teachers in the personal problems. That soldier-teacher university created to promote the status Shimony, who perceived the army as a agents, that is, female role models, and liberated – in terms of the period, first decade of the state were actually had a boyfriend who used to come and of women in academia, specifically vital socializing agent and decided that though they were surely unaware of this if not in the contemporary sense – and newcomers themselves who had arrived visit her and even stayed the night. That targeting women in the early years of the situation in Israel made education a role.” served as gender-related role models after the founding of the state. How did caused quite a stir in the Moshav, but she their career. priority and that the army must give up One can imagine these young women, these teachers cope with the function was admired by the teenage girls.” some of its potential female labor force often lacking pedagogical training, of state agent on the one hand and with to meet those educational needs. being immigrants on the other hand? 32 33 Stress – From Coming Home: Media Iranophobia: The Logic Molecules to Behavior: and Returning Diaspora of an Israeli Obsession A Comprehensive in Israel and Germany Haggai Ram Analysis of the Nelly Elias Stanford University Press, 2009 Neurobiology of Stress State University of New York Israel and Iran are invariably Responses Press, 2008 portrayed as sworn enemies, Hermona Soreq, Nelly Elias of the Department of engaged in an unending conflict Alon Friedman and Communications examines the with potentially apocalyptic Daniela Kaufer (editors) social and cultural integration implications. Dr. Haggai Ram Wiley-Blackwell, 2009 of Russian-speaking Jews and of the Department of Middle This volume comprehensively Germans who returned to their East Studies offers an innovative covers the molecular basis respective historic homelands and provocative reading of stress responses of the – Israel and Germany – during of this conflict. Concerned nervous system, providing the 1990s and their experience foremost with how Israelis a unique and fundamental in adjusting to these new perceive Iran, he shows that this insight into the molecular, countries. The book provides conflict is as much a product physiological and behavioral a glimpse into the social and of shared cultural trajectories basis of the stress response of cultural integration of this and entangled histories as it a whole organism. Edited by unique category of immigrants is one of strategic concerns leading experts in the field, – the returning diasporas. Elias and political differences. Ram including Prof. Alon Friedman, a explores the social and cultural explores prevalent Israeli neurosurgeon and member of adaptation of these two groups assumptions about Iran to look by focusing on the roles played at how these assumptions

Bookshelf the Faculty of Health Sciences’ Department of Physiology, the by their native language – have, in turn, reflected and book summarizes the latest Russian – and the language used shaped Jewish Israeli identity. research advances in this area. by the media of each country. Drawing on diverse political, It covers topics including: Based on one hundred in-depth cultural and academic sources, Systems in Stress Research; Cells interviews with immigrants he concludes that anti-Iran and Circuits; Cognition and now living in both Israel and phobias in the Israeli public Behavior; Immune Responses; Germany, she shows how media sphere are largely projections of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder; consumption is involved in perceived domestic threats to and Vulnerability to Disease. both retaining Russian culture the prevailing Israeli ethnocratic It is an invaluable resource for and getting involved with order. He demonstrates that clinicians dealing with stress- the culture, language and the conflict between Israel and related disorders and biomedical outlook of the host society. Iran may not be as essential researchers working in the field, Elias considers media use to and polarized as common as well as for pharmacology and be an inseparable part of an knowledge assumes. Israeli biotech companies. immigrant’s adaptation strategy, anti-Iran phobias are derived simultaneously reflecting equally from domestic anxieties construction of a new social and about the Jewish state’s ethnic cultural identity while preserving and religious identities and from their original cultural identity. exaggerated and displaced strategic concerns in the era of the “war on terrorism.”

34 Desert Olive Oil Sourcing the News: Key Meso-Scale Shear Uneasy Neighbors: Cultivation: Advanced Issues in Journalism – Physics in Earthquake Israel and the European Biotechnologies An Innovative Study of and Landslide Union Zeev Wiesman the Israeli Press Mechanics Sharon Pardo and Academic Press, 2009 Zvi Reich Yossef H. Hatzor, Joel Peters Due to the adverse stress Hampton Press, 2009 Jean Sulem and Ioannis Lexington Books, 2009 Vardoulakis (editors) conditions typical of olive This book illuminates the Dr. Sharon Pardo, Jean Monnet cultivation in desert conditions, sometimes obscure processes CRC Press/Balkema, The Lecturer in the Department of the olive tree is responding through which news is created. Netherlands, 2009 Politics and Government and with production of high levels The innovative methodology of Prof. Yossef Hatzor of the Director of the Centre for the of antioxidant substances. the face-to-face reconstruction Department of Geological and Study of European Politics and Studies have shown that saline interview, which was developed Environmental Sciences and Society, and Dr. Joel Peters, irrigated varieties of olives have and implemented by Dr. Zvi incumbent of the Dr. Sam and founding Director of the Centre demonstrated advantages Reich of the Department of Edna Lemkin Chair in Rock and now at Virginia Tech, over those irrigated with tap Communications, enables a Mechanics has co-edited this analyze significant aspects of water. Based on twenty years of quantitative depiction of book that brings together Israeli-European relations from research, this book by Prof. Zeev different aspects of news- state-of-the-art, peer reviewed the late 1950s to the present Wiesman of the Department making. Reich, who is also a papers on shear physics at day. They examine major of Biotechnology Engineering journalist for a leading Israeli the meso-scale in earthquake facets of the troubled Israeli- expounds on the appropriate newspaper, focuses on the Israeli and landslide mechanics. European relations, which are selection of olive varieties national press and addresses The identification of meso- characterized by a love-hate with high productivity and key questions that continue scale phenomena occurring relationship fueled by economic oil quality, the impact of foliar to trouble communities of between microscopic and passion and occasional political nutrition on decreasing alternate journalists, academics and continuum length scales has hostility. Emphasis is placed on bearing and increasing fruit journalism educators. The book been one of the most exciting five broad themes that address quality, improving efficiency includes chapters on the growth developments in the last decade different dimensions of the of mechanical harvesting of newspapers; book structure in understanding shear between relationship: Israeli-EU relations and increasing efficiency of reporters as problematical material interfaces, as well and the Israeli-Palestinian peace oil extraction and oil quality witnesses of their own work; as particulate systems, and is process; Israeli-EU relations in a regulating analysis. Wiesman reconstruction of interviews; considered the bridge between multilateral context; the bilateral also discusses new irrigation obtaining news as a two-phase the two length scales for nature of Israeli-EU relations; techniques, including irrigation process and the characteristics studying material response. This Israeli (mis)perceptions of the using recycled municipal waste of news phases; the two-phase research area has immediate EU; and the future of Israeli- water, extending the vegetative process and literature; the two- bearing on our understanding of EU relations. The study offers growth and development period, phase process and journalistic both earthquake and landslide insights into how the EU is choosing proper genetic plant practice; news initiative and mechanics – two geological actually judged by Israelis and material and orchard design, and the public interest; the lure of processes that pose great risk to how well European intentions pre- and post-harvest advanced spokespersons; leaks; format and mankind worldwide. The articles have been translated into bio-methodologies, including news work practices; news beats are arranged in chapters that observable actions in both image processing, low-resolution and journalistic work; stability discuss Dynamics of frictional Israel and the Middle East. The NMR, and quality analysis of and news production; the slip; Fault gauge mechanics; authors offer both an analysis semi-arid environmentally significance of news practices; Experimental fault zone of Israeli-European relations produced olive oil. In addition, he news reporting and efficiency; mechanics; Granular shear and and an observation on the discusses factors that significantly and epistemologies of news liquefaction; and Dynamics of Union’s emerging role as an affect the production and reporting. landslides. international actor, especially nutritional values of olive oil. in the Middle East. 35 From Judah Hadassi Circles of Exclusion: Selected Essays on Settling in the Hearts: to Elijah Bashyatchi: The Politics of Health Current Legal Issues Jewish Fundamentalism Studies in Late Medieval Care in Israel David A. Frenkel and in the Occupied Karaite Philosophy Dani Filc Carsten Gerner-Beuerle Territories Daniel J. Lasker Cornell University Press, 2009 (editors) Michael Feige ATINER, Athens, Greece, 2008 Brill Academic Publishers, 2008 In its early years, Israel’s Wayne State University Press, Prof. Daniel Lasker from the dominant ideology led to public Prof. David Frenkel of the 2009 Department of Jewish Thought provision of health care for all Department of Business Prof. Michael Feige of the Israel and incumbent of the Blechner Jewish citizens, regardless of Administration and head Studies program at the Ben- Chair in Jewish Tradition and their age, income, or ability of the Law Research Unit Gurion Research Institute for Values presents a pioneering to pay, but the system has of the Athens Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism account of the development become increasingly privatized Education and Research, and examines the attempts of Gush of late medieval Karaite Jewish and market-based. While the Dr. Carsten Gerner-Beuerle of Emunim, a religious nationalistic thought, challenging the wealthy, the young, and the King’s College School of Law social movement, to construct oft-repeated assertion that healthy have relatively easy in London, UK, present essays Israeli identity, collective Karaite thinkers remained access to health care, the by contributors from around memory and sense of place. loyal to Kalām, the dominant poor, the old and the very sick the world. As diverse as the Gush Emunim traces its roots theological philosophy during confront increasing obstacles essays are – spanning public to the 1967 Six Day War and the earlier Golden Age of to medical treatment. Dr. Dani and private law, human rights the development of a Greater Karaism. A careful reading of Filc, MD, of the Department and criminal justice – they all Israel ideology, which sought to Karaite sources demonstrates of Politics and Government seek to illuminate issues of maintain Israeli control of the that the watershed figure and Chairman of Physicians for current significance from an West Bank and other newly- whose influence led to changes Human Rights-Israel, argues international perspective. Thus, acquired territories. It became in Karaite thought was the that today, equal access to the readers may focus on the a political force by constructing Rabbanite Maimonides, health care is systematically areas of law that are of particular settlements within contested whose attacks on the Kalām thwarted by a regime that interest to them and find territory and it is one of the key had revealed its scientific does not extend an equal level references to their own legal players in the Israeli-Palestinian shortcomings. This book of commitment to the well- systems or draw a comparison conflict. Feige analyzes the discusses major Karaite thinkers being of all residents, whether to similar problems discussed success of Gush Emunim from the twelfth to sixteenth Jewish, Israeli Palestinians, in their countries. Apart from through an examination of centuries, as well as the central migrant workers or Palestinians the natural distinction between its ideology, practices and themes in their writings. It also in the Occupied Territories. Filc private and public law, the symbolic construction of space outlines the impact of Karaism explores how Israel’s adoption of editors have concentrated and time. He explores how on the dominant Rabbanite a neoliberal model has pushed on topics of general interest, the settlers reinterpret Jewish Jews and their major thinkers, the system in a direction that including Business Law, history, secular Zionist ideology, especially Maimonides. It should gives priority to the strongest Intellectual Property, Contract religious faith and the Bible and be of interest to all those who and richest individuals and Law, Consumer Protection, identifies the crucial principles study medieval philosophy, groups over the needs of society Criminal Law, Tax Law, Human at work in their attempts to intellectual history, Judaism and as a whole, and to profit and Rights, Cultural Property, Media appropriate land, particularly in sectarianism. competition over care. He also Law, Environmental Law and their use of collective memory, discusses how human rights, Land Planning and Public referring both to ancient times public health and economic International Law. The volume and to more contemporary imperatives can be combined concludes with articles on events. He concludes with an to produce a truly equal health more abstract topics relating analysis of the contemporary care system that provides high- to the History of Law and Legal changes, conflicts and crises that quality services to all Israelis. Education. have affected Gush Emunim. 36 Polymers, Liquids and Arab Politics, White Enough to Be Optical Super- Colloids in Electric Palestinian Nationalism American?: Race Mixing, computing: Second Fields: Interfacial and the Six Day War: Indigenous People, and International Workshop Instabilities, Orientation The Crystallization the Boundaries of State Shlomi Dolev and and Phase Transitions of Arab Strategy and and Nation Mihai Oltean (editors) Yoav Tsori and Nasir’s Descent to War, Lauren L. Basson Springer, 2009 1957-1967 Ullrich Steiner (editors) University of North Carolina Prof. Shlomi Dolev of the World Scientific Publishing Moshe Shemesh Press, 2008 Department of Computer Company, 2009 Sussex Academic Press, 2008 Racial mixture posed a distinct Sciences and incumbent of This book, co-edited by The Six Day War was the climax threat to European American the Rita Altura Trust Chair in Dr. Yoav Tsori of the Department in the deterioration of the perceptions of the nation and Computer Sciences, together of Chemical Engineering and Arab-Israeli conflict, which state in the late nineteenth with Prof. Michai Oltean from incumbent of the Joseph began in 1957 when Nasir century, claims Dr. Lauren Babeş-Bolyai University in and May Winston Career began preaching the idea Basson of the Department of Romania, present the refereed Development Chair in Chemical of Arab nationalism, placing Politics and Government, as proceedings of the Second Engineering, exposes a wide the Palestinian problem at its it exposed and disrupted the International Workshop on range of phenomena that occur center. The decade before the racial categories that organized Optical Supercomputing, OSC when soft matter systems are Six Day War was marked by political and social life in the 2009, held in Bertinoro, Italy. put under the influence of an preparations by both sides for U.S.A. Offering a provocative Being an annual forum for external electric field. It shows an all-out military confrontation. conceptual approach to the research presentations on all how an electric field can be As the Arab states formulated study of citizenship, nationhood facets of optical computing used to affect objects at the their goals and the ways of and race, Basson explores for solving hard computation submicron scale and how it attaining them, differences of how racial mixture challenged tasks, OCS addresses topics of controls the phase behavior of opinion erupted between Egypt and sometimes changed the interest including: designs of liquids and polymers. Each topic and Syria. Nasser consciously boundaries that defined what it optical computing devices; is covered by theory, experiment led Egypt to war, carefully meant to be American. Drawing algorithmics and complexity and simulation, providing weighing the implications on government documents, issues of optical computing; a broad perspective of the of each political and military press coverage and firsthand computation representation by underlying physical phenomena. step. This study, by Prof. Moshe accounts, Basson presents photons and holograms; neural Topics discussed include: The Shemesh from the Ben-Gurion case studies concerning and brain inspired architectures; Phenomenology of Modulated Research Institute for the Study indigenous people of “mixed” electro-optic devices; practical Phases: From Magnetic Solids of Israel and Zionism, reveals descent. She reveals how the implementations; analysis and Fluids to Organic Films and conclusions regarding Arab ambiguous status of racially of existing devices and case Polymers; Change of Critical strategy that differ from previous mixed people underscored the studies; optical photonics and Mixing Temperature in a Uniform scholarly and political-military problematic nature of policies laser switching technologies; Electric Field; Electrohydro- assessments. Issues discussed and practices based on clearly optical and photonic memories; dynamic Instabilities of Thin include: the relevance of the defined racial boundaries. optical signal processing Liquid Films; Electrowetting: Palestinian problem as key to Basson demonstrates how the subsystems; optical networks for Phase Separation and Morpho- understanding the descent to challenges to the American high-performance computing; logy of Polymer Mixtures Driven war; Nasser’s military blunders political and legal systems posed optical interconnections; by Light; Thermodynamics and and his acceptance of the by racial mixture helped lead quantum optical systems; the Phase Diagrams of Block principle that Egypt had to to a new definition of what it applications and algorithms for Copolymers in Electric Fields; absorb the first Israeli strike; meant to be American – one optical devices; Alpha particles, and Orienting and Tuning Block and the Hashemite regime’s that relied on institutions of X-rays and nano-technologies Copolymer Nanostructures with response to the Palestinians’ private property and white for optical computing. Electric Fields. heightened national awakening. supremacy. 37 Dr. Assaf Hasson A Never-Ending Process

“Quite often, when I’m lying in bed What practical use does it have? not hesitate to accept the offer at BGU. at night staring at the ceiling, my wife Hasson isn’t ashamed to say he has He recounts that when he meets will ask me, ‘Are you working?’ and the no idea. “But I don’t know of any someone and tells them he’s a answer is . . . yes.” mathematical advance that went 50 years mathematician, “The first two things Such is life for Dr. Assaf Hasson of without being applied in some practical they say are, ‘I was never good at math,’ the Department of Mathematics. “On way,” he adds. and, ‘You must be really intelligent.’ The the one hand, I work a lot at home so Growing up in Jerusalem, he always truth is that there are mathematicians my time is flexible, but there’s really had a good idea of where he was who are terribly intelligent, who are no such thing as being finished with headed. “I always liked riddles,” he geniuses, but there are many who are work – ninety percent of the time, I’m says. He received his Bachelors degree not.” He can only discuss math with thinking about some math problem or in computer science, but he knew that colleagues. “Sure, I have friends who other.” he didn’t want to study computers or aren’t mathematicians, and I can talk Speaking with a hint of a British become a programmer – which is his about anything with them except my accent left over from his three-and- wife Michal’s profession. work.” half years doing a post-doctorate at At the Hebrew University, he came Hasson doesn’t have any heroes the University of Oxford, Hasson, 37, under the tutelage of two of the world's in the field because the “greats” of tries to explain his particular field of leading model theorists – Hrushovski mathematics are doing things beyond mathematics: “model theory.” and Prof. Saharon Shelah. his and the great majority of professional mathematicians’ abilities, so they are not role models. He can’t point to any specific goals, such as solving this or that Mathematics takes highly intelligent mathematical mystery – it’s an ongoing, people who could be designing weapons never-ending process. and engages them in something that has “For instance, I’ve been trying to absolutely no practical application solve one particular math problem for the last three or four years. I’m always on the lookout for ideas that can bring me closer to the solution, and I’d be “Any question in Euclidian geometry For Hasson, Oxford was the natural very, very happy to solve it. But it’s not can be solved, but what is it about choice for his post-doctoral studies. an obsession of mine. It’s not the only Euclidian geometry that makes that The Mathematical Institute there has problem I think about. There are always Also the modern novelists, Nabokov, model theory, or even being interested But Hasson takes a humorously so? Model theory would try to answer traditionally had a very strong group many more interesting problems, and Rushdie and some Israeli novelists, in it.” He says that “If a paper on model philosophical attitude to the ethereal that question. But this is just one way to of scholars in the field of mathematical aspects of problems, to work on than Susan Adam, David Shahar.” theory gets read by 50 people, that’s a nature of his work. “Once a Fields illustrate it,” he explains. logic and model theory in particular. there is time.” Usually, though, it’s only on vacations huge number. If I write a paper that gets medalist gave a talk entitled, ‘Does If the reader still doesn’t understand, Studying under such giants had an He feels extremely lucky and says that Hasson can take his mind off math read by five people, I’m happy.” mathematics contribute to humanity?' not to worry. “I’m not sure I could intimidating effect on Hasson. “I knew most other mathematicians do too. long enough to be able to sit down and He’s well aware that “normal people” And his answer was – ‘of course it does.’ present a paper on model theory to my I wasn’t in their league. But when I got “My profession is also my hobby. I’m concentrate on a novel. “When your don't have the deepest appreciation for It takes highly intelligent people who colleagues because I’m not sure many to Oxford, the mathematicians there sure if you asked my colleagues in the mind is constantly exploring this math the kind of “purely intellectual” work he could be designing weapons and engages of them know enough about it,” he seemed of more human proportions, and Department, they would say, just as I do, problem or that, it’s very hard to unwind does as a pure mathematician. “A friend them in something that has absolutely says. Model theory is such an obscure I said to myself: ‘I can do this’.” that they find it amazing that someone and do other things. It usually takes me of mine once said that ‘an important no practical application.” Asked if he was discipline of mathematics that only one After receiving a one-year post-doc is willing to pay them to pursue their the first three or four days of a vacation theorem in mathematics allows you to thinking of the brilliant physicists of the model theorist – Prof. Ehud Hrushovski, grant from the Hebrew University, he hobby.” to change the mind-set.” explain other theorems in mathematics.’ Manhattan Project who designed the one of his mentors as a student at the received a three-year scholarship from He does have one non-mathematical Hasson seems to live very It's true that many branches in math just atom bomb, Hasson nodded his head. Hebrew University of Jerusalem – has the British Engineering and Physical interest he pursues in his spare time, comfortably with the obscurity of the relate to themselves. And in mathematics “Sometimes just preventing people from ever even been short-listed for the Fields Sciences Research Council. It had always though. “I read novels, many of the field in which he toils, the unlikelihood you do sometimes get lost going off on doing bad things is an achievement,” he Medal, which is equivalent to a Nobel been his intention to return to Israel, so classics – Dostoyevsky, Gogol, Dickens. of people “being able to understand tangents.” It’s so abstract, so infinite that smiles. Prize in mathematics, says Hasson. when he was then offered a position in “in many cases, asking the right question the Department of Mathematics, he did is at least as important as solving it.” 38 39 Dr. Iris Visoly-Fisher Here Comes the Sun

For Dr. Iris Visoly-Fisher, research is produce and offer little flexibility. For and won’t break in your backpack.” as much a mission as it is a profession. these reasons, Visoly-Fisher focuses Visoly-Fisher acknowledges that “Modern life as we know it depends on her attention on organic (hydrocarbon organics are not without drawbacks. our ability to sustain our environment,” based) cells – which include materials They are less efficient and have a she maintains. “With the increasing like plastics. Organic cells are cheaper lower theoretical limit than other financial and strategic costs of and simpler to manufacture than silicon semi-conducting materials in use. conventional fuels, an alternative energy and other semiconductors and their These shortcomings, however, can be source, like solar, is the natural choice.” production requires no acids or harsh overcome. One option for increasing Though Visoly-Fisher is a member solvents. their efficiency, she believes, is to of the Department of Chemistry, her Organic cells are lighter-weight incorporate materials that absorb multi-disciplinary training influences and more portable than conventional different colors, in order to make use of everything she does. Born and raised semi-conductors. They are also more more light energy. in Haifa, with degrees in physics and flexible, both mechanically and in terms In building and characterizing materials engineering from the Technion of planning and applications. “There has new devices, Visoly-Fisher adopts a – Israel Institute of Technology, and even been talk of putting organic cells in “bottom-up” approach. That is, she asks: in chemistry from the Weizmann paint and windows,” says Visoly-Fisher. if we understand the properties of a Institute of Science, she came to BGU Since organic cells are foldable, they can single building block of a system, can after a post-doc at Arizona State be integrated into electricity-generating we deduce the properties of the entire University and has dedicated herself tents, or other products made from system? Can we make a better system by designing this single building block? She investigates what happens to all Let’s see what one part does and then put them the system’s building blocks and how High resolution scanning probe Another original application of this her husband is involved in as an architect together to get the big picture. It’s like putting together scientists can play with them to build microscopy and other recently work is the creation of single-molecule specializing in “green” planning and LEGO bricks. You can connect the pieces in different new devices. developed methods allow the measuring photovoltaic cells that can serve as construction. “I can characterize a single building of the electronic properties of very miniaturized energy sources. Tiny and “There’s a lot of interest in this ways and find novel approaches for joining them block and from that, see how the whole small objects. “With scanning probe portable, these truly nano-scale devices area for many reasons,” continues device works. This is the opposite of microscopy, we can measure to the size can be made into medical technologies the researcher, whose work itself has what most people do,” she explains. “I of one atom,” says Visoly-Fisher. “You like bio-sensors, small enough to be drawn the attention of the Marc Rich to finding innovative solutions for the cloth. One current aim, she says, is to say, let’s see what one part does and can examine a single molecule and placed on a chip. These devices will use Foundation, which recently recognized development of sustainable energy in make sheets of active materials that can then put them together to get the big measure its properties at high resolution. a very small volume of materials and her work with a Marc Rich Foundation the form of solar power. Such work, she be rolled up. “Some of these ideas are picture. It’s like a puzzle, or like putting I couldn’t do my research without this energy and will need only light to be Prize for Women Researchers. “The holds, has significance for economics, more practical than others,” she says, together LEGO bricks. You can connect tool.” activated. pursuit of energy independence is a large security, environmental quality and adding that with organics, “the sky’s the the pieces in different ways and find While using some of the most “I believe that ultimately, the part of the security program in countries energy independence. While there are limit.” novel approaches for joining them.” This advanced hi-tech research methods alternative energy world will benefit like Israel and the US,” she adds. other alternative options, such as bio- In this context, Visoly-Fisher is can be practically applied to studying available today, Visoly-Fisher says that from a combination of alternative “Other factors, like global warming and fuels, they generally tend to defile the developing new methods for producing molecular building blocks of solar cells her main teacher is nature. For example, sources,” says Visoly-Fisher. “Likewise, predicted oil shortages, also contribute environment. In contrast, solar energy innovative organic cells that are similar and light-activated microelectronic she looks to biological photosystems, the photovoltaic arena will reap the to increased attention on sustainable is clean and unlimited, and while not as to silicon, but lighter, less expensive devices. “We can take existing cells and like those involved in photosynthesis, to benefits of different technologies: energy.” affordable as bio-fuels, is generally more and more effective. At the present, these do optic manipulations on them to provide the knowledge needed to design silicon may be efficient, but it causes In addition to its great relevance, cost effective when the other costs are ideas are not commercially feasible due capture the light within a device so it artificial, bio-inspired materials for solar pollution. Organics, while somewhat less sustainable energy attracts Visoly-Fisher taken into account, she says. to issues of price, manufacturing and remains for a long time,” she adds. photovoltaics (the conversion of light to efficient, are far cheaper and cleaner than due to its interdisciplinary nature. Photovoltaic cells – devices that stability. “We’re working to solve these Along with the bottom-up approach, electricity). “People have already made conventional materials.” “Chemistry gives us the ability to change convert sunlight directly into electricity problems in the Elaine and Sarah Sklar Visoly-Fisher says she is most interested synthetic molecules that mimic the Visoly-Fisher admits that her interest organic materials at will. Physics allows – are ideal, according to Visoly-Fisher, as Molecular Opto-Electronics Lab,” she in and inspired by the nanometric active part of the photosynthesis process in clean energy manufacture is linked to us to understand properties of these they offer a clean and free energy source. says. “If we do succeed, it will be easier architecture of a device. The nanoscale – and can manufacture them at will,” the asthma from which the elder of her materials. Engineering puts everything Generally, these cells are produced with to achieve portable energy sources that measures objects one hundred- says Visoly-Fisher. “We are now trying to two children began to suffer when they altogether so we can best make use of it, traditional semiconductors like silicon, could power your laptop or charge your thousandth the thickness of a single do this with solid cells.” were living in the heavily-polluted center and biology is the inspiration for it all,” which, she explains, are expensive to cell phone. They will be light and cheap human hair. of Tel Aviv. It is also linked to the area she says. 40 41 Dr. Raz Zarivach It’s Crystal Clear

For structural biologist Dr. Raz “Think of a protein as a house for and antibiotics against pertussis exist, Zarivach began in this important Zarivach, seeing is not only believing, which you can get a blueprint,” continues resistant strains are rendering current field by earning his B.Sc. in chemistry but doing. A member of the Department Zarivach. “Structural biology allows you drugs useless. Seeking to understand from Tel Aviv University. He went on to of Life Sciences and the National to see the shape of this house on your how this disease works, Zarivach hopes receive his Ph.D. in the same discipline Institute for Biotechnology in the Negev, computer at an atomic level. It provides to help create new and effective anti- from the Weizmann Institute of Science Zarivach explains his initial attraction information extending from the atomic pertussis medications. – where he was part of a research to structural biology, which seeks to level, to the electron level, to the general In another project, Zarivach focuses group headed by Nobel Prize laureate explain the three-dimensional structure shape. By knowing the location and on magnetic nano particles, which are Prof. Ada Yonath – and continued as a of biological macromolecules. “As a use of each room in the house, you can key players in the nano-biotechnology post-doctoral fellow at the University of chemist, I liked 3D views of molecules. understand how to make the most of it.” field for catalysis and for biomedical British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. When I see something in 3D, I know As another example, we can look at uses, such as the treatment of some When not in the lab, Zarivach mostly it’s there and how it looks. I liked the a machine. “Structural biology gives cancers, as well as the detection and enjoys spending time with his wife and challenge of finding these ‘blueprints’ you a clear diagram of where the bolts separation of biomolecules. Here, he three small children. Once, before the and putting them to best possible use,” and wheels are located, how they are concentrates on magnetosomes, or children were born, he was an avid he says. connected and what each part does,” organelles present in bacteria, which reader, particularly of science fiction, says Zarivach. This is crucial, he can “swim” according to magnetic a hiker and traveler. Now, between explains, since by illuminating structural fields. Serving as a compass, these the demands of research and family, information, we can understand magnetosomes orient the bacteria in these activities are mostly on hold, but function and determine how to proceed. geomagnetic fields, simplifying their Zarivach has no complaints. Largely In concrete terms, explains Zarivach, search for their preferred environment. content with his chosen profession, he “by understanding function – and By understanding the formation of praises the University’s pleasant and how molecules move, interact, bind magnetosomes, Zarivach hopes to stimulating atmosphere and the caliber and fit with each other – we can create be able to design new nano materials of his students. He is no less positive important new designs, which can that can serve as nano wires and nano about Beer-Sheva, which he says is Think of a contribute to basic scientific research, machines as well as shed light on basic “relaxed, free of traffic jams and a great protein as a or lay the foundation for innovative processes in a living organism. These place to raise kids.” drugs or industrial products. We basic processes have implications in As director of his own laboratory, house for which can also use existing blueprints to many diseases. Zarivach holds responsibility for you can get understand structures for which we Using the tools of X-ray purchasing equipment, hiring personnel a blueprint. have no blueprints. Let’s say, a home crystallography, Zarivach deduces the and overseeing the projects of graduate Structural without a plan, which sits in a housing 3D structure of magnetosome-related students. He also chooses subjects of biology allows development. You can modify this proteins at an atomic level. “The results research, which he hopes will ultimately you to see the home based on blueprints for similar of this project will yield important lead to improved human health. structures.” insights into iron biomineralization, “Again, if we have the blueprint, we shape of this Perhaps the most important reveal new bacterial inner membrane can design crucial drugs. We can create house at an application of this work, carried out with protein families and provide new different artificial molecules that will atomic level the support of the David and Inez Myers tools for the production of magnetic block the entrance of molecules that Foundation, is countering disease. To nanomaterials. These findings should lead to wrong processes and diseases. It’s this end, in one of his current research contribute to the battle against cancer possible to say that the body contains projects, Zarivach examines proteins by enabling the design of magnetic many doors with different locks. involved in pertussis, a highly contagious nano particles that can enter the body, Through our work, we try to design disease commonly known as whooping target cancer cells and kill them by drug various keys that can each unlock a cough. Causing respiratory tract delivery or even by boiling them (locally) different door.” infections, pertussis is characterized by as a result of radiation absorption by the a paroxysmal cough. While vaccines magnetic particles.” 42 43 Dr. Gitit Gur-Gershgoren Money Makes the World Go ’Round

The good news is that Israel’s financial run and pick up her 2-year-old daughter, Asked why Israel’s financial system prices are deflating, many Israelis are that unemployment has gone up over lot better anytime soon.” system isn’t nearly as bad off as that of Arielle, from nursery school. “I’m going weathered the latest financial crisis more left with huge debts on property that the last month, but to say that it didn’t Gur-Gershgoren was lured to BGU by the United States, Britain or much of ’round the clock,” she says, trying to successfully than the American one, she isn’t worth nearly what it used to be – go up as much as people expected, so Prof. Shmuel Hauser of the Department the rest of the world. The bad news is juggle two jobs and a family. explained that Israel learned the hard a painfully familiar story to Americans that’s supposedly a good sign. No, it’s not of Business Administration, her former that Israel isn’t out of the woods by any For Gur-Gershgoren, being an way – by the bank shares scandal of the and Europeans. In recent months, a good sign. It’s just a relatively less bad boss at the Securities Authority, when means, and that rising unemployment economist combines the natural affinity early 1980s, in which the banks played however, Israelis have been buoyed by sign. It still shows that your economy is he was chief economist and she was his remains a serious danger. for mathematics that she’s had since her fast and loose with the public’s money the performance of the stock market, contracting. And when you combine this deputy. “They see the combination of That’s the word from Dr. Gitit Gur- childhood in the Negev town of Arad, – which resulted in much tougher Gershgoren, who recently joined the along with the curiosity about human controls on how the banks handle the Department of Business Administration behavior that she developed during her fortunes placed in their trust. at the Guilford Glazer School of Business army duty as a psychological researcher. Thus, Israeli banks, unlike their and Management, where she teaches She studied economics and international American counterparts, were not courses on financial policy, portfolio relations as an undergraduate student crippled by the effects of what amounted management and Israel’s financial at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to a pyramid scheme with sub-prime

Unlike American banks, Israeli banks are required to have capital reserves to back their loans; they can’t, as a rule, sell off mortgages as securities and they thereby avoid taking the hit when a mortgage-buyer defaults

markets. She hopes that the experience and then went with her husband, Erez, mortgages. Unlike American banks, she has garnered in her professional to the University of Colorado where he Israeli banks are required to have capital capacity and her research in fields such did research as a post-doctoral fellow in reserves to back their loans; they can’t, as as the microstructure of the financial physics. a rule, sell off mortgages as securities and market and corporate governance can “I didn’t have kids then and I didn’t they thereby avoid taking the hit when a have practical applications for her ski so, having begun my Ph.D. studies mortgage-buyer defaults. In other words, students. In one of her course seminars, in Israel, I decided to continue in they take pains to ensure that the buyer the students are allotted a certain Colorado,” says Gur-Gershgoren. Later, can actually pay back the mortgage fictitious sum of money which they she did a post-doc at Yale and afterward before lending him the money to buy a have to invest in companies on the stock took the job at the Securities Authority. house, she explains. exchange and make a profit by the end of “We wanted to come back to Israel. We Yet while Israeli financial the semester. wanted our daughter to grow up here.” conservatism in mortgage loans What makes Gur-Gershgoren’s Her job is to “maintain investor prevented the worst of the crisis facing opinion on national and international confidence” in the financial system – the United States and many other financial matters worth listening to? in the integrity and truthfulness of countries, the Israeli economy, just like Besides teaching at BGU, she’s also the corporations trading on the Tel Aviv the rest of the world, is now suffering the chief economist for the Israel Securities Stock Exchange. “We make sure consequences. Authority, which is this country’s that investors are getting accurate Noting that the credit extended by equivalent to the U.S. Security and information in the financial disclosures the world’s ten largest banks grew by Exchange Commission. of corporations, and that the advice 250 percent from 2002 to 2008, Gur- leading many to a sense that the worst with the fact that foreign investment has academics and real-world experience as Gur-Gershgoren, 36, talks about they’re getting – from analysts and Gershgoren says there was also a credit is over, that recovery is on the way. But stopped, I think it’s still too early to say an asset,” she says. “I do, too, she laughs, her work and her life in Lapid, a small consultants, for instance – isn’t tainted by bubble in Israel during those boom years Gur-Gershgoren isn’t sure, and she the crisis is behind us. It may well be that as she rushes off to get her daughter town near Ben-Gurion Airport, where a conflict of interest,” she says. As chief that has now burst. “A lot of money was counsels against over-confidence. the economy is not going to get worse, and, finally, enjoy the weekend with her she lives. It’s a Friday morning and she economist, she’s in charge of research borrowed in this country to buy real “There’s a tendency to see things but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s family at home. doesn’t have much time before she has to into these matters. estate,” she notes. Now that real estate through rose-colored glasses – to see going to turn around and start getting a 44 45 Drs. Talya and Arik Wolak Committed to the Negev Population

BGU’s Faculty of Health Sciences and kidney failure and brain damage. She the Soroka University Medical Center traces her interest in hypertension taught Drs. Talya and Arik Wolak their to rotations during her residency. trade and helped them advance their “Hypertension is a narrow field that successful medical careers. No less affects many organs,” she says. “It can important, it brought them together. be extremely frustrating, as doctors can Today, after more than 20 years in Beer- administer good treatment and still lose Sheva – where they have built a mutual their patients, but generally, the right profession and a family – the Drs. Wolak hypertension treatment makes for lower remain deeply committed to their alma heart and brain damage and a higher rate mater and their work with the local of survival.” population. Talya decided to undertake a fellowship in nephrology since the Working in the “The Soroka Medical Center houses one of Israel’s largest and most active kidney is one of the main organs south, I have the cardiology departments,” says Arik, a that control blood pressure and sense that I’m cardiologist who specializes in cardiac comprehending how the kidneys work needed, that I can imaging. “This is the only hospital in the helps to understand the pathophysiology make a difference. entire Negev – an area stretching from of hypertension. Arik terms his own Here, every pair Sderot (Ashkelon has its own hospital, area, cardiology, “a very potent field in which you see results. of hands makes a though much smaller, that is affiliated to BGU) to Eilat – that provides treatment “Cardiology is a way of thinking. It’s difference for them and it serves a huge number of very practical and I do better medicine patients.” with this type of approach,” he says. “This is the place for doctors who “You must know your strengths and If you arrange want to give – and get – something weaknesses and choose your field your priorities extra,” he continues. “People at BGU and accordingly.” For both Wolaks, research and clinical right, you can do Soroka feel tremendously connected to this place. If I see a crooked picture in work enjoy a symbiotic relationship. almost anything the hallway, I’ll straighten it – this is my “There is a cross-fertilization between home and the people here are my family. these activities. Questions emerge in I feel confident in saying that everyone your clinical work that can be solved who works here feels the same way.” through research and vice-versa,” says Dr. Talya Wolak concurs. “I am Arik. “The more research I do, the better closely affiliated with the University, the I can treat patients.” hospital and the people of the Negev. “Yes, you must do both research Our hospital serves vastly diverse and clinical practice to stay updated,” populations such as veteran Israelis of interjects Talya, who insists that this different backgrounds, new immigrants union enhances her teaching as well. from Russia and Ethiopia and Bedouins. Talya Wolak is a full-time clinician, As a result, we deal with an unusually a member of the hypertension unit, an large and varied range of medical attending physician and year-round situations.” teacher at the Faculty of Health Sciences Talya specializes in the treatment of and for external students. Together they hypertension, the state of repeatedly are the parents of two daughters, aged 16 elevated high blood pressure that can and 13, and a son aged seven. cause blood vessel changes in the retina, abnormal thickening of heart muscle, 46 47 From the President

Dear Friends,

The new academic year opened with a record 19,200 students registered at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. My greatest pleasure is walking around the Marcus Family Campus, seeing throngs of students out and about, filled with the desire to learn and hopes for the future. Whereas 40 years ago, the pioneering students at the University of the Negev had to make do with storefronts as classrooms, today’s student body benefits from one of the most beautiful and modern campuses in Israel. Just this month we dedicated the new Caroline House at the Faculty of Health Sciences, providing a comfortable space for our health sciences students, the Medical School for International Health and the Health Sciences Student Association (ASRN). The magnificent building to house the Ilse Katz Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology is also nearing completion, as is the Biomedical Resources Facility. Over the past 40 years, BGU has transformed itself into a world-class center for cutting Talya’s research involves epidemiology I have a few spare moments, I’ll work on medical school. I managed by being very edge research with some of the most advanced laboratories in Israel and, in some and basic science. Currently, she is my own projects,” he says. “Sometimes organized and by constantly multi- cases, the world. We have expanded our collaborative agreements with many industry working on a successful project that she I start the day at 5:00 a.m. to pack in tasking. If you arrange your priorities giants such as Deutsche Telekom, Exxon-Mobil and Microsoft, and continue to began at UCLA where she worked for some research, which always manages to right, you can do almost anything,” adds increase our success in winning competitive research grants. two years as a researcher while Arik did put smile on my face.” A doctor’s routine Talya, who also succeeds in squeezing his post-doctoral fellowship in cardiac can be draining, points out Arik, who sports and reading into her schedule. This momentum is beginning to take real shape in the form of the Advanced imaging at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center finds research a constantly fresh and “We are both workaholics, but almost Technologies Park adjacent to the campus. Scheduled to open in 2011, the ATP will be in Los Angeles. In her research, Talya stimulating addition. always, someone is home with the the “green and clean” anchor for technology companies to leverage the research at checks information about mediators, In his investigations, Arik does kids after 4:00 pm. Our lifestyle is very BGU, generating vital income for the University and employment opportunities . which are agents that act as intermediary cardiac imaging using CT, MRI and ordered and efficient. It all hinges on substances, like enzymes or hormones, nuclear studies. His goal: to address the what you do with your windows of time, It is truly gratifying to watch as some of BGU’s founding principles go from being outside the consensus in chemical or biological processes. epidemiological relationship between and a laptop is crucial,” says Arik. “Our to the forefront of modern thinking. Two examples: when the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert These mediators may serve as markers of this imaging finding and prognosis. To life is based on family and work.” Research were created, environmental topics were considered interesting but not practical. Today, inflammation. She is exploring their role make proper assessments, though, Arik Considering this regimen – and solar energy, water technologies and sustainable living are the main items on the global agenda. in organ damage due to hypertension. holds that more advanced technology is despite its inherent fascination and Similarly, when the Faculty of Health Sciences introduced the idea of community-based healthcare, it Having studied this condition in needed. To this end, he is appraising and vital contributions – medicine holds no was considered outside the pale. Today, the Joyce and Irving Goldman Medical School has earned an animals and cells, Talya now focuses comparing the performance of different attraction for the Wolaks’ children. Talya international reputation for its pioneering approach that is now a model for multicultural medicine on clinical applications. “I want to turn software developed to analyze nuclear says they “don’t want to be, or marry, around the world. my attention to hypertensive damage to studies, a project he started at Cedars- doctors.” Despite the great demands the carotid artery, specifically the role Sinai. In another project, he evaluates of her work, Talya, whose mother and None of this could have been made possible without you, our dear friends. Your encouragement has of plaque (fatty deposits within arterial the benefits of nuclear studies using new father are physicians, is enamored of her allowed us – sometimes in the most challenging of situations – to continue to grow and flourish. Thanks walls) on instability and vulnerability,” hardware devices: revolutionary gamma work. “I love medicine and think it’s a to your friendship and support, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has become an internationally she says. cameras (D-SPECT) developed in Israel great profession.” recognized institution of higher education and research and for this we are forever thankful. This research has great clinical by Spectrum Dynamics Ltd. Her husband agrees. “I love what importance, as it promises to shed light “What most interests me,” says Arik, I’m doing,” says Arik, who regards On November 23, 2009, the University will mark Ben-Gurion Day by recognizing several important on the causes of cerebral damage caused “is how software or devices change the medical profession no less than personalities from Israel and abroad. This occasion also marks the start of our 40th anniversary by ischemia – blood supply restrictions the way we read the results of a test. “beautiful.” celebrations, which will be the main theme of our 40th Annual Board of Governors Meeting to take place generally due to factors in the blood Ultimately, this will help us improve the “Working in the south, I have the May 9 - 11, 2010 inclusive. I look forward to seeing you here. vessels. Unstable plaque is prone to quality of diagnostics.” sense that I’m needed, that I can make rupture and can cause ischemic damage. Peering into the lives of the a difference. At Cedars-Sinai, I felt I Until then, I remain sincerely yours, “If we can manipulate this mechanism, Wolaks, one cannot help but be struck was on top of the world, but didn’t feel we will be able to prevent some of the by their great productivity. Talya’s needed in the same way. Here, every pair hypertensive damage,” says Talya. secrets: excellent juggling and micro- of hands makes a difference.” Like Talya, Arik tries to balance his management. “My oldest daughter time between his two loves. “Whenever was born when I was in the middle of Prof. Rivka Carmi, M.D. President 48 Ben-Gurion ASSOCIATES ORGANIZATIONS University