Newly Elect President of Technion, Professor Uri Sivan: Key Contributions to Scientific Innovations
Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN
February 7, 2019
By: Office of the Technion SpokespersonThe Technion Council, headed by Mr. Gideon Frank, has elected Professor Uri Sivan of the Faculty of Physics as the next president of Technion. The Council’s decision was based on the recommendation of the Search Committee for the Technion President and received sweeping support from the Academic Assembly. The appointment is subject to the final approval of the International Board of Governors, which is set to convene in June.
Professor Uri Sivan
Prof. Sivan will commence his term as President of Technion on October 1 2019, and will replace the outgoing President Prof. Peretz Lavie, who will complete his term after a decade in office.
Prof. Sivan, 64, a resident of Haifa, is married and the father of three. He served as a pilot in the Israeli Air Force. He has a BSc in Physics and Mathematics, an MSc and PhD in Physics, all with honors from Tel Aviv University.
In 1991, after three years at IBM’s T. J. Watson Research Center in New York, Prof. Sivan joined the Faculty of Physics at Technion.
SOURCE
https://ats.org/news/professor-uri-sivan-elected-new-president-of-the-technion/
Key Contributions to Scientific Innovations
- His research has covered a wide range of fields including quantum mesoscopic physics and the harnessing of molecular and cellular biology for the self-assembly of miniature electronic devices. Prof. Sivan, along with colleagues Profs. Erez Braun and Yoav Eichen, demonstrated for the first time how to harness molecular recognition by DNA molecules for wiring an electric circuit. This study gained considerable resonance and helped pave the way for a new field in nanotechnology using the self-assembly properties of biological molecules to construct miniature engineering systems.
- His research has focused on the way water orders next to molecules and the effect of this ordering on inter-molecular interactions in biologically relevant solutions. Within this framework, Prof. Sivan’s group designs and builds unique, ultra-high-resolution atomic force microscopes.
- His research has led to patents and industrial applications. Recently, an Israeli start-up company was established in the field of single cell analysis for cancer diagnostics, based on the technology developed in Prof. Sivan’s lab.
- Prof. Sivan is the founding director of the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute (RBNI), which he headed between 2005 and 2010. RBNI has led the scientific revolution in nanotechnology at Technion and has placed the university at the forefront of global research in the field. RBNI made headlines when Prof. Sivan and Dr. Ohad Zohar engraved the entire Hebrew Bible onto a tiny silicon chip. The Nano Bible was written as part of an educational program developed by the Institute to increase young people’s interest in science and especially in nanotechnology. In 2009, President Shimon Peres presented the Nano Bible to Pope Benedict XVI during his official visit to Israel. Today, there are three copies of the chip worldwide: at the Vatican Library, the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C., and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. The establishment of RBNI spearheaded the development of Israel’s national nanotechnology program, and together with centers established in other Israeli universities, has positioned the country as a world leader in nanotechnology.
APPOINTMENTS
Recently, Prof. Sivan was appointed to head the National Advisory Committee in Quantum Science and Technology of the Council for Higher Education’s Planning and Budgeting Committee (PBC). The committee outlined the national quantum academic program, which was adopted and launched last year.
Prof. Sivan has served as a member of the Israeli National Committee for Research and Development (MOLMOP) and the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Batsheva de Rothschild Foundation. He currently serves on the Advisory Committee of the Maof Fellowships Committee for advancing Arab faculty and is a member of the Israeli Wolfson Foundation Advisory Board.
AWARDS
Prof. Sivan is a renowned lecturer in Israel and abroad. He was awarded with numerous prizes including
- the Mifal Hapais Landau Prize for the Sciences and Research,
- the Rothschild Foundation Bruno Prize,
- the Israel Academy of Sciences Bergmann Prize,
- the Technion’s Hershel Rich Innovation Award, and
- the Taub Award for Excellence in Research.
SOURCE
https://ats.org/news/professor-uri-sivan-elected-new-president-of-the-technion/
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This is very insightful. There is no doubt that there is the bias you refer to. 42 years ago, when I was postdocing in biochemistry/enzymology before completing my residency in pathology, I knew that there were very influential mambers of the faculty, who also had large programs, and attracted exceptional students. My mentor, it was said (although he was a great writer), could draft a project on toilet paper and call the NIH. It can’t be true, but it was a time in our history preceding a great explosion. It is bizarre for me to read now about eNOS and iNOS, and about CaMKII-á, â, ã, ä – isoenzymes. They were overlooked during the search for the genome, so intermediary metabolism took a back seat. But the work on protein conformation, and on the mechanism of action of enzymes and ligand and coenzyme was just out there, and became more important with the research on signaling pathways. The work on the mechanism of pyridine nucleotide isoenzymes preceded the work by Burton Sobel on the MB isoenzyme in heart. The Vietnam War cut into the funding, and it has actually declined linearly since.
A few years later, I was an Associate Professor at a new Medical School and I submitted a proposal that was reviewed by the Chairman of Pharmacology, who was a former Director of NSF. He thought it was good enough. I was a pathologist and it went to a Biochemistry Review Committee. It was approved, but not funded. The verdict was that I would not be able to carry out the studies needed, and they would have approached it differently. A thousand young investigators are out there now with similar letters. I was told that the Department Chairmen have to build up their faculty. It’s harder now than then. So I filed for and received 3 patents based on my work at the suggestion of my brother-in-law. When I took it to Boehringer-Mannheim, they were actually clueless.