Israel

U of T and Hebrew University of Jerusalem launch research and innovation partnership

rahul.kalvapalle — Fri, 03 Jul 2020 19:49:59 +0000

U of T and Hebrew University of Jerusalem launch research and innovation partnership

rahul.kalvapalle Fri, 07/03/2020 - 15:49

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U of T's partnership with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem will allow faculty and students from the two institutions to combine their resources to carry out high-impact research in a variety of fields (photo by Yonit Schiller)

Rahul Kalvapalle

Topic

Global Lens

Coronavirus

Donnelly Centre for Cellular & Biomolecular Research

Cell and Systems Biology

Alumni

Anthropology

Chemistry

Computer Science

Faculty of Arts & Science

Faculty of Medicine

Global

Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering

Research & Innovation

How did environmental conditions and climate change influence early human evolution? Can protein engineering be harnessed to block the virus that causes COVID-19? How do quantum mechanics affect biological functions, and how do our memory and learning work on a cellular level in the brain?

These are some of the big questions that will be explored by researchers at the ��Ƶ and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI) as part of a new strategic partnership that will allow faculty and students from the two institutions to combine resources to carry out high-impact research.

Each year, the ��Ƶ – Hebrew University of Jerusalem Research and Innovation Alliance will select projects to receive funding of $150,000 a year for up to four years, with each research group comprising faculty drawn from both universities and covering a range of disciplines. The alliance will also occasionally provide one-time seed funding to help get promising projects off the ground.

Initially launched with endowed funding of $5.9 million from the Canadian Friends of Hebrew University and the family of Roz and Ralph Halbert, the alliance aims to raise another $14 million and eventually construct an innovation pipeline between U of T and HUJI to connect the entrepreneurship ecosystems in Toronto and Jerusalem and provide student entrepreneurs with exposure to each other’s universities and markets.

“[HUJI’s] mandate with respect to research is very closely aligned to U of T’s in terms of leading the world in a variety of areas, and that’s always the kind of partner we’re looking for,” said Alex Mihailidis, U of T’s associate vice-president of international partnerships and a professor in the Faculty of Medicine's department of occupational science and occupational therapy, as well as the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering.

“We both recognize that international collaborations strengthen the research within each university, and that’s why we’re excited to partner with them.”

He added that the timing of the partnership speaks to U of T’s commitment to forge ahead with research partnerships despite the challenges of working and collaborating amid the pandemic.

“From an international partnerships perspective, it’s business as usual,” said Mihailidis, who is also cross-appointed to the department of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science. “We’ve not shut anything down and we’ve not stopped collaborations. We’re going full-speed ahead – it’s looking a bit different, but we are still moving ahead both with existing and new partners.”

The funding will enable Professor Michael Chazan of U of T’s department of anthropology in the Faculty of Arts & Science to work closely with geologist Ari Matmon at HUJI’s Institute of Earth Sciences to build a more comprehensive picture of how climate affected the evolution of early humans in the Kalahari Basin. The basin covers more than 2.5 million square kilometres across South Africa, Botswana and Namibia.

Both researchers developed an interest in the Kalahari – Chazan as an archeologist analyzing early evidence of human activity and Matmon as a geologist carrying out dating techniques to study the evolution of the landscape – and they’re now looking to combine their perspectives.

“The next phase of work with this funding is to expand Ari’s geological work, particularly looking for evidence of wet environments, so we can try and understand when there was a shift to modern arid conditions,” said Chazan. “At the same time, I’ll be working in the town of Kathu in South Africa, which is a major mining area today, and we’re looking at some very large sites and trying to understand what the conditions were when this place supported large groups of people.

“So it’s a really new area of study that combines geological perspectives on how the landscape and hydrology evolved with an archeological perspective which is asking – in more narrowly focused locations – what the human behaviour was and what was drawing people to these sites.”

Oron Shagrir, vice-president for international affairs at HUJI, said the partnership brings together “the two leading universities in Israel and Canada,” and that the call for research proposals resulted in several exciting submissions.

“In these challenging and unprecedented times for societies and universities alike, international partnerships are an invaluable source of support and inspiration,” said Shagrir, a professor of philosophy and cognitive science. “They are not only an important asset and tool in advancing universities on all levels, but also serve as a valuable platform to promote and support collaborative research projects.”

Chazan points to his project as an example of how the two universities can combine their respective strengths.

“At U of T, we’re strong in terms of field archeology and geophysics,” he said. “Hebrew University is particularly strong in looking at the evolution of landforms over the period of the last two to five million years ... [and] that requires some very specialized labs.”

Among the labs that Chazan and his students will have access to is a high-tech facility that “blocks out any modern magnetic signals” to precisely study fluctuations in the earth’s magnetic field. “Having access to that is a major asset for the project and for our students, who get to learn how to operate in that kind of system,” said Chazan.

Meanwhile, Sachdev Sidhu, a professor appointed to U of T’s Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research, the department of molecular genetics and the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering, will be working with Professor Julia Shifman of HUJI’s Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Science to study how the fast-growing fields of protein engineering and design can be leveraged to develop treatments for diseases, including COVID-19.

Their project will use insights gained from past outbreaks of coronaviruses to understand the functions of the proteins that power SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 – and to develop molecules with the potential to disarm the virus and pave the way to a potential cure.

Additionally, the U of T – HUJI Research and Innovation Alliance is providing $5,000 in seed funding to two projects.

The first will see Professor Dvira Segal of U of T’s departments of chemistry and physics and Professor Roi Baer of HUJI’s Fritz Haber Research Center for Molecular Dynamics and Institute of Chemistry explore the role of quantum processes in natural and engineered quantum systems.

The second aims to better understand how the brain acquires and stores information in order to help prevent and treat debilitating memory and learning disorders. The principal investigators are Associate Professors Sheena Josselyn and Paul Frankland of the department of physiology in U of T’s Faculty of Medicine, Professor Melanie Woodin of the department of cell and systems biology and HUJI scholars Adi Mizrahi, Ami Citri and Inbal Goshen.

Ronald Appleby, a U of T alumnus and campaign chair for the partnership, said the research efforts made possible by the partnership speak to the two universities’ “shared commitment to advancing interdisciplinary teams of researchers and students working on translational research, bolstered by mutual respect and friendship.

“The attention paid to research in engineering and medicine, the sciences, the social sciences, humanities, and law reflects our mutual interest in creating novel solutions for some of the most pressing current issues,” Appleby said.

U of T law student helps reform trans rights in Israel

ullahnor — Tue, 01 May 2018 17:40:19 +0000

U of T law student helps reform trans rights in Israel

ullahnor Tue, 05/01/2018 - 13:40

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From left to right, Ido Katri at Israel's Supreme Court earlier this year with attorneys Hagai Kalai and Haya Erez, for the case of Doreen Bilia (third from left), a transgender woman who was held in solitary confinement in a men's prison

Topic

A Doctor of Juridical Science (SJD) student at the ��Ƶ's Faculty of Law is seeing the payoff for his advocacy and research work on the rights of trans inmates in Israel's prison system.

Until now, the unspoken policy has been that prisoners or detainees whose gender identity was "ambiguous" should be kept in administrative segregation. Thanks to Ido Katri's work and that of his colleagues in Israel, the prison service recently announced that it will no longer keep transgender inmates in isolation.

The changes along with Katri's involvement have been featured in various Israeli media, including Haaretz.

Israel mission: strengthening student mobility, research and physician training

katie.fong — Tue, 07 Jun 2016 14:59:22 +0000

Israel mission: strengthening student mobility, research and physician training katie.fong Tue, 06/07/2016 - 10:59

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Tel Aviv University: “Our institutional engagement with Tel Aviv University is both deep and expanding,” says U of T’s Vivek Goel (Photo by Jaime Silva via Flickr)

Terry Lavender

Author legacy

Terry Lavender

Topic

Partnerships in research, entrepreneurship, innovation, student mobility and training for Palestinian physicians were just some of the outcomes of the ��Ƶ’s participation in a recent mission to Israel led by Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne. (Read what U of T innovation expert Dan Breznitz has to say about the mission here.)

U of T was well represented in the mission led by alumna Wynne. The U of T contingent included Judith Wolfson, vice-president of international, government and institutional relations, Professor Janice Stein, senior adviser to President Meric Gertler on international initiatives, and Professor Lynn Wilson, the vice-dean partnerships, Faculty of Medicine.

Professor Izzeldin Abuelaish from the Dalla Lana School of Public Health also travelled with the Ontario delegation on behalf of his charity organization, Daughters for Life.

In all, the business mission resulted in 44 new agreements for the province valued at more than $180 million, according to Wynne. The U of T-specific agreements included:

Biomedical science

U of T’s Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering is collaborating with the Alexander Grass Center for Bioengineering at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem to support student research and study abroad, clinical and academic faculty travel, and research collaboration. The Jerusalem-Toronto Bio-Innovation Partnership will provide support to students in engineering, biology and computer science to conduct research in the partner country over a 12-week period. An intensive eight-week educational program – the Transdisciplinary Innovation Program – that weaves together computer vision, big data, and bioengineering will also be offered to U of T students, enabling work under the mentorship of Israeli scientists and entrepreneurs, and the opportunity for students to pitch ideas to investors.

Social Work

U of T’s Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare have entered into a partnership facilitating student exchange and practicum placement. Under the agreement, full-time graduate students from each university are eligible to study at the partner university and, in the case of ��Ƶ students, also participate in experiential learning during their coursework in Israel.

Big data and health

U of T and Tel Aviv University will stage a joint conference on big data and health in Tel Aviv in the fall of 2017. The conference will be the second held by the two universities under an agreement to foster and promote research collaborations. The first joint conference, which focused on bio-imaging, was held in Toronto in May 2015.

“Our institutional engagement with Tel Aviv University is both deep and expanding. Nowhere is this more palpable than in the medical sciences,” said Vivek Goel, U of T’s vice-president for research and innovation. “The upcoming conference brings together top scientists and researchers from the two institutions working together on the application of computational and data sciences to pressing health challenges. I am confident that it will spark further collaboration and joint research opportunities across these areas.”

Innovation and Entrepreneurship

U of T signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Israel’s Start-Up Nation Central aimed at deepening ties between the innovation ecosystems in Canada and Israel. The partnership will connect ��Ƶ faculty with Israeli start-ups and link up U of T students with internship opportunities at Israeli companies. Stein noted that Israel has one of the highest rates of innovation and entrepreneurship in the world.

“We are delighted to be joining forces with Start-Up Nation Central to expand our knowledge of the innovation ecosystems,” she said. “The experience that each brings will be of great mutual benefit in unleashing our shared potential.”

Palestinian physician training

U of T’s Faculty of Medicine and Munk School of Global Affairs will join forces with the Palestinian Ministry of Health and university partners in Palestine to support continuing education for physicians, including the development of a digital platform for the delivery of physician training, to be facilitated by the Munk School’s Digital Public Square.

Health Informatics

Over the next four years, faculty from the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (IHPME) at ��Ƶ’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health will share best practices in support of the Jerusalem College of Technology’s development of a master's degree in health informatics. Institute director Adalsteinn Brown said the IHPME will share its experience in health informatics to develop a foundation for future collaborations.

Student mobility

Israeli students in engineering, medicine, business and global affairs will be coming to the ��Ƶ for research projects made possible with the support of Global Affairs Canada. The new Canada-Israel Innovation Initiative for Student Mobility will award up to 10 scholarships annually valued at $10,000 each.

Daughters for Life Foundation

The Daughters for Life Foundation, which was set up by Abuelaish after his three daughters were killed by a tank shell in Gaza, awarded 49 postsecondary scholarships to Palestinian and Israeli women at ceremonies in the West Bank and Jerusalem, attended by Wynne. The foundation is also providing scholarships and fellowships that will allow Israeli and Palestinian women to attend institutions in Ontario, including U of T-affiliated Women’s College Hospital and the TRIO Fertility Treatment Practice.

“Education is the key to escaping a life of unrelenting poverty and hopelessness. In particular, education of girls and young women can make our world a more humane, free and peaceful one,” Abuelaish said. “The Daughters for Life Foundation is proud to give these promising students a boost toward completing their degrees and fulfilling this vision.”

(Visit Flickr to see the original of the photo at top of the story)

Parks, planning and public spaces: Toronto can learn lessons from Jerusalem say U of T students

katie.fong — Tue, 07 Jun 2016 14:19:41 +0000

Parks, planning and public spaces: Toronto can learn lessons from Jerusalem say U of T students katie.fong Tue, 06/07/2016 - 10:19

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A pirate-themed public park in Jerusalem. The city actively involves children in park design. (Andrew Althouse photo)

Terry Lavender

Author legacy

Terry Lavender

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

“Jerusalem is a city of neighborhoods.”

“Only deputy mayors are paid in Jerusalem. What is the impact of city councillors being unpaid? Who can afford the position?”

“How to design public space - who is using it? Fence or no fence?”

“Unique street art creates aesthetically pleasing urban environments. Toronto, take note!”

Those were just some of the social media posts from Shauna Brail and nine U of T students during a recent trip to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. (Scroll to the bottom of this story for more tweets about the trip.)

Brail, an associate professor (teaching stream) in urban studies and U of T’s presidential adviser on urban engagement, led the undergraduate and graduate students – mostly from departments in the Faculty of Arts and Science – through different neighbourhoods in Jerusalem, studying urban regeneration, inclusive public spaces and place-making. The six-day trip, hosted by Hebrew University’s Urban Clinic, was funded mostly through the Canadian Friends of Hebrew University endowment fund. The students did not receive academic credit for the trip.

Brail said she has been to Jerusalem many times, but learned a lot by seeing the city through the eyes of the U of T students. “They were just terribly insightful about challenges and issues. I was impressed with their maturity but also with their ability to understand.”

Back row: Michelle Kearns, Nathan Stuart, Andrew Althouse, Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem Tamir Nir, Shauna Brail, Jonathan Chow, Mark Fox Front row: Ella Gil (Hebrew University Urban Clinic), Izabela Molendowski, Tiferet Nashman, Jessie Ji Huang, Eliza Eaton

Michelle Kearns was one of those students. A master’s student in planning, Kearns said she was struck by how well organized and clean Jerusalem was. “Bike lanes are always protected; pedestrians are completely separated from traffic, the LRT system was easy to use, and traffic lights are specific – with separate signals for pedestrians, cyclists and traffic.”

Despite the many differences between the two cities, Toronto can learn from Jerusalem, Kearns said. “I would like to see Toronto take more risks with planning for transportation.” She gave Jaffa Road, one of Jerusalem’s major streets as an example.

“A few years ago, the entire street was redeveloped and turned into an LRT-only street, with an integrated pedestrian network. The curb separating traffic and pedestrians was levelled and the street turned into an open, flat, public space with the occasional bike and LRT running through. The planner we met spoke of huge opposition to the plan, since all parking and private cars were removed from the street. However, after the transit-only street was built, it turned into a huge success with businesses experiencing improved sales and many more people on the street.”

Eliza Eaton, an urban studies undergraduate student, agreed that Toronto can learn some lessons from Jerusalem. In particular, she said, Jerusalem is good at planning for local residents. “We saw a lot of neighbourhoods and public spaces that really took into consideration the people who live there as opposed to just putting in something for the general population. The planners really considered the local populations in the neighbourhood.”

Jerusalem is also better than Toronto in creating spaces for children, Eaton said. In Jerusalem, children are actually involved in planning playgrounds, she noted. “Kids are the real experts of public space.”

But Jerusalem can learn from Toronto’s experience in turn, Brail said. “We are definitely ahead of Israel in the way we treat our public housing,” Brail said. While in Jerusalem, she gave a public lecture about Toronto’s success in transforming public housing in Toronto’s Regent Park. “In Jerusalem, they are also struggling with an aging , declining stock of public housing. When public housing sites are redeveloped, residents are forced to either pay higher rents or find alternate housing in another location. Some of them were a little unbelieving that public housing residents were guaranteed equivalent housing at the same rental rate when Regent Park was redeveloped.”

Both Eaton and Kearns said they were glad they went on the trip. “I would go back in a heartbeat,” Kearns said. “I still have so much to learn in Jerusalem. It's a place of an incredibly complicated history and tension and I just barely scratched the surface during my time there.”

Business mission to Israel shows Ontario serious about innovation, says U of T expert

lavende4 — Mon, 30 May 2016 13:48:04 +0000

Business mission to Israel shows Ontario serious about innovation, says U of T expert lavende4 Mon, 05/30/2016 - 09:48

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Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne setting out on the business mission to Israel (photo courtesy Government of Ontario)

Terry Lavender

Author legacy

Terry Lavender

Topic

Global Lens

Israel

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Innovation

Trade

Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne returned May 19 from a five-day business mission to Israel that emphasized innovation, research and development and resulted in 44 new agreements valued at more than $180 million.

Wynne was accompanied by representatives of Ontario’s business, health and higher education communities – including the ��Ƶ. U of T News spoke to Dan Breznitz, co-director of the Innovation Policy Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs and chair of Innovation Studies, about the business mission.

[embed_content nid=14194 (class="additional class")/]

What purpose does a high profile, multi-participant trade mission like this one serve?

We need to put visits like this in perspective. Their main aim should be to finalize deals that have already been decided, open a few channels for future consideration by meeting face to face and establishing more personal networks between the two sides. However the real goal of these missions is political and declarative, showing the interest in making these collaborations work at the highest levels

Could the same results be achieved in other ways? Are such missions necessary?

Some of these missions are necessary at certain time points. However, to be honest, most of the work needs to be done through constant effort from both sides over several months and years. The real benefits from these relationships take years to fruit to completion

Can Ontario expect tangible benefits from this mission?

Like all of these missions this should be seen as a process, the tangible benefits might be a few agreements signed which otherwise would have taken months or even years to be completed. Ontario has lot to learn from Israel, and Israel can learn a lot from Ontario since our economies are very complementary and there is a lot of good will on both sides.

However, what might be the most important thing that Ontario can gain from this relationship is if we learn not how to copy Israel’s innovation policy, but learn how to devise our own. Israel has been a true pioneer since the early 1970s in effective innovation policy, if we can learn not what the policy has been, but how to approach the subject so we can quickly devise, experiment scale-up policies that work and close these that do not, that would be a most valuable lesson, and would make this trip a truly unique success.

Kathleen Wynne writes that the visit will “help establish Ontario as a top innovation and knowledge economy partner and investment destination.” Is this a realistic expectation?

The visit does indeed signal that the premier is serious about innovation and innovation-based growth, if, and only if, this would be followed with sustained efforts, experimental and creative policies, and true engagement with Ontarians then we can look back at this visit and see it as a turning point. But getting to be a globally leading hub of innovation-based economy needs time, patience and serious investment in terms of correct policies and resources. Israel started this process in 1968 and it took more than 20 years for the country to become a leading innovation hub. There is no cutting corners in this process and we should all hope that the premier will keep on pushing the agenda and ensure that it continues even after she leaves office.

U of T and other universities have participants in the delegation. What benefits do Ontario universities gain from the mission?

Israeli universities are not only global leaders in terms of academic excellence but also in terms of technology transfer and entrepreneurial education. We can only hope that this mission would lead to deepening the already very deep, relationships between Ontario’s universities and Israel’s top universities.

Israel

U of T and Hebrew University of Jerusalem launch research and innovation partnership

U of T law student helps reform trans rights in Israel

Read more at Haaretz

Israel mission: strengthening student mobility, research and physician training

(Visit Flickr to see the original of the photo at top of the story)

Parks, planning and public spaces: Toronto can learn lessons from Jerusalem say U of T students

Business mission to Israel shows Ontario serious about innovation, says U of T expert