Nanotechnology applications could be Israel’s next move

Nanotech, of course, is the science of manipulating small stuff – very small, like on the atomic and molecular scale.

By DAVID SHAMAH
Shimon Peres and PROF. ANDRE GEIM 311 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Shimon Peres and PROF. ANDRE GEIM 311
(photo credit: Courtesy)
There’s hi-tech, and then there’s high-level hi-tech – and on that level, you find Israel’s fledgling nanotechnology industry.
But the industry is not so fledgling that it isn’t eligible to host an international conference, which is going on this week in Tel Aviv. The conference, NanoIsrael 2010, is sponsored by INNI (Israel National Nano-technology Initiative), an umbrella group that keeps track of research, development and commercial efforts in the field by Israeli companies and university research centers.
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Nanotech, of course, is the science of manipulating small stuff – very small, like on the atomic and molecular scale, such as: squeezing molecules through a tiny channel in a cell to build a $10 DNA test, instead of the current model, which costs $10,000; reducing pollutants from internal-combustion engines to next to nothing; giving food the taste and texture of a full measure of sugar and fat, while reducing calories to super-strict diet levels. Nanotech is all that, and more.
A variety of applications and products were on display at the conference, which included panels led by world-class scientists: Prof. Andre Geim, winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize for physics; several Israeli researchers, including Prof. Reshef Tenne of the Weizmann Institute, best known for leading the group that discovered and studied the inorganic fullerene-like nanospheres and nanotubes, generally termed IF nanoparticles, considered a new class of nanomaterials.
According to INNI, there are more than 80 large and small companies working in Israel’s nanotech sector, along with at least 40 academic and governmental labs, employing some 300 researchers and scholars.
Israel, according to the organization, has the third-largest concentration of start-up companies in the world, surpassed only by California’s Silicon Valley and the Boston technology corridor. An INNI survey shows that the Technion employs 119 nano-researchers, followed by 55 researchers at Tel Aviv University, 47 at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 43 at the Weizmann Institute of Science, 39 at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and 30 at Bar-Ilan University.
Since 2002, the number of nano-researchers in Israel has doubled, and the fruits of their labor were evident at the conference. Among the applications Israeli start-ups have developed using nanotech are water-purification membranes, agents for oral-drug delivery, inkjet digital-printing systems, diagnostic tools, holographic storage systems – and an “e-beam on a chip,” something like a laser beam, to be used for semiconductor manufacturing.
At a press conference, Geim praised Israel for its nano-work. Medical applications using nanotechnology, which many of the Israeli start-ups are working on, is the right fit for a country like Israel, he said.
“Israel’s not big enough for an Intel-type of operation,” Geim said. “I think medical research is a good fit for a country the size of Israel, and it is an area where the county’s nanoresearch can prosper.”
Nano-level hi-tech is hi-tech – and then some. The “get rich quick” model of Internet application startup success just doesn’t apply in the nano-world; to even get into the game, you need top minds in physics, electronics and medical applications.
Geim, educated at one of the most prestigious science schools in the world, the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, doubts that Western students today have the stomach to digest the scientific education he went through.
“Let’s just say that if I were to give my students at the University of Manchester, where I now teach, the same tests I had to go through, it would be a complete disaster,” he said.
Unfortunately, that Western aversion to challenging education has hit Israel, too. But unlike the United States and Europe, Israel can’t afford to lose its pool of up-and-coming scientists.
“Unlike many other countries in the world – such as Singapore, which invests billions in inviting foreign scientists to live and work there – Israel is not in a position to recruit scientists from other countries,” said Prof. Uri Sivan of the Technion, one of Israel’s leading nanotechnology experts.
Of course, immigration and aliya play a role, but the bottom line is that Israel is going to have to rely on its university graduates to lead the coming nanotechnology revolution.
But to graduate scientists who can operate at the level needed to develop this brave, new technology, you need students who are enthusiastic about the hard sciences. But that type of student is not so easy to come by, Sivan said.
“Fewer than 20 percent of students in Israeli high schools today study science, and the pool of university students who can excel in areas like physics is already small,” he said.
“But we have an even bigger problem: In the coming few years, many of our science and technology professors will be retiring – and right now we don’t have sufficient personnel to replace them.”
Why? “It goes way back in the chain, to the elementary and high schools,” Sivan said. “The cutbacks in education funding have hurt all disciplines, but they have hurt science the most. Although some money was restored, it is a pittance compared to what was cut.”
There are fewer teachers in the Technion today, but more students, he said, adding that on all levels “Israel has one of the worst student-to- teacher ratios of any country.”
Prof. Arie Zaban of Bar-Ilan University (one of the co-chairs of the conference, along with former Yissum CEO Nava Swersky-Sofer and INNI’s Dan Vilenski) is a bit more optimistic.
“There’s no question we have work to do, but with a little more government investment, we can set things right,” he said.
For now, Zaban said, Israel has the brain power it needs to hit the heights of the nanotech revolution.
“We have a lot of competition, especially from the ‘tigers’ of the Far East, such as South Korea and Singapore,” he said.
But Israel has no choice but it invest to win, Zaban said, because our hi-tech future is riding on nanosuccess.

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