In this issue...

£ Improving the Quality of Life

£ The Effect of Metabolism on Life Expectancy

£ Finding Better Treatments for Depression

£ Climate Change and Water Policies

£ New Improved Solar Cells

£ Ultrafast Generator for Analyzing Cryptography and Secure Communications

£ "Nanopore Technique" Facilitates Faster Genome Analysis

£ Healing Wounds

£ Landmark Study Helps Identify Risk-Factorsfor Suicide

£ New Journal on Jewish Education

£ Studying the Influence of iPods on Studentsand Seniors

£ Rackman Center Marks InternationalWomen's Day

£ BIU Awards

Improving the Quality of Life

The research of Dr. Sivan Henis-Korenblit, a senior lecturer in the Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences, was highlighted recently in the press. Dr. Henis-Korenblit, a BIU Returning Scientist (2009), is studying mechanisms to genetically control aging. "My goal is not to lengthen life expectancy," she says, "It's to lengthen youth, the quality period of life. We are beginning to understand factors that influence the rate of aging and the way they influence aging diseases, so I think our work will have practical applications." Dr. Henis-Korenblit's research involves the connection between the systems that ensure proper duplication of proteins in the cell and life expectancy.

The Effect of Metabolism on Life Expectancy

Dr. Haim Cohen, of the Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences, and his team of researchers, were featured in a recent article regarding their study on rats which were fed foods high in fat for half a year. The rats did not gain weight, nor did they develop diabetes, because of a certain gene that was implanted in them. The study, which has significant repercussions for humans, will be published in an upcoming issue of the American scientific journal Aging Cell.

As a result of his important contributions to the field of prolonging life, Dr. Cohen, a leader in the field of molecular biology, has been awarded a research grant of more than €2 million from the European Union. In his research he has studied the effects of the metabolism of a mouse on its life expectancy, and will convert his findings into results for humans.

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Win te r 2010 Adar 5770

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Finding Better Treatments for Depression

Prof. Jonathan Rabinowitz, former Dean of BIU's Louis and Gabi Weisfeld School of Social Work, has joined an international consortium of scientists and pharmaceutical leaders to develop effective drugs for the treatment of schizophrenia and depression. NEWMEDS (New Medications in Depression and Schizophrenia), funded by the European Union's Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), is the largest collaboration of its kind ever assembled.

The initiative brings together top scientists from academic institutions and partners them with major global drug companies, including JNJ, Lundbeck, Astra Zeneva, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, and Pfizer, in an effort to develop new models and methods to enable novel treatments for schizophrenia and depression. Recently, the ten working groups of the IMI project gathered in Copenhagen at a unique forum enabling

A recent study by a team of BIU researchers suggests that endangered plants in water-saturated habitats can be taken as indicators for climate change in the Levant region, it was reported recently in Science. Prof. Mordechai Kislev, of the Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences, and members of his lab, Dr. Yoel Melamed and Dr. Orit Simchoni, are performing studies on local vegetation in order to identify manifestations of climate change, together with Dr. Ehud Weiss, of the Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology and a member of the joint Bar-Ilan University-Weizmann Institute archaeobotany project.

these scientists and pharmaceutical leaders to brainstorm about the problems facing the industry.

Prof. Rabinowitz heads the Working Group on Advanced Data Analysis Techniques. "Our objective in this five-year study is to develop advanced data analysis techniques to allow for shorter and more efficient clinical trials of antipsychotic and antidepressant medications," says Prof. Rabinowitz. "One of the major areas of our work is to differentiate placebo-active treatment response. For the purpose of this study, we are assembling at Bar-Ilan University the largest repository anywhere of clinical trial data of these medications."

Prof. Rabinowitz's group, which includes Dr. Stephen Levine, from the Department of Criminology, and Dr. Nomi Werbelof, of the Weisfeld School of Social Work, has so far collected data on over 30,000 schizophrenic patients, which will be analyzed in an effort to devise more effective drug treatment.

The researchers' study involved using a scientific instrument to track five endangered wetlands plant species – the most dryness-sensitive of all plants in Israel, according to Kislev – over the past few decades. They found that their numbers are gradually declining due to what they believe to be a decrease in effective precipitation. Kislev says that the endangered wetlands plants can provide important information that cannot be retrieved using only meteorological data. The evidence of changing precipitation pattern shown by employing this method, he says, can help in structuring water management policies.

Climate Change and Water Policies

New Improved Solar Cells

With an increased focus on alternative sources of cheap, abundant, clean energy, solar cells are all the rage and the dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) has been one of the most important developments in photovoltaics in the last two decades, reports Nanowerk. Prof. Arie Zaban, Director of the Bar-Ilan Institute of Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials (BINA), and Dr. Dan Oron, of the Weizmann Institute, have now presented a new configuration for quantum dot sensitized DSSCs via a FRET (Förster resonance energy transfer) process. Their results prove the general feasibility of enhancing light absorption and broadening the absorption spectrum by the addition of quantum dots, effectively increasing the number of photons harvested by the dye sensitized solar cell.

Zaban says that the utilization of a FRET to transfer energy from quantum dots to dye molecules introduces new degrees of freedom in the design of quantum dot sensitizers for photovoltaic cells. The researchers' findings were published in the February 2010 issue of ACS Nano.

Ultrafast Generator for Analyzing Cryptography and Secure Communications

The generation of random bit sequences based on non-deterministic physical mechanisms is of paramount importance for cryptography and secure communications. High data rates also require extremely fast generation rates. To resolve these problems, Prof. Ido Kantor and Prof. Michael Rosenbluh, both of the Department of Physics, along with students Yaara Aviad, Igor Reidler, and Elad Cohen, have developed an ultrafast random bit generator, based on a chaotic semiconductor laser and having time-delayed self-feedback. Their research was published in Nature Photonics, January 2010.

"Nanopore Technique" Facilitates Faster Genome AnalysisUltra-fast, low-cost genomic sequencing and profiling may some day accelerate the pace of biological discovery and enable clinicians to quickly and precisely diagnose patients' susceptibility to disease and tolerance of selected drugs, reports R&D Magazine. But first engineers must find a way to considerably increase the sensitivity of sensors used to detect the DNA molecules that define the human genome.

In a study published in Nature Nanotechnology, Prof. Yitzhak Rabin, of BIU's Department of Physics and

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Institute of Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials (BINA), and collaborators demonstrated a method that advances the prospects for efficiently analyzing DNA samples. The method enables solid-state nanopores – tiny, nearly cylindrical, silicon nitride sensors that electronically detect DNA molecules as they pass through the pore – to require far fewer DNA molecules than ever before. This will reduce the cost, time and error rate of DNA replication techniques, and also enable the analysis of very long strands of DNA.

Prof. Rabin, who is currently dividing his sabbatical between Northwestern University and the University of Chicago, was a guest speaker at the recent meeting of the American Physical Society in Portland, Oregon.

Healing Wounds

Dr. Rachel Lubart, of the Department of Chemistry, has developed a new technology based on shining light on tissues, thereby enabling an accelerated

Landmark Study Helps Identify Risk-Factors for Suicide

Prof. Jonathan Rabinowitz, former Dean of BIU's Louis and Gabi Weisfeld School of Social Work, recently published a landmark study focusing on suicide rates and predictors of suicide. The article, written in collaboration with one of his doctoral students, Shelly Bakst, and a colleague, Prof. Evelyn Bromet, appeared in the January 2010 issue of the prestigious scientific journal Schizophrenia Research.

This research involves a study of patients who were admitted to hospitals in Suffolk County, NY, with some sort of psychotic illness. The researchers assembled a cohort of six hundred people, which they tracked for more than a decade, compiling a very large amount of data. Their analysis of the data enabled them to

identify variables which are predictors of suicide attempts during the course of illness.

These variables, which include prior suicide attempts, severity of depression, and history of substance abuse, will enable psychiatric practitioners to prevent suicide among those who are at higher risk by monitoring them and providing more hands-on therapeutic treatment. "Greater attention to people with these risk-factors may form the basis for early interventions aimed towards reducing the risk for subsequent suicide attempts," conclude the researchers, whose study was funded by the NIH's National Institute of Mental Health.

This latest study follows the researchers' publication last year in Schizophrenia Bulletin, which found that people with lower functioning exhibited a higher risk of attempted suicide or suicidal behavior. Schizophrenia Research and Schizophrenia Bulletin are among the top ten psychiatry journals world-wide.

healing process and tissue growth renewal in chronic wounds and mouth sores. The medical equipment company QRay, founded in 2006 on the basis of Dr. Lubart's ongoing research, is examining the technology's applications for cosmetic treatments, pain relief, and veterinary use (The Marker).

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New Journal on Jewish Education

A new online, international scientific journal, the "International Journal of Jewish Education" (IJJER), was launched by the Churgin School of Education and Lookstein Center for Jewish Education in the Diaspora. The international scope of IJJER is reflected in its very first issue, which consists of articles on Jewish identity; Jewish education in late 19th to early 20th century Florence, Italy; supplementary Jewish schools in the United Kingdom and an analysis of the various one-year programs offered in Israel. The inaugural issue of IJJER may be found on the Internet at http://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/ijjer.

The Apple Computers Research & Technology Support (ARTS) Program is supporting a unique new two-part research project carried out by Prof. Judit Bar-Ilan, of the Department of Information Science. The first study examines how Apple mobile devices can help students in higher education, how their interactivity can be increased, and better learning achieved as a result. The second part looks at usability and accessibility of the devices for people aged sixty and above, their levels of satisfaction and enjoyment, and how their lives might be changed and enhanced.

To carry out the research, Prof. Bar-Ilan's research team has been equipped by Apple with 40 iPod touch devices, three iMac desktop computers to analyze

results, and two MacBook Pro laptops for fieldwork and displaying output. A class of 30 undergraduates has been chosen as the student test group. "New technologies are changing people's lives, and we need to understand what that means," says Prof. Bar-Ilan. "Our goal is to see how the iPod can be integrated into education and the learning process. We assume that students will be more motivated."

The project will use the same iPod touch devices with the over 60 age group this summer. "The challenge here will be to give them the right kind of support, and identify the applications that interest them," says Prof. Bar-Ilan. "We will ensure that they are introduced to the technology in very positive ways, with plenty of support, and a few tricks to speed up learning," she adds.

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Studying the Influenceof iPods on Studentsand Seniors

Published by the

Division of External Relations

Editor-in-Chief:

Editorial Board:

Editorial Assistants:

Design and Production:

Deena Moher

Judith Haimoff, Elana Oberlander Ben-Eliezer

Reva Lockshin, Leah Medved,Reemon Silverman

Raphael Blumenberg

Bar-Ilan UniversityRamat Gan 52900, Israelhttp://www.biu.ac.il

Rackman Center Marks International Women's Day

The Rackman Center for the Advancement of Women's Status marked International Women's Day in March with a conference held at BIU focusing on "Solutions to Get Refusal and Pre-Nuptial Agreements." Participants in the event included Attorney Na'ama Safrai-Cohen, of the Women in Family Law Matters Clinic, the Rackman Center, Faculty of Law, and a couple who signed a Pre-Nuptial Agreement for Mutual Respect.

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● Prof. Avraham Faust, Chairman of the Martin (Szusz) Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology, received the Biblical Archaeology Society Publication Award for his book, Israel's Ethnogenesis: Settlement, Interaction, Expansion and Resistance.

● Prof. Zvy Dubinsky, of the Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences, was awarded a 3 million Euro grant by the European Research Council (ERC) for his research on corals and global-warming.

● Prof. Moshe Addad, Israel’s foremost criminologist, who served as Chairman of BIU's world-class Department of Criminology for 11 years, will be awarded the prestigious 2010 Israel Prize in Criminology

Research. In making its announcement, the Israel Prize Committee noted that “Prof. Moshe Addad is one of the leading criminologists in Israel whose work has affected research and theoretical development in criminology throughout the world.”

BIU Awards