News also from Miguel and Israeli companies * The grant will be given to Tel Aviv University for its plan to carry out impactful research based on data and artificial intelligence (AI) to deal with the corona virus
Tel Aviv University was selected by Google.org (Google's foundation whose purpose is to support data-based ideas for some of humanity's greatest challenges) to receive a competitive research grant (grant) for its plan to carry out impactful, data-based and artificial intelligence (AI) research to deal with The corona virus (COVID19). This move is one of a series of moves that Google is making as part of its contribution to eradicating the epidemic at the global level and in connection with the program to leverage AI research for the benefit of the community (AI for Social Good), which is among the leaders Prof. Yossi Matias, Vice President of Google and CEO of Google's Research and Development Center in Israel. The Israeli center is a significant player in society's efforts related to dealing with the corona virus, and in additional efforts to maintain the safety and security of the world's population in crisis situations and natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes and huge fires.
The research grant is awarded to the Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science at Tel Aviv University. In this research, the center's team uses artificial intelligence techniques and advanced statistical methods. With the help of data from government ministries (health, transportation, etc.) and the Central Bureau of Statistics, the researchers intend to build an accurate, high-resolution model of the spread of the plague, as well as test different methods that use this model to plan and test the impact of measures to contain the plague.
This interdisciplinary study combines researchers from the School of Public Health, Statistics, Computer Science and Electrical Engineering as well as researchers from the Gartner Institute for Epidemiology Research.
Prof. Meir Feder Head of the Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science: Tel Aviv University is proud that Google has decided to award the Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science a significant grant for the development of research on the Corona virus in Israel. The grant will support the development of tools for planning and examining the impact of various measures on the spread of the plague based on artificial intelligence and learning from reinforcements (Reinforcement Learning). The results of the research will be used by decision makers to determine policies to contain the plague."
Tel Aviv University and the Electra Group won a tender by the Ministry of Defense to establish a laboratory for conducting corona tests
The Economic Society of Tel Aviv University and the Electra Group won a tender by the Ministry of Defense for the establishment of a new and sophisticated laboratory, to be built by Electra in the south of the country, and to carry out approximately 300,000 to 700,000 corona tests in six months, with a work capacity of up to 10,000 corona tests per day. The tender was drawn up in accordance with the objectives of the Ministry of Health as part of the national effort to break the chains of infection. The choice of Tel Aviv University and the Electra Group was thanks to the knowledge and experience the two gained in the active national effort to curb the epidemic.
The laboratory will be operated by senior faculty members of the Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University, along with expert laboratory managers, teams of senior laboratory workers in their field as well as graduate students, doctoral and post-doctoral students.
The collaboration between the Electra Group and Tel Aviv University began immediately with the outbreak of the first wave of the epidemic, when in a record time of 10 days, the two established a laboratory on the premises of the university that continues to provide services to the Ministry of Health even today. In addition, in recent months, Electra has completed projects to convert parking lots into dedicated intensive care and ventilator wards at the Sheba and Billinson hospitals, with approximately 200 beds for ventilators in each project. Also, the company was a partner in the establishment of 3 laboratories for additional corona tests.
Tel Aviv University emphasizes: "The corona crisis is causing severe economic and social damage and in times of crisis it is our duty as a leading university in Israel to harness all our professional and scientific abilities to help the country and the community. We have the most skilled personnel for the task as well as the appropriate infrastructure to operate a laboratory of a significant size and we are sure that with joint forces we can defeat the virus and get life in Israel back on track."
The Electra Group said: "During the Corona period and until today, Electra has established unique medical complexes for the treatment of Corona patients, in the Sheba and Blinson hospitals, as well as laboratories for Corona tests with a total amount of tens of millions of shekels. The group is proud to cooperate with Tel Aviv University in this important project, and to put into practice the extensive professional knowledge it has accumulated over the years for the benefit of the health of the people of Israel and for the eradication of the epidemic."
Miguel researchers use Oracle's cloud to find vulnerabilities in the corona virus
The Miguel Institute, which is developing a vaccine for the corona virus through its subsidiary MigVax, uses Oracle's cloud, which supports research as part of its global mobilization to fight the virus. As part of the development process, the researchers analyze huge databases of viral genetic sequences, with the aim of locating the weak points of the virus.
Miguel presents a different approach from the other players in the race, and is working on a subunit vaccine based on viral proteins that can be given orally (through the mouth) without injection so that its accessibility to the general public will be faster and easier, and the price will be reduced. The proteins that Miguel develops and come from the virus, signal to the immune system that it has been exposed to a foreign body and thus encourage it to develop antibodies against the virus. "The virus penetrates through mucous tissues into the respiratory tract, as does our vaccine which works in this way, through the mouth and respiratory tract, and not through the blood. In this way, the immune response simulates the infection process in a better way", he says Itay Bloch Head of a research group at the Miguel Institute.
Oracle's cloud in the vaccine service
Miguel's technology is based on a very complex computational analysis that requires the analysis of large amounts of data. Therefore, Miguel is making use of cloud technology for the first time as part of its efforts to develop the vaccine: the company is using the cloud of oracle (Oracle) To analyze all the databases that include sequences of the viral genome and proteins. This, in order to identify constant and changing patterns in the evolution process of the corona virus, and to locate the weak points of the virus, where it can be attacked. Unlike the research that has been done on viruses to date, a tremendous amount of information about the Corona virus arrives in a short period of time from all over the world.
"We collect viral sequences from databases from all over the world and upload them to the cloud in order to map patterns of change at the sequence level. In addition, we use the three-dimensional structure of the viral proteins. which simulates what the protein looks like inside the human body. This, in order to understand where the weak points of the virus are located from an engineering point of view." says Itay Bloch. "If we direct the human immune system using the protein we developed to those weak points of the virus, it will block the virus, thus disrupting its ability to enter the human cells.
"The analysis of the sequences and the three-dimensional structures requires a particularly large and powerful computing power, and our other tasks also consume a lot of resources. The cloud has the potential to expand experiments exponentially." Bloch adds that the researchers are using the transfer learning technique, a subfield of machine learning, to characterize and find behavior patterns of the corona virus.
Oracle contributes cloud computing power to Miguel in the framework Oracle for Research, the research arm of the company, which currently supports a variety of studies around the world, many of them in the field of the fight against the corona virus.
Additional insights that Miguel intends to derive from the data are:
- What will be the next generation of the corona? The mutation that may reduce the effectiveness of the vaccine? "Everyone is working on the sequence that came from Wuhan, but the more people are infected in the world, the more the possibility of the virus changing," explains Bloch. Since there are currently tens of thousands of strains of the corona virus, the challenge is to find groups of strains that are identical in their weak points (genetic classification). If such legality is found, it will be possible to explain the "next generation" of the corona virus, a mutation that may reduce the effectiveness of the vaccine.
- Universal vaccine - is it possible to plan one solution that will be applicable for hermetic protection as much as possible against all groups of strains, Universal vaccine.
- Ability to predict - in which direction and at what rate the evolution of the virus progresses, so that it is possible to prepare for possible changes.
Assaf Sobol, business development manager at Oracle Israel: "Oracle is proud to donate its cloud technology for the benefit of the vaccine development activity of the Israeli Miguel Research Institute. This is part of our global activity to support clinical studies testing the safety and effectiveness of various drugs and vaccines around the world against COVID-19. The experiments span many countries and hundreds of sites of research institutions."
The Galilee Research Institute Miguel is among the pioneers in the global race to develop a vaccine for the virus. A few years ago he successfully developed a vaccine against a strain of the corona virus found in poultry. In February of this year, the institute announced that it was working to leverage development to find a vaccine against COVID-19.
Mer Group provides a smart city management solution to the city of León in Mexico to fight against Corona
mr group, engaged in providing solutions in the fields of communications, security, smart management platforms and advanced engineering and integration solutions, announced that the group's division in Mexico received a winning notice for a project to install smart city management software from the municipality of León, the fifth largest city in Mexico, with approximately 1.7 million inhabitants. The scope of phase one of the project is estimated at NIS 5 million, in which the SMART M system, video analytics licenses, courses and professional support will be provided for a period of 12 months.
As part of the entire project, which management expects to be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2021, Mr. Mexico will connect the municipality's cameras and other cameras that are not the property of the municipality and are already scattered throughout the city to the municipality's control and control center. Mer will also install the software he developed for the purpose of managing smart cities, in order to enable the municipal authority to effectively control and control the movement of vehicles and pedestrians, increasing the level of personal security in the city and improving the smart services that the city provides for the well-being of the residents.
Following the COVID-19 virus crisis, Mer Group will also provide the Leon Municipal Authority with the system's Corona module, which includes a dashboard that displays the Corona data in the city and enables control, control and management of red zones. As of today, about 25 confirmed corona cases have been counted in the city of Leon, of which 1250 deaths have been recorded as a result of the virus.
