Israeli pride: Dr. Shulamit Levenberg of the Technion was selected for the list of the top 50 scientists of the prestigious scientific journal "Scientific American". Levenberg was selected as a "science leader" in the field of tissue engineering
Dr. Shulamit Levenberg from the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering at the Technion appears as a "science leader" in the prestigious list of 50 of the magazine "Scientific American" for 2006. This list includes the top 50 scientists, according to the editors of the important journal, in science and technology in the last year. Dr. Levenberg is a researcher at the Russell Berry Institute for Nanotechnology and a member of the Technion's Stem Cell Center.
The full list will appear in the December edition of the journal. "Our newspaper chose the organizations or individuals that promote science and technology and lay the foundations for a better future," wrote the editor of "Scientific American", John Rennie. "Their selection for our list of 50 not only gives them the respect they deserve, but also illuminates the important fields that benefit from their achievements."
The members of the newspaper editorial board are assisted in selecting the top 50 by a battery of important scientific advisors. The list includes "science leaders", "business leaders" and "policy-making leaders" of the year. This year it features scientists who have made their mark in the fields of robotics, genetics, Alzheimer's disease research and nanotechnology.
Dr. Levenberg was selected as a "science leader" in the field of tissue engineering. In 2005, she published a joint study with Professor Robert Langer from MIT, recipient of the Technion's "Harvey" award,
which was a breakthrough in the creation of human tissue parts. They managed to produce tissues artificially in a method that brings the research closer to the final goal - tissues for various medical uses, including replacements for damaged organs. The new method may also provide answers in the field of cellular and developmental biology. A year later, the researchers succeeded for the first time in creating muscle tissue with a network of blood vessels in the laboratory. Thanks to this, more blood vessels were attracted to the transplant. This was reported at the time by the prestigious magazine Nature Biotechnology.
The discovery has important implications for the field of tissue engineering. Dr. Shulamit Levenberg, together with a group of researchers from MIT University in Boston, led by Professor Robert Langer, implanted the engineered muscle in a mouse, and discovered that the blood vessels in the muscle tissue attract additional blood vessels to it, thus aiding in its survival.
"The creation of blood vessels within the tissue helps to maintain the life of the tissue during its growth, bring about its orderly development and, in fact, allow for the rapid attraction of additional blood vessels to the tissue after its transplantation", she explained. "In our article, we describe the introduction of blood vessel networks into engineered muscle tissue, using a three-dimensional system containing embryonic stem cells placed on a biodegradable, multi-pored polymeric scaffold."
Creating a vascular network in engineered tissue in the laboratory has so far been an obstacle in the creation of thick and complex tissues, such as muscle tissue. According to the Technion researchers, in the future it will be possible to use their method to create engineered tissues and improve their absorption in the human body, to the point of replacing muscles.
The prestigious "list of 50" also includes former US vice president and environmentalist Al Gore, and tycoon Warren Buffett, who recently purchased the Israeli "Ishkar" company. In the past, the founders of "Google", Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the researcher of embryonic stem cells Douglas Melton, the winner of the Nobel Prize Roderick McKinnon, the chairman of the "General Electric" company, Jeffrey Immelt and the chairman of the "Apple" company, Steve Jobs.
The journal "Scientific American" was founded in 1845 and since then more than a hundred Nobel laureates have published their articles in it.
